23. When mb is final after a short vowel drop b: bom, crum, dum, lam, lim, thum. But not when a wrong pronunciation would be suggested: com (for comb), torn (for tomb), etc.
24. When ou before l is pronounced o drop u: mold, sholder. But not sol (for soul).
25. When ough is final spell o, u, ock, or up, according to the pronunciation: altho, boro, donut, furlo, tho, thoro, thru, hock, hiccup.
26. When our is final and ou is pronounced as a short vowel drop u: color, honor, labor.
27. When ph is pronounced f substitute f: alfabet, emfasis, fantom, fono-graf, fotograf, sulfur, telefone, telegraf.
28. When re is final after any consonant save c substitute er: center, fiber, meter, theater. But not lucer, mediocer.
29. When rh is initial and the h is silent drop it: retoric, reumatism, rime, rubarb, rithm.
30. When sc is initial and the c is silent drop it: senery, sented, septer, sience, sissors.
31. When u is silent before a vowel drop it: bild, condit, garantee, gard, ges, gide, gild.
32. When y is between consonants substitute i: analisis, fisic, gipsy, paralize, rime, silvan, tipe.
Obviously, this list was too long to have much chance of being accepted quickly. Some of the spellings on it, to be sure, were already in good American usage, brought in by Webster, but others were uncouth and even ridiculous. Worse, there were many exceptions to the rules laid down — for example, in rules 1, 4, 6, 12, 14, 15 and 21. The board, as if despairing of making any headway with so many words, brought out simultaneously a much shorter list, and leaflets arguing for it were distributed in large numbers. It was as follows:
ad insted
addrest liv(d)
anser(d) program
ar reciet
askt reviev(d)
bil(d) shal
buro shipt
catalog tel
det telefone
engin (al)tho
enuf thoro(ly, -fare, etc.)
fil(d) thru (out)
fixt twelv
giv wil
hav yu
On the reverse of this leaflet was the following:
When yu hav by practis familiarized yourself with the 30 WORDS, why not, for the sake of consistency, apply the principles exemplified by their spellings to other words? For instance, if yu write
addrest, anserd, askt, bild, fild, fixt, livd, recievd, shipt, why not write advanst, announst, cald, carrid, delayd, doubld, examind, followd, indorst, invoist, pleasd, preferd, signd, traveld, troubld, wisht, etc.?
telefone, why not write telegraf, fotograf, fonograf, alfabet, etc.?
ar, engin, giv, hav, liv, reciev, twelv, why not write activ, comparativ, definit, determin, examin, favorit, genuin, hostil, imagin, infinit, nativ, opposit, positiv, practis, promis, textil, believ, curv, resolv, serv, etc.?
ad, bil, fil, shal, wil, why not write od, eg, bel, wel, mil, bluf, stuf, pur, dres, les, buz, etc.?
catalog, why not write prolog, sinagog, etc.?
det, why not write dout, etc.?
insted, why not write bred, brekfest, ded, hed, red, helth, plesure, wether, etc.?
program, why not write gram, cigaret, quartet, gazet, bagatel, quadril, vaudevil, etc.?
reciev, why not write deciev, conciet, etc.?
thoro, why not write boro, furlo, etc.
enuf, why not write ruf, tuf, laf, cof, etc.?
