The "Mark Twain" Satire on Spelling Reform
Cornell Kimball
Twain" -- the one that starts:
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
| For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be
| dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would
| no longer be part of the alphabet.
And most of us have seen the "EU" take-off on this, which begins:
| The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby
| English will be the official language of the EU rather than German,
| which was the other possibility.
| As part of the negotiations Her Majesty's Government
| conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has
| accepted a 5 year phase-in plan of modifications that will lead to
| 'Euro-English' as the language will be known.
| In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly,
| this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
But actually, from everything I can turn up, *Mark Twain didn't
write "the original"!* As far as I can ascertain, the "original" was
actually written in the 1940s. The writer was W.K. Lessing, who wrote
the piece under the pseudonym of Dolton Edwards. It was first
published in an American magazine "Astounding Science Fiction" (now
"Analog...") in 1946, entitled "Meihem in Ce Klasrum." (And thanks to
David Wolff who posted something on this in early February 1998 to
soc.culture.esperanto .) The first several paragraphs of the "actual"
original:
MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM
by Dolton Edwards
(pseudonym of W. K. Lessing)
Reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction, Street and Smith
Publications, Inc (now "Analog Science Fiction and Fact"). l946.
Because we are still bearing some of the scars of our brief skirmish
with II-B English, it is natural that we should be enchanted with
Mr. George Bernard Shaw's proposal for a simplified alphabet.
Obviously, as Mr. Shaw points out, English spelling is in much need of
a general overhauling and streamlining. However, our resistance to any
changes requiring a large expenditure of mental effort in the near
future would cause us to view with some apprehension the possibility
of some day receiving a morning paper printed in -- to us -- Greek.
Our own plan would achieve the same end as the legislation proposed by
Mr. Shaw, but in a less shocking manner, as it consists merely of an
acceleration of the normal processes by which the language is
continually modernized.
As a catalytic agent, we would suggest that a "National Easy Language
Week" be proclaimed, which the President would inaugurate, outlining
some short cut to concentrate on during the week, and to be adopted
during the ensuing year. All school children would be given a holiday,
the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling
short cut.
In l972, for example, we would urge the elimination of the soft "c,"
for which we would substitute "s." Sertainly, such an improvement
would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles as being suffisiently
worth the trouble, and students in all sities in the land would be
reseptive toward any change eliminating the nesessity of learning the
differense between the two letters.
------------------------------------------------------------------
This piece was also reprinted in "Torch," a Smithsonian Institution
publication, and was reprinted in the U.S. magazine "Life" on May 6,
1957.
Why do I not believe that Mark Twain did write the original and that
W.K. Lessing plagiarized it? For one, Mark Twain's works are very well
known. Could anyone plagiarize something and have it published in
national magazines *without "getting caught"*?
Secondly is the fact that Mark Twain is on record *as favoring
spelling reform*. (Perhaps not outrageous phonetic schemes, but in this
case, the simplification of a few hundred English spellings.) Twain
lent his support to the Simplified Spelling Board, an organization
founded in 1906 to promote a limited spelling reform (a few hundred
words). Twain also gave a speech, backing this, to an Associated Press
dinner in September 1906. Two places this speech can be found on the
Web:
http://www.tarleton.edu/activities/pages/facultypages/schmidt/19060920.html
and:
http://marktwain.miningco.com/library/speeches/bl_spelling.htm
Some beginning parts of the text:
=====================================================
The New York Times, September 20, 1906
SPELLING AND PICTURES AND TWAIN AT DINNER
The Associated Press Men Hear a Plea for Phonetic Forms.
[....]
[T]he annual dinner of The Associated Press in the Astor Gallery of the
Waldorf-Astoria last night.
[....]
There were about 150 members present and about a dozen guests, including
Gen. Horace Porter and Mark Twain
[....]
The band played "For he's a jolly good fellow" when Mr. Clemens rose,
and the people at the tables took up the song.
MARK TWAIN'S SPEECH.
