d take up the manifest need for a lingua franca
for the world. They seem to have given little attention to the various
theoretical universal languages which were proposed to them. They wished
to give as little trouble to hasty and simple people as possible, and
the world-wide alstribution of English gave them a bias for it from the
beginning. The extreme simplicity of its grammar was also in its favour.

It was not without some sacrifices that the English-speaking
peoples were permitted the satisfaction of hearing their speech
used universally. The language was shorn of a number of grammatical
peculiarities, the distinctive forms for the subjunctive mood for
example and most of its irregular plurals were abolished; its spelling
was systematised and adapted to the vowel sounds in use upon the
continent of Europe, and a process of incorporating foreign nouns and
verbs commenced that speedily reached enormous proportions. Within
ten years from the establishment of the World Republic the New English
Dictionary had swelled to include a vocabulary of 250,000 words, and
a man of 1900 would have found considerable difficulty in reading an
ordinary newspaper. On the other hand, the men of the new time could
still appreciate the older English literature.... Certain minor acts
of uniformity accompanied this larger one. The idea of a common
understanding and a general simplification of intercourse once it was
accepted led very naturally to the universal establishment of the metric
system of weights and measures, and to the disappearance of the various
makeshift calendars that had hitherto confused chronology. The year was
divided into thirteen months of four weeks each, and New Year's Day
and Leap Year's Day were made holidays, and did not count at all in
the ordinary week. So the weeks and the months were brought into
correspondence. And moreover, as the king put it to Firmin, it was
decided to 'nail down Easter.' . . . In these matters, as in so many
matters, the new civilisation came as a simplification of ancient
complications; the history of the calendar throughout the world is a
history of inadequate adjustments, of attempts to fix seed-time and
midwinter that go back into the very beginning of human society; and
this final rectification had a symbolic value quite beyond its practical
convenience. But the council would have no rash nor harsh innovations,
no strange names for the months, and no alteration in the numbering of
t