American Language Supplement 2
Page 41
Another English spelling that has something to recommend it is whisky for whiskey. Webster preferred whisky and the dictionaries bearing his name still do, but in this case his choice failed to prevail, and whiskey remains the common form in the United States. Rather curiously, the English reserve whisky for the Scotch variety; Irish or any other kind is whiskey. This differentiation is described by the NED as “modern trade usage.”1 There is also something to be said for the English distinction between kerb and curb, both of which come from a French verb, courber, meaning to bend. The English use curb the noun in the sense of a device to restrain a fractious horse, and as a verb in the sense of to hamper or restrain, but they prefer kerb for the border of a sidewalk. Unhappily, they also use curb, as we do, for the framework at the top of a well – and also for the rim of a brewer’s kettle. Thus, though they call their curb-brokers kerbstone-brokers, if these kerbstone-brokers adjourned to a brewery they would become curb-brokers. The signs plentifully posted in New York reading “Curb Your Dog” are somewhat confusing to an English visitor. He can’t make out whether they mean “Take him to the kerb when he shows certain signs” or “Prevent him yielding to his impulse altogether.” I must confess that I am in the same doubt myself. The Authors & Printers Dictionary, the accepted English authority, ordains curb “for verb, and the curb of bridle,” but calls kerb “more usual than curb” in kerbstone. Also, it warns printers not to spell kerb with an i instead of an e – an error impossible in the United States, even to a printer.
The English, in late years, have adopted a great many American spellings, e.g., jail for gaol,2 cider for cyder, and asphalt for asphalte. They have even begun to succumb to alright, though I should add at once that it is often denounced by purists. The case against it was thus stated by a correspondent of a London weekly in 1936:
It cannot be defended on the analogy of almost, already, albeit, etc. In these words the fusion of two ideas is complete, whereas all and right do not lend themselves to this welding process: the two ideas coöperate better than they unite. Even already does not express all ready, nor does almost mean the same as all most. In short, alright is all wrong.3
Two years later a controversy over the term raged in the London Observer, and one reader undertook to dispose of it as follows:
I hope that your correspondents may succeed in giving this unhappy word its quietus, for it is as ugly as it is inaccurate. How such a stupidity came to be so widely distributed I cannot imagine, for it is by no means restricted, as one of your contributors suggests, to illiterate servant girls. I would excuse them, but I find that it creeps into the documents of many so-called well educated persons. Here are some lines on the subject, which I clipped from a paper several years ago, and which may help to dispel the confusion:
Already, Almighty, Also,
Albeit, Almost and Although,
Altogether, Always and Alone,
But Alright is wrong, be it known.1
But this doggerel only brought a defense of alright from a Cambridge man signing himself Linguist, thus:
We recognize almost and already as compound words which are different in meaning from all most and all ready. That enables us in writing to distinguish between such pairs of sentences as “That is all most interesting” and “That is almost interesting,” “They are all ready there” and “They are already there.” Obviously, if alright represents a compound word which actually exists it has a certain justification. But is there such a compound? I believe there is.
The key to the problem of whether two words have fused in one is the accent with which they are spoken. When two words fuse they are pronounced with a different accent from the original pair. Let us take a sentence like “They are all right” and ask ourselves whether the accent of the last two words can be so varied that the sentence means two quite different things. We find that this can actually take place. If we pronounce the last two words so that they are equal in stress we find the sentence means “All of them are right”; if we pronounce them so that right is more strongly accented than all it means “They are not in danger; they are safe,” or, more generally, “You needn’t worry about them.” It is easy to see that this second meaning of all right represents a fusion of the original elements.2
This learned correspondent, however, would not grant alright anything above colloquial status. It is, he said, “very convenient in everyday intercourse, but of no importance whatever in literary composition. I find that I use it regularly in ordinary conversation, but never have occasion to write it except in familiar correspondence. When I do write it, I spell it as two words.”3
This English tendency to follow American example in spelling is not extended to two classes of words – those ending with -or, and those of the defense class. Here orthographical logic has little to do with the matter; it is, rather, one of national pride. “The American abolition of -our in such words,” says H. W. Fowler in “A Dictionary of Modern English Usage,”1 “has probably retarded rather than quickened English progress in the same direction. Our first notification that the book we are reading is not English but American is often the sight of an -or. ‘Yankee,’ we say, and congratulate ourselves on spelling like gentlemen; we wisely decline to regard it as a matter of argument; the English way cannot but be better than the American way; that is enough.”2 Unhappily, this English tenderness protects only relatively few words, e.g., honour, humour, odour, labour, favour, valour, vapour, vigour, etc. Quite as many are already spelled with -or, e.g., governor, horror, pallor, tremor, author, censor, victor, tutor, donor, conqueror, juror, emperor, solicitor, visitor, tailor, warrior, error, etc., and so are many of the derivatives of the -our words, e.g., honorary, odorous, laborious, valorous, vigorous, vaporous, etc. There is, indeed, no order in the business, for honorary and honorific stand beside honourable, laborious stands beside laboured, labourer, labouring and Labourite, odorous beside odourless, humorist beside humour, coloration beside colour, vigorous beside vigourless, etc.3