"I am here to make," said Mr. Clemens, "to make an appeal to the nations
in behalf of the simplified spelling. I have come here because they
cannot all be reached except through you. There are only two forces that
can carry light to all the corners of the globe - only two - the sun in
the heavens and the Associated Press down here. I may seem to be
flattering the sun, but I do not mean it so; I am meaning only to be
just and fair all around. You speak with a million voices; no one can
reach so many races, so many hearts and intellects, as you - except
Rudyard Kipling, and he cannot do it without your help.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To a third point, read some short Mark Twain pieces, then read the
"Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling." Sure, it has the
irony of a Twain piece, but it still doesn't read quite like one. For
one point, the "Plan for..." piece *has no build up*. Mark Twain knew
the value of (and used!) a good build up. (It is possible that all
we're seeing is some editor's later truncated version, but then why?)
And to a fourth point, I've looked in many collected works of Mark
Twain, and... no where to be found in any of them is a work called "A
Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling."
Why then this "Internet Urban Legend," if you will, that Mark Twain
wrote this is a good question. I can't even begin to guess why anyone
would want to have taken the Dolton Edwards "Meihem" piece and claimed
that Mark Twain had written it instead. Or perhaps someone came across
an uncredited version, assumed "it must be Twain," ascribed it as such
and.... Well we can theorize until the bovines come home.
And it *is* possible that Twain did write the piece which is
credited to him (I haven't searched *every* compendium of his works),
but from what I've uncovered it seems quite unlikely.
---------------------------
Cornell Kimball
Los Angeles
cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net
---------------------------
Iskandar Baharuddin
well "Meihem in ce Klasrum" when John W Campbell Jr published it.
There is another irritating one - the fake Lincoln quotation: "You cannot
uplift the poor......"
Would love to know how this stuff gets started.
Regards,
Tom
Cornell Kimball wrote in message <36D78C...@spambgon.pacificnet.net>...
snip
Donna Richoux
> We all know the spelling reform satire that was "written by Mark
> Twain" -- the one that starts:
[snip lengthy discussion]
For those who wish to compare the two originals, the addresses are found
in the "Intro E: Mini-FAQ on Spelling." They are:
The three-paragraph "Mark Twain's plan for the improvement of spelling"
http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/87/2094.10.html
The fourteen-paragraph MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards
http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d92-abj/humor/spelling_reform.html
>
> Why do I not believe that Mark Twain did write the original and that
> W.K. Lessing plagiarized it? For one, Mark Twain's works are very well
> known.
They are also voluminous. I've wished for years I could find an anecdote
I swear he wrote, about finding a job by first volunteering to work for
free, but I never could. Three paragraphs could easily disappear in his
enormous collected work, and indeed has everythinng *been* collected?
>Could anyone plagiarize something and have it published in
> national magazines *without "getting caught"*?
To use "plagiarized" and "caught" here is strong, as if the only
explanation is deliberate fraud. I can think of several alternate
scenarios. Like, Dolton Edwards had once heard or read the idea
somewhere but developed it anew himself/herself. The idea of introducing
spelling changes slowly, year by year, is not all that rare. Also
readily understandable is the humor in seeing those changes made within
the space of a few paragraphs.
>
> Secondly is the fact that Mark Twain is on record *as favoring
> spelling reform*. \
What on earth makes you think that Mark Twain's piece is anti-spelling
reform? Funny, yes. Memorable, yes. But if you think the point of either
article is that spelling reform is impossible, then you miss the point.
> Why then this "Internet Urban Legend," if you will, that Mark Twain
> wrote this is a good question. I can't even begin to guess why anyone
> would want to have taken the Dolton Edwards "Meihem" piece and claimed
> that Mark Twain had written it instead. Or perhaps someone came across an
> uncredited version, assumed "it must be Twain," ascribed it as such
> and.... Well we can theorize until the bovines come home.
>
> And it *is* possible that Twain did write the piece which is
> credited to him (I haven't searched *every* compendium of his works),
> but from what I've uncovered it seems quite unlikely.
