A spelling reformer writes to Mr. Lincoln

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

In 1859, a Methodist minister named A. B. Pikard wrote two letters to  
Abraham Lincoln protesting the inhumanity of the fugitive slave laws.  
It’s no surprise to find a northern abolitionist minister opposing the  
return of runaway slaves to the masters they’d escaped. But a minister  
who uses the phonetic alphabet to argue that the practice is both  
immoral and unconstitutional, well that is unusual.

Find out more about abolitionism and spelling reform on the Web of  
Language: http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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