From the results of various approximations to phonetic spelling, which at different times have been made, and the losses thereon ensuing, we may guess what the loss would be were the system fully carried out. Of those fairly acquainted with Latin, it would be curious to know how many have seen 'silva' in 'savage,' since it has been so written, and not 'salvage,' as of old? or have been reminded of the hindrances to a civilized and human society which the indomitable forest, more perhaps than any other obstacle, presents. When 'fancy' was spelt 'phant'sy,' as by Sylvester in his translation of Du Bartas, and other scholarly writers of the seventeenth century, no one could doubt of its identity with 'phantasy,' as no Greek scholar could miss its relation with phantasia. Spell 'analyse' as I have sometimes seen it, and as phonetically it ought to be, 'annalize,' and the tap-root of the word is cut. How many readers will recognize in it then the image of dissolving and resolving aught into its elements, and use it with a more or less conscious reference to this? It may be urged that few do so even now. The more need they should not be fewer; for these few do in fact retain the word in its place, from which else it might gradually drift; they preserve its vitality, and the propriety of its use, not merely for themselves, but also for the others that have not this knowledge. In phonetic spelling is, in fact, the proposal that the learned and the educated should of free choice place themselves under the disadvantages of the ignorant and uneducated, instead of seeking to elevate these last to their own more favoured condition.
On this subject one observation more. The multitude of difficulties of every sort and size which would beset the period of transition, and that no brief period, from our present spelling to the very easiest form of phonetic, seem to me to be almost wholly overlooked by those who are the most eager to press forward this scheme: while yet it is very noticeable that so soon as ever the 'Spelling Reform' approaches, however remotely, a practical shape, the Reformers, who up to this time were at issue with all the rest of the world, are at once at issue among themselves. At once the question comes to the front, Shall the labour-pangs of this immense new-birth or transformation of English be encountered all at once? or shall they be spread over years, and little by little the necessary changes introduced? It would not be easy to bring together two scholars who have bestowed more thought and the results of more laborious study on the whole subject of phonetic spelling than Mr. Ellis and Dr. Murray have done, while yet at the last annual meeting of the Philological Society (May 20, 1881) these two distinguished scholars, with mutual respect undiminished, had no choice but to acknowledge that, while they were seeking the same objects, the means by which they sought to attain them were altogether different, and that, in the judgment of each, all which the other was doing in setting forward results equally dear to both was only tending to put hindrances in the way, and to make the attainment of those results remoter than ever. [Footnote: [For arguments in defence of phonetic spelling the student is referred to Sweet's _Handbook of Phonetics_ (Appendix); Skeat's _Principles of English Etymology_, p. 294; Max Muller's _Lectures on the Science of Language_, ii. 108.]]