I have no ax to grind here. I knew of the MEIHUM IN CE KLASRUM piece
thirty years before I ever heard that anything on the subject was
attributed to Twain, and that was here on the Internet. So I'm willing
to believe your claim. Trying to construct a plausible scenario, I come
up with this: some unnamed person wrote down what they remembered of the
Dalton Edwards idea, and circulated it among friends. Someone else for
some reason attached Mark Twain's name to it. Well, it could have
happened. But I don't think that is on the face of it any likelier than
the fact that somewhere, for three paragraphs in the middle of a
completely different essay, Mark Twain actually did speculate about
spelling reform in a humorous manner.
Please note, the Mark Twain piece begins with the words "For example."
The only way this could possibly make sense is that these three
paragraphs are an excerpt from a longer piece. I don't know what form
your exhaustive search took, but if it was on titles and indexed
material only, I think that's a problem.
Also please note that the pieces are not at all similar in the fine
details. This doesn't prove anything, but if there were exact
similarities in the order of recommended changes and characters, for
example, then you could easily suspect plagiarism.
Grumble, grumble -- people wonder why other people get so uptight
sometimes about crediting authors fully. If only someone had thought to
keep with that Twain piece, the year, title, and publication it was in!
This kind of doubt is only going to multiply as we advance into the
digital age and move farther away from paper and ink.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
T Bruce Tober
<tr...@euronet.nl> writes
>Cornell Kimball <cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net> wrote:
>
>> We all know the spelling reform satire that was "written by Mark
>> Twain" -- the one that starts:
>
>For those who wish to compare the two originals, the addresses are found
>in the "Intro E: Mini-FAQ on Spelling." They are:
>
>The three-paragraph "Mark Twain's plan for the improvement of spelling"
> http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/87/2094.10.html
>
> http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d92-abj/humor/spelling_reform.html
>>
>> Why do I not believe that Mark Twain did write the original and that
>> W.K. Lessing plagiarized it? For one, Mark Twain's works are very well
>> known.
I'm really rather confused here. If the Lessing piece was published in
the mid '50s or so (and yes I recall reading it several times in various
publications) and Sam Clemens was long dead by then (having managed, in
1910, to make true the rumours he had disparaged for so long) how could
He have plagiarised from Lessing?
tbt --
| Bruce Tober, <octob...@reporters.net>, <http://www.crecon.demon.co.uk> |
| Birmingham, UK, EU +44-121-242-3832 (mobile - 07979-521-106). Freelance |
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Donna Richoux
> >Cornell Kimball <cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net> wrote:
> >
> >> We all know the spelling reform satire that was "written by Mark
> >> Twain" -- the one that starts:
[snip snip]
> I'm really rather confused here. If the Lessing piece was published in
> the mid '50s or so (and yes I recall reading it several times in various
> publications) and Sam Clemens was long dead by then (having managed, in
> 1910, to make true the rumours he had disparaged for so long) how could
> He have plagiarised from Lessing?
No one said he did. As I understand it, Kimball is saying that no matter
who did write those three paragraphs floating around the Internet, they
have been *falsely attributed* to Twain.
The word plagiarism came up in the other direction, saying that if the
Twain piece had existed when the Edward/Lessing piece was written,
someone would have yelled plagiarism. No one did yell plagiarism (at
least as far as Mr. Kimball knows) so he says this proves the Twain
piece didn't exist. I don't find this argument convincing. The Twain bit
may simply have been forgotten or never very well known.
To summarize what I understand Mr. Kimball's other arguments to be, with
my comments in parentheses. He says that Twain could not have written
that piece because:
(1) Mr. Kimball cannot find it in any collected work. (But it would be
hard to find three unlabelled paragraphs in Twain's voluminous work, and
it may not even be collected.)
(2) It conflicts with Twain's pro-spelling-reform attitude (I say that
the piece is not anti-spelling reform.)
(3) It doesn't "sound" like Twain's style (I don't agree, and how much
can you tell by three paragraphs anyway?)
No, I believe that someone lifted three paragraphs out of the middle of
one of Twain's many essays, which is why Kimball's search did not turn
up anything with "Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling" in the
title. That title is a modern creation.
