The second obstacle lies in the fact that many of the commonest words in the language have traditional spellings that could not be changed without offending the eye and causing confusion. “No one will deny,” says Craigie, “that … ake, coff, enuff, enny, wimmen, tung, shure and berry are better representation of the sounds of ache, cough, enough, any, women, tongue, sure and bury than the conventional spellings. The trouble is that to all who have a fair knowledge of orthography such forms, instead of being recognized as improvements, suggest only ignorance and illiteracy,3 since they are such as would occur to anyone whose schooling had been decidedly imperfect.”4 A third difficulty lies in the fact that many words are pronounced differently in England and the United States, and even in different parts of the same country. There is, for example, schedule, which would have to be shedyul or something of the sort in England and skedyul in America. Again, there is ci in such words as association, which would be shy in England and si in Scotland.1 Said George Sampson, a retired inspector of school for the London County Council and formerly honorary secretary of the English Association:
Radical reform in spelling means the exact phonetic representation of pronunciation. But whose pronunciation? There is Scottish English, Irish English, Welsh English, and American English of numerous kinds. There is even English English, of which I will offer some specimens.
I was recently talking to some eminent persons about education. One spoke of “the grät (ä as in German) vahyoo of the clahssics,” and mentioned “Ahthuns”; another spoke of “the greet velyiew of the clessics,” and mentioned “Ethins”; a third thought it “a gret shem that the univahsities should conten so mach infairior matairiel.” And the other day a lady told me she was “afred bebby hed a pen and mǎst hev gert a curled.”
Well, there are a few specimens of “educated English.” Again I ask, Whose pronunciation is to be represented in any nu spelling?2
The Dictionary of New Spelling conceals this difficulty by disregarding many of the pronunciations of standard English. Thus it renders iron as iern, door as dor and carve as karv, though the late Robert Bridges showed so long ago as 1919 that iron has become ion in England, door has become daw, and both carve and calve have become caa’v.3 Bridges listed many other pronunciations that must strike an American not of the Southern Tidewater or the Boston area as strange, e.g., board, bored and bawd as bawd; hoar, whore and haw as haw; cork and caulk as cawk, lorn and lawn as lawn, source and sauce as sauce, stalk and stork as stawk, taut, tort and taught as taut, and saw, soar and sore as saw. He also added broach and brooch, desert and dessert, whoop and hoop, geyser and gazer, verdure and verger, reach and retch, and tray and trait as homonyms, though they are certainly not so in General American. His search of the NED revealed 505 homonyms altogether, embracing 1075 words, but many of his pairs included words seldom encountered, e.g., acta-actor, wot-what, glose-glows, pyx-picks, cozencousin, plaice-place, and chase (grove)-chase (printer’s). He showed that phonetic spelling would greatly increase their number, but he professed, though without any show of surety, to be undaunted by that fact, for he argued that in the case of the average man, “as he learns new words, there will be a tendency, if not a necessity, for him to lose hold of a corresponding number of his old words, and the words that will first drop out will be those with which he had hitherto been uncomfortable, and among those words will be the words of ambiguous meaning.” But all that this comes to is the doctrine that an increase in homonyms would lead to a corresponding impoverishment of the vocabulary.1
Though himself an advocate of a simplified spelling scheme, Bridges ended with this anticipation of Craigie:
The complexity of [phonetic spelling] has driven off public sympathy and dashed the confidence of scholars, withdrawing thereby some of the wholesome checks that common sense might else have imposed on its practical exponents. The experts thus left to themselves, in despair of any satisfactory solution, are likely enough to adopt the simplifications most agreeable to their present ideas, and measure the utility of such simplifications by the accidental conveniences of their own science, independently of other considerations.2
Some years ago the London Observer sought to resolve the matter by advocating free trade in spelling. If a word is spelled so that it is instantly recognizable, what difference does it make, after all, how it is spelled? George Bernard Shaw, despite his puckish advocacy, in his hortatory moments, of an entirely new and impossible alphabet, was content to use the present alphabet in a free and easy manner in his ordinary writing, and I have myself, in my humbler way, found the same system to be comfortable and rewarding. It is, in fact, followed by the overwhelming majority of other Americanos, and by multitudes in the effete United Kingdom, and it works very well. Everyone can understand a policeman when he turns in a report of a larsensy or an applicant for a job when he alleges that he is a licensed chuffer, shoffer or even shofar.1 “Correct” spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.
