The Wisdom of Mr. Franklin

Day 13

You need not be concerned in Writing me about your bad spelling; for in my opinion as our Alphabet now stands, the bad Spelling, of what is called so, is generally the best, as conforming to the Sound of the Letters and of the Words. To give you an Instance, a Gentleman receiving a Letter in which ere there Words, “Not finding Brown at hom, I delivered your maseg to his yf.” The Gentleman finding it bad Spelling and therefore not very intelligible, called his Lady to help him read it. Between them they picked out the meaning of all but the “yf,” which they could not understand. The lady proposed calling her Chambermaid; “for Batty,”says she, “has  the best knack at reading bed Spelling of anyone I know.” Batty came, and was surprized that neither Sir nor Madam could tell what “yf” was “Why,” says she, “‘yf’“  spells Wife, shat else can it spell?” And indeed it is a much better as well as shorter method of speling “Wife,” than by “Doubleyou, i ef e,” Which in reality spells “Doubleyifey.”

~Benjamin Franklin ~
To his Sister, after she lamented her bad spelling.

I got a book from the library recently of quotes from our founding fathers and this was in it and I was just so surprised and thought that it was so funny, primarily because I have never been very happy with the fact that I am not good at spelling.

Well I hope you think it's funny too.

®achel™