"Mark Twain. A simplified alphabet (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

SIMPLIFIED FORM: thru, laff, hyland.

PHONOGRAPHIC FORM: [Figure 2]

To write the word "through," the pen has to make twenty-one strokes.

To write the word "thru," then pen has to make twelve strokes-- a good
saving.

To write that same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to
make only THREE strokes.

To write the word "laugh," the pen has to make FOURTEEN strokes.

To write "laff," the pen has to make the SAME NUMBER of strokes--no
labor is saved to the penman.

To write the same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to
make only THREE strokes.

To write the word "highland," the pen has to make twenty-two strokes.

To write "hyland," the pen has to make eighteen strokes.

To write that word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make
only FIVE strokes. [Figure 3]

To write the words "phonographic alphabet," the pen has to make
fifty-three strokes.

To write "fonografic alfabet," the pen has to make fifty strokes. To
the penman, the saving in labor is insignificant.

To write that word (with vowels) with the phonographic alphabet, the
pen has to make only SEVENTEEN strokes.

Without the vowels, only THIRTEEN strokes. [Figure 4] The vowels are
hardly necessary, this time.

We make five pen-strokes in writing an m. Thus: [Figure 5] a stroke
down; a stroke up; a second stroke down; a second stroke up; a final stroke
down. Total, five. The phonographic alphabet accomplishes the m with a
single stroke--a curve, like a parenthesis that has come home drunk and has
fallen face down right at the front door where everybody that goes along
will see him and say, Alas!

When our written m is not the end of a word, but is otherwise located,
it has to be connected with the next letter, and that requires another
pen-stroke, making six in all, before you get rid of that m. But never mind
about the connecting strokes--let them go. Without counting them, the