In Canada English spelling survives more or less, supported by the authority of the King’s Printer,2 but many American forms are in common use in the newspapers, e.g., curb and tire.3 Indeed, the Printer himself sanctions jail, aluminum, forever, net, program, story, wagon and even alright, though he clings tightly to draughtsman, mould, whisky, and the -our and -re endings.
1 Its history is told in some detail in Handbook of Simplified Spelling, by Henry Gallup Paine; New York, 1920, pp. 12–32. Among its original members were Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century; Justice David J. Brewer, of the Supreme Court of the United States; Isaac K. Funk, editor of the Standard Dictionary; Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain); William T. Harris, U. S. commissioner of education; Henry Holt, the publisher; Thomas R. Lounsbury, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William James, Melvil Dewey and Brander Matthews. Mark Twain at first poked fun at the movement, but was later converted. See The Dizzy Rise (and Ensuing Bust) of Simplified Spelling, by H. L. Mencken, New Yorker, March 7, 1936. What remains of the Simplified Spelling Board is now denizened at Lake Placid, N. Y., with Godfrey Dewey, son of Melvil, in charge and its name changed to Simpler Spelling Association.
2 Association Frequencies of the Vowel Sounds and Vowel Letters in the Conventional American-English Spelling; Chicago, 1941; second ed., Chicago, 1942.
3 Among the Spelling Reformers, American Speech, Oct., 1931, pp. 54–57.
1 Fonetik Crthografi: Krestqmathi, prejzentd widh komplimnts v dh Northwest Printery, 4617 w Grace str Chicago 41, Ills Nov 1944 – a pamphlet of twelve pages.
1 AL4, p. 405.
2 He served three terms in the Senate, from 1907 to 1925. Born in 1856, he was 85 years old when he set up as a spelling reformer. He died July 20, 1947.
3 Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 78th Congress, Nov. 7, 1945; Washington, 1945, p. 6.
4 The Global Alphabet, by Hon. Robert L. Owen, Presented by Mr. Thomas of Oklahoma; Senate Document No. 49, 78th Congress, 1st Session; Washington, 1943, pp. 8 and 9.
5 The precise number is uncertain. In another pamphlet, also entitled The Global Alphabet, Senate Document No. 133, 78th Congress, 1st Session, Oct. 18, 1943, p. 1, the hon. gentleman mentioned “forms or letters representing 18 consonant sounds and 15 vowel sounds, each of which represents one and only one sound, approximately,” but in a third pamphlet, also of the same title, Senate Document No. 250, 78th Congress, 2nd Session, Dec. 4, 1944, he spoke of “18 consonants, 18 vowel sounds and 6 compound consonants,” and in the Hearing just mentioned, p. 5, he showed 44 characters.
6 See, for example, the Record for Dec. 15, 1942, p. A4647; Feb. 15, 1944, p. A795; Feb. 1, 1945, p. A410; March 22, 1945, p. A1498; April 5, 1945, pp. A1790–91; April 17, 1945, pp. 3455–56; Oct. 10, 1945, p. A4578; June 21, 1946, pp. A3842–43; Aug. 1, 1946, p. A4989, and Jan. 23, 1947, pp. A264–66. His chief supporter is the Hon. A. S. Mike Monroney, of Oklahoma, for whom s
ee American Speech, April, 1946, p. 85, n. 9.
1 Amxrikai Spek; Nu Yark, 1937.
2 An American Orthografi; Brooklyn, 1925.
3 April, 1926, p. 398
1 Better Spelling in a Post-War World; Athens (Ga.), April, 1946.
2 AL4, p. 404.
3 Phonetize English Spelling, April, pp. 60–61.
4 Private communication, Dec. 9, 1938.
5 Fun With Phoney Spelling; New York, 1941.
1 The Nixon System of E. Z. Speling; Philadelphia, n.d.
2 Practical Phonetic English, Words, May, 1936, pp. 8–9.
1 A large number of American books and articles proposing schemes of reformed spelling are listed in Kennedy, pp. 46–49, 293–97 and 430–32. Some items that Kennedy overlooked are in Krapp, Vol. I, p. 330. Many more might be added. So long ago as 1850 a Wecli Fonetic Advocat began to appear in “Sinsinati,” and in 1852 the projectors thereof published a Fonetic Olmanac and Rejistur ov Speling and Ritin Reform. Not a few of the pre-Civil War reformers in other fields also toyed with simplified spelling. It was used, for example, in an anti-slavery monthly called Leterz Political & Theological, published at “Winooski Fallz,” Vt., by Jon R. Forest from Jan., 1857 onward. Ten years earlier the Anglo Sacsun began to appear, and W. C. Bryant noticed it favorably in the New York Evening Post, June 29, 1848. Mr. Charles J. Lovell tells me that there is a partial file in the Boston Public Library. In 1852 some anonymous reformer brought out a Furst Fonetic Redur in Boston. In Aug., 1861 the Rev. B. M. Genung published a plea for a reform in spelling under the title of Orthography of Our Language in the Ladies’ Repository (Cincinnati), pp. 486–87.
