special sounds, very troublesome for foreigners to learn to pronounce, and the uncertainty of its accentuation; (2) its illogical and chaotic spelling, inevitably leading to confusions in pronunciation; (3) the grammatical irregularities in its verbs and plural nouns; and (4) the great number of widely different words which are almost or quite similar in pronunciation. A vast number of absurd pitfalls are thus prepared for the unwary user of English. He must remember that the plural of "mouse" is "mice," but that the plural of "house" is not "hice," that he may speak of his two "sons," but not of his two "childs"; he will indistinguishably refer to "sheeps" and "ships"; and like the preacher a little unfamiliar with English who had chosen a well-known text to preach on, he will not remember whether "plough" is pronounced "pluff" or "plo,"5 and even a phonetic spelling system would render still more confusing the confusion between such a series of words as "hair," "hare," "heir," "are," "ere" and "eyre." Many of these irregularities are deeply rooted in the structure of the language; it would be an extremely difficult as well as extensive task to remove them, and when the task was achieved the language would have lost much of its character and savour; it would clash painfully with literary English.
Thus even if we admitted that English ought to be the international language of the future, the result is not so satisfactory from a British point of view as is usually taken for granted. All other civilized nations would be bilingual; they would possess the key not only to their own literature, but to a great foreign literature with all the new horizons that a foreign literature opens out. The English-speaking countries alone would be furnished with only one language, and would have no stimulus to acquire any other language, for no other language would be of any practical use to them. All foreigners would be in a position to bring to