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/1906092...

                                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
corn...@spambgon.pacificnet.net
---------------------------