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En Garde, whole no. 14, July 1945
Page 3
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page 3. Why? There are three good reasons. First, the practise is not conductive to gathering further readers of imaginative literature into fandom. Imagine the reactions of a non-initiate to such words as fornchy, yobber, splrfsk, and wudgy and to such mangled words as thanx, cd, tomoro, and pic. (If you find holds in the preceding sentence, the censor probably couldn't accept the bastard words either!) Ackerman himself in his "Fantasy Flanguage" in the Welcoming Committee pamphlet admits having doubts: "The printed word of Fandom is often puzzling to the neophyte." Is such a situation ideal? I think not. To make a language esoteric is to make the group using it an exclusive group; thus, new converts to fandom will be made in spit of such language habits. Quite another aspect of the deterent action is illustrated by an incident over here. A tentmate of mine, interested in literature, writing, and art evidenced interest in several fan magazines lying exposed on the table. He picked one up, read a sentence, and put the book back down with the exclamation: "Funny book stuff!" The effect was decidedly not what I had desired or expected. To my question, he pointed to the sentence he had read and to the word thanx. I spent many weeks trying to counteract the effect that one hamburger word had caused. A second argument against the practise is one based on aesthetic grounds. Words have an eye and ear appeal entirely separate from their meaning. In some cases the appeal may be unpleasing, but I've yet to see simplified spelling and eccentric combinations produce other effects than making pleasant words bad, and bad words worse. Thirdly, material written with coined and mangled words conveys ideas neither as rapidly nor as clearly as legitimate spelling. Words really have no other justification for being; and when meaning is confused, reading time increased, and patience broke, there can be no excuse for the mangling practice of Ackerman and Company. The eyes scan grouping of words, most of the time actually "seeing" only the beginning and ending of this grouping. sometimes a passage can be read over and over at normal speed and the eye will never discover an intentionally misspelled word placed in the middle of a grouping to prove this phenomenon. But, when word after word is misspelled -- which is the essense of simplified spelling -- the eyes stop, start, stop, jerk, jump back, rotate, and finally, in my case, turn skyward. The mind struggles along trying to get the thought, but the whole thing has degenerated into a crossword puzzle; comprehension of ideas falls immediately to a low, confused level. Ackerman, Liebscher, and all --- I know you won't stop grinding beautiful steak words into hamburger, so I'll just have to dose my portion with catsup and like it. But, fellows, I'm getting awfully tired of hamburger words.
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page 3. Why? There are three good reasons. First, the practise is not conductive to gathering further readers of imaginative literature into fandom. Imagine the reactions of a non-initiate to such words as fornchy, yobber, splrfsk, and wudgy and to such mangled words as thanx, cd, tomoro, and pic. (If you find holds in the preceding sentence, the censor probably couldn't accept the bastard words either!) Ackerman himself in his "Fantasy Flanguage" in the Welcoming Committee pamphlet admits having doubts: "The printed word of Fandom is often puzzling to the neophyte." Is such a situation ideal? I think not. To make a language esoteric is to make the group using it an exclusive group; thus, new converts to fandom will be made in spit of such language habits. Quite another aspect of the deterent action is illustrated by an incident over here. A tentmate of mine, interested in literature, writing, and art evidenced interest in several fan magazines lying exposed on the table. He picked one up, read a sentence, and put the book back down with the exclamation: "Funny book stuff!" The effect was decidedly not what I had desired or expected. To my question, he pointed to the sentence he had read and to the word thanx. I spent many weeks trying to counteract the effect that one hamburger word had caused. A second argument against the practise is one based on aesthetic grounds. Words have an eye and ear appeal entirely separate from their meaning. In some cases the appeal may be unpleasing, but I've yet to see simplified spelling and eccentric combinations produce other effects than making pleasant words bad, and bad words worse. Thirdly, material written with coined and mangled words conveys ideas neither as rapidly nor as clearly as legitimate spelling. Words really have no other justification for being; and when meaning is confused, reading time increased, and patience broke, there can be no excuse for the mangling practice of Ackerman and Company. The eyes scan grouping of words, most of the time actually "seeing" only the beginning and ending of this grouping. sometimes a passage can be read over and over at normal speed and the eye will never discover an intentionally misspelled word placed in the middle of a grouping to prove this phenomenon. But, when word after word is misspelled -- which is the essense of simplified spelling -- the eyes stop, start, stop, jerk, jump back, rotate, and finally, in my case, turn skyward. The mind struggles along trying to get the thought, but the whole thing has degenerated into a crossword puzzle; comprehension of ideas falls immediately to a low, confused level. Ackerman, Liebscher, and all --- I know you won't stop grinding beautiful steak words into hamburger, so I'll just have to dose my portion with catsup and like it. But, fellows, I'm getting awfully tired of hamburger words.
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