But this list also failed to win any considerable public support. On the contrary, its clumsy novelties gave the whole spelling reform movement a black eye. In the Summer of 1921 the National Education Association, which had launched the campaign for reform in 1898, withdrew its endorsement, and during the years following most of the magazines and newspapers that had adopted its twelve new spellings went back to the orthodox forms. So long ago as 1909, when W. H. Taft succeeded Roosevelt as President, the New York Sun announced the doom of the movement in an editorial of one word: thru. This was somewhat premature, for Carnegie’s money was still paying for a vigorous propaganda, but his death ten years later, as I have said, put an end to large-scale crusading, and since then spelling reform has been promoted mainly by individuals, no two of whom agree. Some of their schemes are extremely simple — for example, that of William McDevitt, a San Francisco bookseller, who simply drops out all the neutral vowels and silent consonants. Thus, the becomes th, writer is riter, because is becaus, would is woud, and after is aftr. Other current proposals involve changes in the values of the alphabet, and are thus more complicated. Dr. H. Darcy Power, an English-born professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany, proposes that x, c and q, which are redundant, be given the new values of th, ch and qw respectively, and that the different values of the vowels be indicated by drawing lines either above or below them, e.g., ā for the a in hate, a for that in car, and a without any mark for that in bat. In order to distinguish between the two sounds of th he proposes that x be used in thy and x in thigh. The neutral vowel he disposes of by either dropping it altogether or displacing it with an apostrophe. Here is a specimen of his fonetic speling, prepared by himself:
Sir C. P. Hunter [names are not as yet modified], spēking as a reprēzentativ biznes man, said he had long strongli objekted tu x wāst ov tĨm and muni in our skuls and x sakrĨfls ov praktikl and intelektūal efishensi dū tu x tĨm spent and wāsted in luming our unnesesarili difikult speling. Xat muni, and wot wos mor importnt, tĨm, kud be put tu infinitli mor praktikl ūs if it wer devōted tu rel edukāshn. Our irashunl and difikult speling wos a hindrns and a handikap tu x impruvment ov our trād and komers.39
It will be noted that Dr. Power, like most spelling reformers, is not quite faithful to his own system, for he spells said, not as sed, but in the orthodox manner. Another revolutionist, Frederick S. Wingfield of Chicago, proposes in his fwnetik orthqgrafi to employ the redundant c, j, q, w and y to represent the vowels in at, eat, ah, oh and ooze respectively, and to make various other changes in the values of the letters. Here is the Lord’s Prayer according to his system:
Qur Fqdhr, hy qrt in hevn: hclwd bj dhqi neim. Dhqi kizdm kam, dhqui uil bj dan, on rth cz it iz in hevn. Giv as dhis dei qur deili bred, end forgiv as qur dets cz uj forgivn qur detrz. Cdn ljd as nqt intu temteishn, bat djlivr as frqm jvl. For dhquin iz dhj kixdm, dhj pquar, cnd dhj glwri forevr. Eimen.40
A somewhat similar scheme is that of Dr. R. E. Zachrisson, professor of English in the University of Upsala, Sweden. He calls it Anglic, and it seems to be backed by enthusiasts with plenty of cash, for a monthly magazine in advocacy of it was launched at Upsala in 1930, an illustrated fortnietly followed in 1931, and there are textbooks and phonograph records. Its rules fill nine pages of the official textbook,41 and seem to be somewhat complicated. The consonants, with few exceptions, have their ordinary values, but there are many changes in the vowels, some of which are doubled or provided with mòdifying vowels. This clustering of vowels tends to be confusing, so italics or bold-face type are used to distinguish stressed syllables, e.g., in kreaet (create) the ae is so distinguished. Here is the first sentence of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in Anglic:
Forskor and sevn yeerz agoe our faadherz braut forth on this kontinent a nue naeshon, konseevd in liberty, and dedikaeted to the propozishon that aul men ar kreaeted eequal.42
In 1927 the late Dr. Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate of England and founder of the Society for Pure English, began publishing a series of prose pamphlets embodying some new spellings and a few new letters. One of the latter was a symbol for the sound represented by i, ic, ie, ei, y, ye, ig, igh, eigh, uy, ay, ai, ey and eye in the words I, indictment, tie, eider, fly, dye, sign, sigh, height, buy, ay, aisle, eying and eye. It was an i with a hook attached to its right side, making it a sort of h with a dot over it. Another was a symbol for the ng of sing. It was an n with a similar hook. Dr. Bridges also used a script a to distinguish the broad a of father from the flat a of cat, and a script g to distinguish the soft g of gentle from the hard g of thing. Further, he omitted the final m
ute e in most situations, though retaining it when it indicated a long preceding vowel, as in finite, and when it occurred at the end of a syllable “which has a long vowel, and can be recognized only as a whole, as love”43 These reforms got no support in England, and seem to have passed out with their distinguished author, who died in 1930.
On January 28, 1935, the Chicago Tribune announced out of a clear sky that it had adopted twenty-four simplified spellings and was preparing to add others from time to time. Its first list was rather cautious — catalog for catalogue, cotilion for cotillion, controled for controlled, fantom for phantom, hocky for hockey, skilful for skillful, advertisment for advertisement, harken for hearken, and so on. Many of these, in fact, were already in more or less general use. But when, in its second list, dated February 11, it added agast for aghast, aile for aisle, bagatel for bagatelle, bailif for bailiff, burocracy for bureaucracy, crum for crumb and missil for missile, it got into wilder waters, and when, in subsequent announcements, it proceeded to genuinly for genuinely, hefer for heifer, herse for hearse, staf for staff, warant for warrant, doctrin for doctrine, iland for island, lether for leather, trafic for traffic and yern for yearn, it was far out upon the orthographical deep.44 Its innovations met with a mixed reception. Some of its readers applauded, but others protested, and in a little while it was constrained to abandon iland. Its list did not include such favorites of the Simplified Spelling Board as thro, thru and filosofy.