1 He also adds houn!
2 See his English Spelling, Modern Language Journal, May, 1941, pp. 628–32. The scheme of Berg is expounded in Scientific Spelling Formula; Seattle, 1936; that of Hayden in Phonetic Spelling; High Point (N.C.), 1944; that of Clark in A Dicshunary of Reformed and Simplified Spelling; New Milford (Conn.), 1914, and that of Laubach in Wanted: a Global Alphabet, National Education Association Journal, Jan., 1947, pp. 28–29. I do not attempt a complete bibliography. Such works often appear as pamphlets in remote places, and others exist only in MS.
3 p. 406.
1 Lacky, Pass the Hemloc, editorial, March 26, 1939.
2 Simplified Spelling, editorial, April 9, 1939.
3 To Phyllis Who Might Spell It Phreight, editorial. I am indebted here to Mr. Arthur R. Atkinson.
4 Stanley Walker reported in the New Yorker, April 6, 1946, p. 87, that its readers were still showing signs of annoyance with frate. The Tribune comes by its weakness for phonetic spelling by inheritance. Its great editor, Joseph Medill (1823–1899), was a member of the council of the Spelling Reform Association.
5 Foto, Baltimore Evening Sun, May 16, 1936, p. 6. The Evening Suv argued for foto, but has never adopted it. See The Wayward Press, New Yorker, June 8, 1946, p. 90. Fone has got to England, and was denounced by a Captain Richard Pilkington in the London Times, June 7, 1943. On June 10 it was defended by George Bernard Shaw. American Speech reported fotographer on a Fifth avenue sign, April, 1936, p. 160. On Jan. 13, 1890, the Hon. Frank Lawler, of Illinois, introduced in the House of Representatives a resolution ordaining the use of fotograf, alfabet, filosofy and paragraf in public documents, but it died in committee. It was supported by Alexander Melville Bell (father of the inventor of the telephone); William T. Harris, then United States commissioner of education, and F. A. March, but opposed by A. R. Spofford, librarian of Congress. Allen Walker Read says in Amphi-Atlantic English, English Studies, Oct., 1935, p. 175, that when spelling reform was revived in Congress in 1906 “congressmen of both parties expressed subserviency to English models” and it died again.
1 The Kraze for K, American Speech, Oct., 1925, pp. 43–44. In Nineteenth-Century Humor, American Speech, Aug., 1927, p. 460, Richmond P. Bond recalled that The Harp of a Thousand Strings, by S. P. Avery, published in New York in 1858, was described on its title page as “konceived, compiled and komically koncocted … and abetted by over 200 kurious kutz.” K was the Greek kappa. The Romans changed it to c. Its subsequent history in the principal European languages is recounted in NED, Vol. V, p. 647. The kraze for k continues. In The Coming of the Big Freeze, New Yorker, Sept. 14, 1946, p. 72, E. J. Kahn, Jr., listed Kol-Pak and Kold-Kist among the new brand names of frozen foods, and on Sept. 28, 1946, pp. 19–20, the New Yorker added Filto-Kleen filters and Kellogg Koiled Kords (“Make ironing quicker, easier”).
2 Word-Coinage and Modern Trade-Names, Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Part I, 1913, pp. 29–41, and Spelling Manipulation and Present-Day Advertising, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part VI, 1923, pp. 226–32.
1 Why Not U for You?, Oct., 1929, pp. 24–26.
2 Drivurself and u-dryvit had been reported from Cambridge, Mass., by Phillips Barry, American Speech, Sept., 1927, p. 514.