In late years the English have moved from -our to -or in the agentnouns, save in the single case of Saviour,4 but the rule in other classes of words is so complicated and so full of exceptions that no lexicographer has been able to explain it.5 In many cases the spelling has been changed, sometimes long ago and sometimes only recently. Orator, for example, was oratour to Chaucer but orator to Shakespeare. Governor was governour to Samuel Johnson in 1775, though Clarendon had written governor in 1647. Not infrequently -our has been dropped for -or, and later restored. John Wesley, writing in 1791, reported that the use of -or in honor, vigor, etc., was then a “fashionable impropriety” and denounced it as “mere childish affectation,” but Coleridge was still spelling honor in 1809, though Wordsworth, in the same year, made it honour. Samuel Johnson spelled errour in his Dictionary of 1755,1 and that spelling remained orthodox until the end of the Eighteenth Century, though Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Sir Thomas Browne had used error. The use of color instead of colour was denounced by an English lady author so lately as 1937,2 but the NED traces colorific to 1676, coloration to 1626, and color itself to 1663. H. W. Fowler seemed to be convinced that his fellow-Englishmen, soon or late, would adopt the -or-endings, despite their present distaste for them. He said:
What is likely to happen is that either, when some general reform of spelling is consented to, reduction of -our to -or will be one of the least disputed items, or, failing general reform, we shall see word after word in -our go the way of governour. It is not worth while either to resist such a gradual change or to fly in the face of national sentiment by trying to hurry it; it would need a very open mind indeed in an Englishman to accept armor and succor with equanimity.3
The use of c instead of s in defense and offense is etymologically incorrect, but the English cling to it resolutely. Webster hazarded the guess that the change to c “was made or encouraged by printers, for the sake of avoiding the use of the old long s,” but this was obvious nonsense, for Langland and Gower wrote defence in
the Fourteenth Century, before there was any printing, and there is no evidence that printers ever objected to the long s. Gower also used offence, and so did Wyclif, but Lydgate preferred offense, and Chaucer used both spellings. The English use a c in pretence, but they have abandoned it for s in expense and recompense, so there is some hope that they may come over to the American way in other words soon or late. In those beginning with en- or in-, em- or im-, they prefer the e, but there is a good deal of inconsistency in their practise. Thus they use both to ensure and insurance, to endorse and indorsation. The NED prefers inquiry to enquiry, but enquiry seems to maintain a considerable popularity in England.1 Fowler recommends en- or em- in to embed, to empanel, to enclose, to encrust, endorsement and to entrench, but in the United States in- and im- are commoner. The English still use œe and œe in words in which, on this side of the ocean, simple e usually suffices, e.g., anœmia, anœsthetic, amœeba, œcology, fœtus, œdema, œsophagus, œcumenical, hœmorrhage, mediœval, encyclopœdia, gynœcology, diarrhœa and homœopathy, but there seems to be a movement toward the American e.2 The Encyclopœdia Britannica retains the œ in its own name, and clings to anœmia and anœsthetic, but it now spells hyena as we do, not as hyœna. Pediatrics, phenomenon, economy, pedagogy and penology are now spelled by all English writers as they are in the United States: once they were pœdiatrics, phœnomenon, œconomy, pœdagogy, and pœnology or pœnology.
George Philip Krapp, in 1925,3 described the spellings honour, centre, defence, waggon and traveller as rocks upon which the Englishman founds his pride, patriotism and faith. He might have added storey (of a house), for ever (two words), nought, grey, cheque, and pyjamas. Some of these rocks, alas, begin to show signs of faulting. When, in January, 1943, the British Foreign Office issued its first American White Paper, it made a graceful bow to Uncle Shylock by spelling honor and labor without the u.4 All the English authorities that I am aware of (save, of course, the Simplified Spelling Society) still hold out for centre, theatre, calibre, fibre, etc., and also for defence and offence, but the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary has been recommending wagon with one g for years past, and the Concise Oxford confesses that there is something to be said for it by entering the word as wag(g)on.5 The NED describes forever as “now chiefly U.S.,” but its quotations show that making one word of the more usual for ever has been favored by eminent British authors of the past, including Carlyle.1 So with naught. The NED calls it “now archaic” and prefers nought, but the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary ordains the American naught.