But despite the fact that the activities of the board, as its secretary, Dr. Godfrey Dewey, admits sadly, have “slowed down almost to the stopping point,”45 it has probably had some influence upon the course of American spelling. It failed to bring in tho and thoro, but it undoubtedly aided the general acceptance of catalog, program and their congeners. The late George Philip Krapp of Columbia, who was certainly no Anglophobe, believed that fonetic, fonograf, fosfate, fotograf and the like were “bound to be the spelling of the future” in this country.46 Such forms as burlesk, nabor, naborhood, nite,47 foto, sox, hi, lite, holsum, biskit, ho-made, thanx and kreem, though they still lack the imprimatur of any academic authority, are used freely by the advertising writers, and by such advance-agents of change as the contributors to Variety. The former try to get rid of the twelve ways of representing the k-sound by employing k itself whenever possible, e.g., in kar, klothes, klassy, kwality, kosy, kollege-kut, butter-krust, keen-kutter, kutlery, kleen, kake, and so on.48 They also introduce many other novelties, e.g., uneeda, trufit (shoes), wilcut (knives), veribest, dalite (alarm clocks), staylit (matches), az-nu (second-hand), shur-on (eye-glasses), slipova (covers), nota-seme (hosiery), kant-leek (water-bottle), and the like. Most of these, of course, rise and fall with the commodities they designate, and thus have only the dignity of nonce-words, but in their very number there is some sign of a tendency. Meanwhile the advertisement writers and authors combine in an attempt to naturalize alright, a compound of all and right, made by analogy with already and almost. In my days as a magazine editor I found it in American manuscripts very often, and it not seldom gets into print.49 So far no dictionary supports it, but in “Webster’s New International” (1934) it is listed as “commonly found.” It has already migrated to England and has the imprimatur of a noble lord.50 Another vigorous newcomer is sox for socks. The White Sox are known to all Americans; the White Socks would seem strange, and the new plural has got into the Congressional Record.51 Yet another is slo, as in go slo. And there are also someway, someplace, etc., drive urself (automobiles for hire),52 nuf sed, and naptha.53
4. THE TREATMENT OF LOAN-WORDS
In the treatment of loan-words English spelling is much more conservative than American. This conservatism, in fact, is so marked that it is frequently denounced by English critics of the national speech usages, and it stood first among the “tendencies of modern taste” attacked by the Society for Pure English in its original prospectus in 1913 — a prospectus prepared by Henry Bradley, Dr. Robert Bridges, Sir Walter Raleigh and L. Pearsall Smith,54 and signed by many important men of letters, including Thomas Hardy, A. J. Balfour, Edmund Gosse, Austin Dobson, Maurice Hewlett, Gilbert Murray, George Saintsbury and the professors of English literature at Cambridge and London, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and W. P. Ker. I quote from this caveat:
Literary taste at the present time, with regard to foreign words recently borrowed from abroad, is on wrong lines, the notions which govern it being scientifically incorrect, tending to impair the national character of our standard speech, and to adapt it to the habits of classical scholars. On account of these alien associations our borrowed terms are now spelt and pronounced, not as English, but as foreign words, instead of being assimilated, as they were in the past, and brought into conformity with the main structure of our speech. And as we more and more rarely assimilate our borrowings, so even words that were once naturalized are being now one by one made un-English, and driven out of the language back into their foreign forms; whence it comes that a paragraph of serious English prose may be sometimes seen as freely sprinkled with italicized French words as a passage of Cicero is often interlarded with Greek. The mere printing of such words in italics is an active force toward degeneration. The Society hopes to discredit this tendency, and it will endeavour to restore to English its old recreative energy; when a choice is possible we should wish to give an English pronunciation and spelling to useful foreign words, and we would attempt to restore to a good many words the old English forms which they once had, but which are now supplanted by the original foreign forms.55