3 American Speech, Dec., 1941, p. 277.
4 See Supplement I, p. 327.
5 Showing Hollywood, by Cecilia Ager, Variety, July 23, 1930.
6 Notes of a Peninsula Commuter, by Joseph Burton Vasché, American Speech, Feb., 1940, p. 54.
7 See AL4, p. 407.
8 Dec., p. 374.
9 The Value of English Linguistics to the Teacher, American Speech, Nov., p. 100.
10 Saving a Letter, Liverpool Daily Post, July 27, 1944. I am indebted for this to Mr. P. E. Cleator.
11 Obituary of Lora Valedon, Sept. 18, 1946, p. 34.
1 Nation, Aug. 15, 1942, p. 133.
2 Journal of the American Medical Association, Nov. 13, 1943, p. 54 (advertising section).
3 Baltimore Sun, Aug. 1, p. 16, col. 2.
4 American Speech, Oct., 1936, p. 274.
5 American Speech, Oct., p. 70.
6 Sept. 2, p. 19.
7 College English, April, 1943, p. 438, in answer to a protest against nu, glo, blu, sox, lite, etc., remarked sagely that “their very unconventionality gives them a commercial value; that is to say, they call attention to themselves because they are not what the reader expects.”
8 Sir George was a Scotsman, and also laid out a lot of money on the National Temperance Federation. He was knighted in 1918. His firm built the Lusitania.
1 New Spelling, by Walter Ripman and William Archer; London, 1940, p. 3.
2 The Ur-Pitman was himself an ardent spelling reformer. In fact, the movement in England was launched by an article he printed in his stenographic magazine, the Phonotypic Journal, in Jan., 1843. See On Early English Pronunciation, by Alexander J. Ellis; London, 1874, Vol. IV, p. 1182. His phonetic alphabet included letters borrowed from the Greek and others of his own design. In 1849 he printed the Book of Psalms in it, and during the years following he brought out other books and pamphlets in it, but in his old age he abandoned it for the easier scheme of the Simplified Spelling Society. His publishing firm, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., is still the Society’s official publisher. He was knighted for his services to stenography in 1894. Like all other reformers, he was unsatisfied by one arcanum, and also embraced vegetarianism and teetotalism. There are lives of him by his younger brother, Benn (1822–1911), and by Alfred Baker, and a good short account of him is in The Man Who Wrote by Sound, London Sunday Express, Dec. 30, 1940.
1 London Times, March 2, 1939.
2 But for some reason unknown it uses erbaen for urbane. Such inconsistencies are in all known simplified spelling systems.
3 New Spelling, before cited, p. 90.
1 The Society published a Dictionary of New Spelling, compiled by Walter Ripman and including about 18,600 words, in 1941. After it received the Hunter trust money it greatly extended its list of publications, which now includes, inter alia, A Short Account of New Spelling; London, 1940; A Spesimen ov Nue Speling; Wallsend-upon-Tyne, 1940; Dhe Etimolojokal Arguement, by William Archer; London, 1941; Dhe Eesthetik Arguement, by the same; London, 1941; I Hav Lurnt to Spel, by the same; London, 1941; On the History of Spelling, by W. W. Skeat; London, 1941; The Best Method of
Teaching Children to Read and Write; London, 1942; Dhe Proez and Konz ov Rashonal Speling; London, 1942; A Breef History of Inglish Speling; London, 1942; Braeking dhe Spel; London, 1942; Dhe Star, by H. G. Wells; London, 1942; How to Teach the New Spelling, by Walter Ripman; London, 1942; Dhe Fonetik Aspekt ov Speling Reform by Daniel Jones; London, 1942, and Views on Spelling Reform, by Ripman and others; London, 1944. Some of these are reprints of earlier publications. About half bear the imprint “Sur Isaac Pitman & Sunz, Ltd., London.” I am indebted for information about the Society and its doings to Mr. Bernard C. Wrenick, of Walton-on-Thames, a member of its committee. Other members are Ripman and Dr. Jones. Its president, in 1946, was Gilbert Murray, formerly regius professor of Greek at Oxford.
2 AL4, pp. 397–98.
3 Comus, 1634, l. 41; Paradise Lost, 1667, I, l. 246. He was imitated by Coleridge, Lamb and Tennyson.
4 Spare Hours: Second Series, by John Taylor Brown; Boston, 1867, p. 346.
1 A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue; a letter to the Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, London, Feb. 22, 1711/12. In this he proposed that an academy be set up for “ascertaining and fixing our language for ever.” His position is discussed at length in Wyld, pp. 158–61.
2 This is on the testimony of Southey’s son-in-law, in his notes to The Doctor. Tho, in fact, had been used by the before-mentioned Ormin, c. 1200. It is to be found in John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, 1642; in Shaftesbury, 1711, and in a Spectator paper by Addison, No. 557, 1714, and Benjamin Franklin, though a purist, used it in a letter to Webster, 1789.
3 Renascence, for example, was used by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy, 1869.
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