“Nonsense, Jule. Interlingua is a scientific language. It works. Take spelling and pronunciation. They are absolutely phonetic and there are only five vowel sounds, where most of the old languages have twenty or more. Each letter has one sound only, and a sound is always indicated by the same letter. English was a bastard language—goodness knows how anyone ever learned it, including me. Take the word can. It means a container; it can also be a verb meaning to can something in a container; it also means you can, or are able to, do something; and it also means, spelled C-a-n-n-e-s, a town in southern France. In American idiom it could mean to dismiss or fire someone, and in British idiom it meant a tankard.

“Or take this sentence: ‘There are three ways of spelling to.’ Now how would you go about spelling that, t-o,’t-o-o, or t-w-o?”

Julian had to laugh. “I admit we had some lulus.”

Edith continued, “And take grammar and syntax. Interlingua is so ingeniously devised that in place of the usual maze of rules occupying a sizable volume on grammar, we have only sixteen short rules, which may be written comfortably on a single sheet of notepaper.”

“The vocabulary is so damned extensive…”

“That’s due to the many new words that have come into the language, but in actuality the rules are such that we cover several times the wordage you do in a given area. For example, we carry the principle of affixes through to its logical conclusion. In English you often form the feminine of a noun by adding e-s-s: author-authoress, lion-lioness. Often, but by no means always. You are not allowed to say bull-bulless or hero-heroess. In Interlingua, the feminine ending may be added to any noun, and so throughout the language there is no exception to any rule and no limit to its applicability.”

“As you say, as you say…” Julian sighed. “At any rate, I’m plodding away. At this late date in life, it’s a little difficult to get back into studying.”