Changing Spelling has Happened in the Past

Objection to simplified spelling has been made on the supposition that it "wil cut us off from the literature of the past," meaning that those taught in the new way wil be unable to read the books red today. This can not be so, because the present spelling wil be no more difficult to read by one who has learnd to spel the new way, than is the new spelling by one who has learnd the old way. Children who hav learnd to spel in the simplified way wil, in fact, read the books printed today as easily as we read books printed one and two centuries ago.

Those who make this objection can hardly be aware that the works of authors of former times that they enjoy and value ar not now printed with the spelling in which they wer written. Publishers habitually modify the spelling' in the successiv popular editions of standard authors to conform with current practis. The spelling of Shakespeare, even that of the trans- lators of the King James version of the Holy Bible, does not appear in volumes printed today, but has been greatly, tho gradually, changed thru the centuries. Any one can verify this by comparison of modern with earlier editions.

Hanry Gallup Paine, Handbook of Simplified Spelling (2009-06)

• spelling
• standards