"Anybody," said an astute lawyer, addressing the jury to whom the opposing counsel had reflected upon inaccuracies in the spelling of his brief—"anybody can write English correctly, but surely a man may be allowed to spell a word in two or three different ways if he likes!" This was a claim for independence of action which so commended itself to the jury that it won a verdict for his client. The same plea may be considered in regard to the truly wonderful way in which the mother-tongue is often written, by the educated sometimes as well as by the uneducated.

A man, it may be urged, has a right to spell as he chooses, and to express his ideas, when he has any, as best he can; while, when he suffers from a dearth of those rare articles, he has still more reason to rejoice in liberty of choice in respect to the language he selects to cover his poverty of thought. Hence there are doubtless good and sufficient reasons for every specimen of "English as she is wrote," which it is the object of this little book to rescue from oblivion, and which have, one and all, been written with the sober conviction, upon the part of the writers, that they accurately conveyed the meaning they desired. Intentionally humorous efforts have been carefully excluded, and the interest of the collection consists in the spontaneity of expression and in the fact that it offers fair samples of the possibilities which lie hidden in the orthography and construction of our language. Let it be remembered, then, that anybody can write English as she "should be wrote," and hence that a certain meed of admiration is due to those who, exercising their right of independent action, succeed in making it at once original and racy, and in conveying, without the least effort, meanings totally opposed to their intention, affording thereby admirable examples of English as "she is wrote" by thousands.