The most compelling thing to me is that opening phrase "For example."
Why in tarnation would anyone begin a piece with "For example"? They
wouldn't, neither now nor a hundred years ago.
T Bruce Tober
<tr...@euronet.nl> writes
>T Bruce Tober <octob...@reporters.net> wrote:
>
>> 1910, to make true the rumours he had disparaged for so long) how could
>> He have plagiarised from Lessing?
>
>No one said he did.
I thought someone did, but perhaps misread the meaning.
>As I understand it, Kimball is saying that no matter
>who did write those three paragraphs floating around the Internet, they
>have been *falsely attributed* to Twain.
I'm not sure I buy that. I have vague recollections from very long ago,
long before my experience of the Net, of having heard SC was in favour
of alternate spelling/alphabet etc
>The word plagiarism came up in the other direction, saying that if the
>Twain piece had existed when the Edward/Lessing piece was written,
>someone would have yelled plagiarism.
Not necessarily. I see the two pieces as related in their call for
alternates, but not at all similar enuf to make a charge of plagiarism.
>piece didn't exist. I don't find this argument convincing. The Twain bit
>may simply have been forgotten or never very well known.
Yep, that too.
>(1) Mr. Kimball cannot find it in any collected work. (But it would be
>hard to find three unlabelled paragraphs in Twain's voluminous work, and
>it may not even be collected.)
Yep.
>(2) It conflicts with Twain's pro-spelling-reform attitude (I say that
>the piece is not anti-spelling reform.)
Agreed.
>(3) It doesn't "sound" like Twain's style (I don't agree, and how much
>can you tell by three paragraphs anyway?)
I've seen lots of SC's work that doesn't "sound" like his work either.
>No, I believe that someone lifted three paragraphs out of the middle of
>one of Twain's many essays,
Very possible. Like most of us, he wrote widely and was published in
everything from nationals to the most local or parochial of
publications. And he wrote under one pseudonym, it is therefore
possible, nay likely, he wrote under one or more others. There are
probably plenty more of his writings to be found and many more which
will never be found and still more which will be found, but not provable
as his. Just as with many other artists.
>The most compelling thing to me is that opening phrase "For example."
>Why in tarnation would anyone begin a piece with "For example"? They
>wouldn't, neither now nor a hundred years ago.
Point well taken.
Eric The Read
> The word plagiarism came up in the other direction, saying that if the
> Twain piece had existed when the Edward/Lessing piece was written,
> least as far as Mr. Kimball knows) so he says this proves the Twain
> may simply have been forgotten or never very well known.
I think this is the case. I'm going to go dig through my library when I
get home, but I'm quite sure this essay was printed in a collection of
Twain's more obscure works, entitled "Letters from the Earth", which was
printed posthumously. The full piece is about the replacement of
heiroglyphs in ancient Egypt with a phonetic alphabet.
> To summarize what I understand Mr. Kimball's other arguments to be, with
> my comments in parentheses. He says that Twain could not have written
> that piece because:
>
> (1) Mr. Kimball cannot find it in any collected work. (But it would be
> hard to find three unlabelled paragraphs in Twain's voluminous work, and
> it may not even be collected.)
It is collected, in the aforementioned volume.
> (2) It conflicts with Twain's pro-spelling-reform attitude (I say that
> the piece is not anti-spelling reform.)
It's satire. And Twain wasn't above satirizing himself, on occasion.
But I agree, I think spelling reform is, at best, a pretext for Twain to
write about people who can't see why improvements really are improvements
(and also about people who think things are improvements which really
aren't).
> (3) It doesn't "sound" like Twain's style (I don't agree, and how much
> can you tell by three paragraphs anyway?)
It resonates quite well with his deconstruction of James Fenimore Cooper
(an essay I was quite happy to lift freely from when I had to write a
book report on "The Last of the Mohicans"). I think, as you point out,
that one would be hard-pressed to prove it's not his style.
> No, I believe that someone lifted three paragraphs out of the middle of
> one of Twain's many essays, which is why Kimball's search did not turn
> up anything with "Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling" in the
> title. That title is a modern creation.