The amateur lexicographers who discuss and debate words in the English newspapers often go to the bat for storey, but the same high authority prefers story and is supported therein by Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford.2 The English, of course, have always used story to signify a tale, but they are loath to drop storey in the sense of a floor in a house. One of the arguments commonly heard in defense of it is that it serves to differentiate clearly the two meanings of the word, but how anyone could ever confuse a story in the Saturday Evening Post with one in the Al Smith Building is more than I can make out. All the classical British authors down to Dickens used story in the latter sense, but when Dickens wrote storey in “Barnaby Rudge” (1840) he was presently imitated by Harriet Beecher Stowe in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852). Webster, however, preferred story, and at home he has had his way. It has also been argued that the English nett with two t’s, meaning free from deduction, serves to distinguish it from net, meaning a meshed fabric, but the Concise Oxford and the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary declare for one t in both cases, and it seems to be prevailing.3
When a London edition of the American soldiers’ newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, was established during World War II, the English proofreader in the printing-office where it was printed corrected the American defense to the English defence every time he countered it in copy sent to the composing-room by the editors. “The proofreader,” said the London Times in discussing this insular sabotage, “knew with one part of his mind that defense, considering the paper in which the word was to appear, was right, but another, and more influential, part was insisting that the unaccustomed looking s should give way to the decent and familiar c, and the unconscious gained yet one more victory over its eternal opponent.”1 There was a time when any such exercise of maternal authority would have been received humbly by decent-minded Americans, but no more. Even learned men now defend the national spelling without apology, and in the austere American Journal of Philology, so long ago as 1937, Dr. Kemp Malone, professor of English at the Johns Hopkins, gave Sir William Craigie and Professor James R. Hulbert a sharp rap over the knuckles for using the English defence and offence in the DAE.2
Thornton, in his “American Glossary,”3 says that the reduction of two l’s to one in such words as traveller, jewellery, etc., began in the United States “about the year 1835,” and that it was “a gradual process.” There seems to be every reason for believing that Webster was responsible for it, though previous lexicographers, notably Walker and Lowth, had recommended it. In his “Compendious Dictionary” of 1806 he was content to record the spellings which then prevailed and still prevail in England, but in his “American Dictionary” of 1828 he not only gave the forms with one l, but defended them at length. The rule he set up was that when a final consonant appears in an accented syllable, it may be doubled in derivatives, but not when it appears in an unaccented syllable. Thus he arrived at jeweler, traveler, counselor, duelist, marvelous, etc., but permitted distiller, forgetting, appalling, installment, beginning, etc. Unhappily, he added some exceptions on dubious phonological or etymological grounds, e.g., metallurgy, chancellor and crystalline, and most of these have survived. But even the English have now dropped the redundant l from instalment. Webster did not include aluminum in his dictionary of 1806, for the metal was not discovered by Sir Humphry Davy until 1808. Davy at first proposed to call it alumium, but in 1812 he changed its name to aluminum. To this the Quarterly Review4 objected on the ground that aluminum lacked “a classical sound,” i.e., did not harmonize with the names of potassium, sodium, calcium, etc., and proposed that aluminium be used instead. This was done in England, but Webster decided for aluminum in his dictionary of 1828, and it has remained aluminum in the United States ever since. The English, however, still stick to aluminium,1 though the rule evoked by the Quarterly had been violated before 1812 by aurum (gold), tantalum, platinum and molybdenum, and has been violated since by lanthanum.2 But this is only incidentally a matter of spelling. It is really the English and American names for the metal that are different.
The distinction between practice the noun and to practise the verb seems to be breaking down. Webster 1934 apparently prefers practice in both cases, and so do the Government Printing Office3 and the American Medical Association Press,4 but other authorities show a considerable uncertainty. Both noun and verb descend from an earlier practic or practique, and until Shakespeare’s time both were spelled with an s and pronounced practice. The spelling with c apparently arose in imitation of justice, service, etc. Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, argued that “the distinction in spelling between the noun and the verb belongs properly only to words which are accented on the last syllable, as device and devise, where the verb has the sound of -ize.” The use of s in the verb, he went on, encouraged the uneducated to pronounce it practize. My impression is that the use of practise for both noun and verb is increasing in the United States, despite the weight of authority against it. Perhaps the general use of s in defense and offense has had some influence here. But all the English authorities continue to distinguish between practice the noun and to practise the verb.
In AL45 I exposed Christopher Morley to the contumely of 100% Americans by showing that he had used the English spelling, harbour, in the name of an American town in his “Thunder on the Left.”6 He replied by putting the blame on his publishers. His manuscript, he said, showed harbor throughout, but his publishers insiste
d on English spelling “in any book of which they hoped to sell sheets in London.”1 This plea in confession and avoidance touched me on a tender spot, for my own publisher, Knopf, once followed the same practise, so I offered Morley my sympathy and apologies.2 Knopf, indeed, went further: his first printing of his “Rules for the Guidance of Authors and Translators” actually set up the NED as his sole office authority, and ordained specifically such arrestingly English spellings as anaemia, arbour, behaviour, defence, favour, for ever, jewellery, mediaeval, mould, neighbour, plough, sceptic, to-day and woollen. To be sure, he permitted the American ax and program, but that, apparently, was only because the English had begun to tolerate them. Later on, however, he lowered the Union Jack and hoisted what English sailors call the Bedtick, and his current style-sheet sets up Webster 1934 as his office authority, with the NED to be followed only in books intended for English consumption. Most other American publishers do likewise, and English spelling is now rare in the United States, though it seems to hold its own in Canada, at least officially.3 But the -re is still commonly used in theatre in the stage world, even though it occasionally produces such grotesqueries as Center Theatre,4 and the Racquet and Tennis Club still survives in Park avenue, though the English themselves now prefer racket.5 A Vogue Tyre, fortified with vitamins, was announced in 1945,6 but tire continues to hold the American fort. Meanwhile, the following dispatch from the London correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor7 shows how the wind is blowing in England: