Alas, Bob Hirst's scholarship defeats my pun; it's no fun to smouch a
smooch if the first "smouch" sounds like "ouch."  So I stood
corrected about Twain's pronunication, until Carolyn Richey weighed
in with the authority of a native, though the passage of time does
muddy the waters further.  Indeed we wouldn't have this
problem if, as Twain says, "we had an alphabet that was adequate and
competent, instead of inadequate and incompetent. . . . Spelling reform
has only made it bald-headed and unsightly.  There is a whole tribe of
them, "row," and "read" and "lead"--a whole family who don't know who
they are.  I ask you to pronounce s-o-w , and you ask me what kind of a
one.  If we had a sane, determinate alphabet, instead of a hospital of
comminuted eunuchs, you would know whether one referred to the act of a man
casting the seed over the ploughed land or whether one wished to recall
the lady hog and the future ham."  All well and good, but as Twain also said,
"Simplified spelling is all right, but, like chastity, you can
carry it too far," and "It were not best that we should all talk alike;
it is diff'rence of pronunciation that makes horse-races."  Or something
like that.

                                Gregg