It's very close to Twain's title, though-- I really will have to look for
that book, so I can give you the real title.
-=Eric
T Bruce Tober
<emsc...@mail.uccs.edu> writes
>I think this is the case. I'm going to go dig through my library when I
>get home, but I'm quite sure this essay was printed in a collection of
>Twain's more obscure works, entitled "Letters from the Earth", which was
>printed posthumously. The full piece is about the replacement of
>heiroglyphs in ancient Egypt with a phonetic alphabet.
That sounds very familiar. I think you're on to something.
N.Mitchum
------
> [...] I'm quite sure this essay was printed in a collection of
> Twain's more obscure works, entitled "Letters from the Earth", which was
> printed posthumously. The full piece is about the replacement of
> heiroglyphs in ancient Egypt with a phonetic alphabet.
Let me save you some time. The piece, only four pages in length,
is titled "Spelling Reform" and reports the arguments made by
Uncle Cadmus before the Simplified Committee. He first
demonstrated how much time could be saved by writing in "Italian
script" instead of hieroglyphics. But the real trouble, he
insists, is not with the spelling but with the *alphabet*. We
need an alphabet whose letters are absolutely fixed in sound, he
says; any changes will be indicated by adding extra marks. The
Germans have such an alphabet.
"But the English alphabet is pure insanity. It can hardly spell
any word in the language with any large degree of certainty. [...]
The sillinesses of the English alphabet are quite beyond
enumeration. That alphabet consists of nothing whatever except
sillinesses. I venture to repeat that whereas the English
orthography needs reforming and simplifying, the English alphabet
needs it two or three million times more."
----NM
Donna Richoux
> Let me save you some time. The piece, only four pages in length,
> is titled "Spelling Reform" and reports the arguments made by
> Uncle Cadmus before the Simplified Committee. He first
> demonstrated how much time could be saved by writing in "Italian
> script" instead of hieroglyphics. But the real trouble, he
> insists, is not with the spelling but with the *alphabet*. We
> need an alphabet whose letters are absolutely fixed in sound, he
> says; any changes will be indicated by adding extra marks. The
> Germans have such an alphabet.
All right, I understand you to say that Twain has a four page piece
called "Spelling Reform" in the collection "Letters from the Earth." But
does it contain the aforementioned three paragraphs that begin "For
example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped" and so
forth? I just want to be real clear about this attribution.
Best --- Donna Richoux
Eric The Read
> Eric The Read wrote:
> > [...] I'm quite sure this essay was printed in a collection of
> > Twain's more obscure works, entitled "Letters from the Earth", which was
> > printed posthumously. The full piece is about the replacement of
> > heiroglyphs in ancient Egypt with a phonetic alphabet.
> >....
>
> is titled "Spelling Reform" and reports the arguments made by
> Uncle Cadmus before the Simplified Committee.
Ah, thank you. I was quite sure I'd read that before, but I couldn't
find anything on the web about it. For those who care, several of
Twain's early works are available from Project Gutenberg, at
<URL:http://www.gutenberg.org/>.
-=Eric
N.Mitchum
------
> All right, I understand you to say that Twain has a four page piece
> called "Spelling Reform" in the collection "Letters from the Earth." But
> does it contain the aforementioned three paragraphs that begin "For
> example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped" and so
> forth? I just want to be real clear about this attribution.
Oops. Sorry. I wrote our that part in my head but it seems it
never reached the keyboard.
No, those three paragraphs are nowhere in the piece. It merely
describes the battle between the Revolters and the Opposition and
the presentation by Uncle Cadmus. In fact there would be no place
for such a parody in this tiny work.
None of this is proof that Twain never never ever wrote those
paragraphs. If the gag occurred to him once, no reason he
couldn't have played a variation on it at some other time.
----NM
Cornell Kimball
> > Could anyone plagiarize something and have it published in
> > national magazines *without "getting caught"*?
