THE BONDAGE OF CITIES - The Community Environmental Legal ...

Languageisa growth ratherthan a creation. Thegrowth in our vocabularyis seen in the vast increase in sizeof our dictionaries during the past century.This growth is not only in amount, butamong other elements of growth the written formsof words are becoming simpler and more uniform. Forexample, compare English spelling of a century or two centuriesago with that of to-day It is our duty to encourage and advancethe movement toward simple, uniform and rational spelling. See the!.recommendationsof the Philological Society of London, and of the AmericanFhtioiegical Association, and list of amended spellings, publisht in the CenturyDictionary Rowing the letter z), and also in the Standard Dictionary, Webster'stionary, and other authoritative works on language. The tendency is to drop silent letters inbon-e oftlie mo^t flagrant instances, as ugh from though, etc., change ed to t in most places whereo pronounced (where Undoes not affect the preceding sound), etc.The National Educational Association, consisting of ten thousand teachers, recommendthe following :"At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the N. E. A. held in Washington, D. C.July 7, 1898, the action of the Department of Superintendence was approved, and the listof words wuh simplified spelling adopted for use in all publications of the N. E. A.as follows :tho (though);altho (although);thoro (thorough);thorofare (thoroughfare);thru (through);thruout (throughout);program (programme);catalog (catalogue);prolog (prologue);decalog (decalogue);demagog (demagogue);pedagog (pedagogue)."You are invited to extend not'ce of this action and to join in securing the generalamendments I RWIN SHEPARD, Sec'y."adoption of the suggestedThe publisher of this Series feels it a duty to recognizethe above tendency, and to adopt it in areasonable degree.