Help!

[Sterling Clover]

http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html

More likely not from Twain.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

	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. The only kase in which "c" would be retained  
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2  
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the  
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with  
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
	Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with  
Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or  
so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.  
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi  
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the  
maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
	Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a  
lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

--S

On Jun 12, 2008, at 9:06 PM, malignd at aol.com wrote:

> <<Sounds like Abish, but that is a guess at best. I am not sure,  
> but it seems to me unlikely that Sam knew German. >>
> Clemens/Twain wrote a famous piece on the impossibility of the  
> German language.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Page <page at quesnelbc.com>
> To: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon- 
> l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 8:55 pm
> Subject: Re: Help!
>
> Sounds like Abish, but that is a guess at best. I am not sure, but  
> it seems to me unlikely that Sam knew German.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Monroe"  
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:06 PM
> Subject: Help!
>
> > From a friend:
> >
> > Got a call from a patron today looking for a story that he read  
> about
> > 20 years ago. However, he said the story was not a new one of that
> > time, just that's when he
> > read it. He cannot remember the title or author but gave this  
> description.
> >
> > It's an essay or short story. It starts in English and progresses to
> > tell how a language might be changed by substituting a letter or
> > symbol for a letter we have
> > in English. As the story goes on the author is subtly changing the
> > letters to the symbols or new letters he has discussed so that by  
> the
> > end of the story you (the
> > reader) are actually reading this "new" language that has morphed  
> from
> > English. He strongly thinks the "new" language is German or is  
> similar
> > to German. He also
> > has a vague notion that it might have been written by Samuel Clemens
> > but says that is very vague and could be totally wrong.
> >
> > At first I thought he was describing Ella Minnow Pea but as he  
> went on
> > I realized that story does not meet his description. Also, it wasn't
> > written too long ago.
> > Does anyone have any idea what he is talking about?
> >
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ----------
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