>
> To use "plagiarized" and "caught" here is strong, as if the only
> explanation is deliberate fraud. I can think of several alternate
> scenarios. Like, Dolton Edwards had once heard or read the idea
> somewhere but developed it anew himself/herself.
Yes, I think I have phrased it a bit strongly. Your explanation is
more balanced.
> > Secondly is the fact that Mark Twain is on record *as favoring
> > spelling reform*. \
>
> What on earth makes you think that Mark Twain's piece is anti-spelling
> reform? Funny, yes. Memorable, yes. But if you think the point of
> either article is that spelling reform is impossible, then you miss
> the point.
I must be missing the point. Yes, this/these pieces do seem to me
to be anti-spelling reform; isn't this after all a satire, a parody,
which is *ridiculing* the subject it's about? I'm curious how it's
otherwise.
> Trying to construct a plausible scenario, I come up
> with this: some unnamed person wrote down what they remembered of the
> Dalton Edwards idea, and circulated it among friends. Someone else for
> some reason attached Mark Twain's name to it.
What I think is likely.
> But I don't think that is on the face of it any likelier than
> the fact that somewhere, for three paragraphs in the middle of a
> completely different essay, Mark Twain actually did speculate about
> spelling reform in a humorous manner.
Which is why I leave room (a little, anyway) for doubt in my
argument...
> Please note, the Mark Twain piece begins with the words "For example."
> The only way this could possibly make sense is that these three
> paragraphs are an excerpt from a longer piece. I don't know what form
> your exhaustive search took, but if it was on titles and indexed
> material only, I think that's a problem.
Yes, my search often consisted of looking at titles only, rather
than actually scanning every Twain piece. I searched many things, but
I wouldn't call my search exhaustive. So, yes, there is indeed the
possibility that Mark Twain wrote a very short piece (likely within
another piece) showing a spelling reform spoof.
And thanks for your comments... I'll rewrite my piece some if I
post it anywhere else. Cheers!
---------------------------
Cornell Kimball
Los Angeles
cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net
---------------------------
(to reply, remove " spambgon. "
Donna Richoux
> Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> > What on earth makes you think that Mark Twain's piece is anti-spelling
> > reform? Funny, yes. Memorable, yes. But if you think the point of
> > either article is that spelling reform is impossible, then you miss
> > the point.
>
> I must be missing the point. Yes, this/these pieces do seem to me
> to be anti-spelling reform; isn't this after all a satire, a parody,
> which is *ridiculing* the subject it's about? I'm curious how it's
> otherwise.
I know you put "satire" in the title of this thread but I don't agree.
How to explain this? Certainly by the end of either piece, so many
spelling changes have been introduced that the writing looks bizarre and
nearly impossible to decipher. But the content of the piece says that
you would have a year to get used to each single change. It is humorous
(and striking) to slip in those changes in the course of a few
paragraphs, where you have only moments to get used to each change
instead of months. That's just humor. I just don't see that either piece
conveys, "What fools those spelling reformers be." The Twain piece is so
short, it barely has time to develop a pro- or anti- theme, and the
Edwards piece, I think, makes a good case for spelling reform being
reasonable.
Can you point to any words or phrases in the Twain piece that are
slanted against spelling reform?
(Did you notice that Twain considers the use of "c" in "ch" whereas
Edwards appears to forget it?)
> Yes, my search often consisted of looking at titles only, rather
> than actually scanning every Twain piece. I searched many things, but
> I wouldn't call my search exhaustive. So, yes, there is indeed the
> possibility that Mark Twain wrote a very short piece (likely within
> another piece) showing a spelling reform spoof.
>
When I was searching the Web, I turned up a ListServ "Twain Forum" of
expert scholars. I think I will ask them if they have a full citation.
Iskandar Baharuddin
This thread reminds me of the old argument that someone else, of noble birth,
must have written all that good stuff using "Shakespeare" as a nom-de-plum.
"Meihem in ce Klasrum" is much too funny to have been written by Dalton who?
Must have been old Sam, right?
--
Salaam & Shalom
Izzy
"So I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse..."
from "My Struggle", by Alfred E Neuman