What really concerns us today is the present meaning of words, not what they ment to others one, two, three, or more thousands of years ago. Misuse of a word in current speech or literature can come only from ignorance of English, no matter how learned in Greek and Latin the speaker or writer may be.
The time that can be given to English in the scools is so largely taken up in imperfectly successful efforts to teach pupils to read it and to spel it with accuracy, that too little attention can be spared for instruction in its proper use. Even if the so-cald "etimologic" spelling wer as helpful to a few classical scolars as its admirers claim it to be, to retain it would deny to the hundreds of millions who hav no Latin or Greek the social and economic benefits that a simplified spelling would confer.
Etimologists Advocate Simpler Spelling
Etimologists ar ardent advocates of spelling-reform. Professor Walter W. Skeat, of Cambridge University, the great English etimologist, and author of the "Etimological Dictionary of the English Language," sumd up the views of most other etimological scolars, when he said:
"In the interests of etimology we ought to spel as we pronounce. To spel words as they used to be pronounst is not etimological but antiquarian."
The "Esthetic" Objection
Many persons ar prejudist against simplified spelling because the familiar words in their unfamiliar forms appear "ugly" to them. To oppose spelling-reform on this account is not to act in accordance with reason, but to obey an emotional reaction.