Since this was written, and probably at least partly because of it, there has been some change in England,56 but the more pretentious English papers continue to accent, and often italicize, words that have been completely naturalized in this country, e.g., café, début, portière, éclat, naïveté, régime, rôle, soirée, protégé, élite, gemütlichkeit, mêleé, tête-a-tête, porte-cochère, divorcée, fiancée and dénouement. Even loan-words long since naturalized are sometimes used in their foreign forms, e.g., répertoire for repertory, muslim for mos-lem, crêpe for crape, and légion d’honneur for legion of honor. The dictionaries seldom omit the accents from recent foreign words. Cassell’s leaves them off régime and début, but preserves them on practically all the other terms listed above; the Concise Oxford always uses them. In the United States usage is much looser. Dépôt became depot immediately it entered the language, and the same rapid naturalization has overtaken employé, matinée, débutante, negligée, exposé, résumé, hofbräu, and scores of other loan-words. Café is seldom seen with its accent, nor is señor or divorcée or attaché. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly twenty years ago, Charles Fitzhugh Talman said that “the omission of the diacritic is universal. Even the English press of French New Orleans ignores it.”57 Mr. Talman listed some rather astonishing barbarisms, among them, standchen for ständchen in Littell’s Living Age, and gave an amusing account of the struggles of American newspapers with thé dansant, then a novelty. He said:
Put this through the hopper of the typesetting machine, and it comes forth, “the the dansant” — which even Oshkosh finds intolerable. The thing was, however, often attempted when thés dansant came into fashion, and with various results. Generally the proof-reader eliminates one of the the’s, making dansant a quasi-noun, and to this day one reads of people giving or attending dansants. Latterly the public taste seems to favor dansante, which doubtless has a Frenchier appearance, provided you are sufficiently ignorant of the Gallic tongue. Two other solutions of the difficulty may be noted:
Among those present at the “the dansant”;
Among those present at the the-dansant; that is, either a hyphen or quotation marks set off the exotic phrase.
There has been some improvement in recent years, but not much. Even in the larger cities, the majority of American newspapers manage to get along without using foreign accents. They are even omitted from foreign proper names, so that Bülow becomes Bulow and Poincaré becomes Poincare. For a number of yea
rs the Baltimore Evening Sun was the only Eastern daily that, to my knowledge, had linotype mats for the common French and German accents. The New York American did not acquire a set until late in 1934, when they were laid in to print some short lexicographical articles that I was then writing for the paper. Even when they are in stock they are seldom used correctly, for American copy-readers take a high professional pride in their complete ignorance of foreign languages, as they do in their ignorance of the terminology of all the arts and sciences. For the former they have the example of Walt Whitman, who, according to Dr. Louise Pound, often omitted accents in “his manuscript notes and in early editions,” and used them incorrectly in his later editions.58 The Congressional Record avoids them as much as possible, and the State Department, ordinarily very conservative and English, has abandoned visé for visa, though it is faithful to chargé. With this iconoclasm the late Dr. Brander Matthews was in hearty sympathy. Writing in 1917, and dealing with naïve and naïveté, which he welcomed into the language because there were no English equivalents, he argued that they would “need to shed their accents and to adapt themselves somehow to the traditions of our orthography.” He went on:
After we have decided that the foreign word we find knocking at the doors of English [he really meant American, as the context shows] is likely to be useful, we must fit it for naturalization by insisting that it shall shed its accents, if it has any; that it shall change its spelling, if this is necessary; that it shall modify its pronunciation, if this is not easy for us to compass; and that it shall conform to all our speech-habits, especially in the formation of the plural.59
This counsel is heeded by many patriotic Americans. So far as I can find, bozart (for beaux-arts) is not in any dictionary, but it is used as the name of “America’s second-largest verse magazine,” published at Box 67, Station E, Atlanta, Ga., as the name of a lead-pencil very popular in the South, and in the titles of a number of business firms, including one with quarters in Radio City, New York.60 Exposé long since lost its accent and is now commonly pronounced to rhyme with propose. Schmierkäse has become smearkase, and the sauer in sauer-kraut and sauer-braten is often spelled sour.61 Coleslaw, by folk-etymology, has become cold-slaw. Führer is fuhrer, cañon is canyon, and vaudeville is sometimes vodvil. I have even seen jonteel, in a trade name, for the French gentil, and parfay for parfait. In derivatives of the Greek haima it is the almost invariable American custom to spell the root syllable hem, but the more conservative English make it hœm — e.g., in hœmorrhage and hœmophilia. In an exhaustive list of diseases issued by the United States Public Health Service62 the hœm- form does not appear once. In the same way American usage prefers esophagus, diarrhea and etiology to the English œsophagus, diarrhœa and œtiology. In the style-book of the Journal of the American Medical Association I find many other spellings that would shock an English medical author, among them curet for curette, cocain for cocaine, gage for gauge, intern for interne, lacrimal for lachrymal, and a whole group of words ending in -er instead of in -re.63
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