Merkins

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

    Mr. Zurinskas correctly suspects that a wholesale change of traditional spelling is not practical.  But changing spelling is simplicity itself compared to forcing a widespread change of ingrained speech habits.  
     It's good to have a dream and even perhaps the impossible dream.  But I'm now reminded of one of my professors at Oxford University (1962), who said on several occasions: "This is misplaced genius."
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Tom Zurinskas
Sent: Thu 10/19/2006 11:40 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Merkins



I don't think changing traditional spelling (tradspel) is doable.  Ted
Roosevelt in consort with Andrew Carnegie tried and couldn't change a word,
even through an executive order.  Webster was the last success, at least in
USA.

<snip>

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