The American Language
write /check/ for /cheque/, or transpose the last letters in the /-re/
words.
Nevertheless, American spelling makes constant gains across the water,
and they more than offset the occasional fashions for English
spellings on this side. Schele de Vere, in 1867, consoled himself for
Webster's "arbitrarily imposed orthography" by predicting that it
could be "only temporary"--that, in the long run, "North America
depends exclusively on the mother-country for its models of
literature." But the event has blasted this prophecy and confidence,
for the English, despite their furious reluctance, have succumbed to
Webster more than once. The New English Dictionary, a monumental work,
shows many silent concessions, and quite as many open yieldings--for
example, in the case of /ax/, which is admitted to be "better than
/axe/ on every ground." Moreover, English usage tends to march ahead
of it, outstripping the liberalism of its editor, Sir James A. H.
Murray. In 1914, for example, Sir James was still protesting against
dropping the first /e/ from /judgement/, a characteristic Americanism,
but during the same year the Fowlers, in their Concise Oxford
Dictionary, put /judgment/ ahead of /judgement/; and two years earlier
the Authors' and Printers' Dictionary, edited by Horace Hart,[15] had
dropped /judgement/ altogether. Hart is Controller of the Oxford
University Press, and the Authors' and Printers' Dictionary is an
authority accepted by nearly all of the great English book publishers
and newspapers. Its last edition shows a great many American
spellings. For example, it recommends the use of /jail/ and /jailer/
in place [Pg257] of the English /gaol/ and /gaoler/, says that /ax/
is better than /axe/, drops the final /e/ from /asphalte/ and /forme/,
changes the /y/ to /i/ in /cyder/, /cypher/ and /syren/ and advocates
the same change in /tyre/, drops the redundant /t/ from /nett/,
changes /burthen/ to /burden/, spells /wagon/ with one /g/, prefers
/fuse/ to /fuze/, and takes the /e/ out of /storey/. "Rules for
Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford," also edited
by Hart (with the advice of Sir James Murray and Dr. Henry Bradley),
is another very influential English authority.[16] It gives its
imprimatur to /bark/ (a ship), /cipher/, /siren/, /jail/, /story/,
/tire/ and /wagon/, and even advocates /kilogram/ and /omelet/.
Finally, there is Cassell's English Dictionary.[17] It clings to the
/-our/ and /-re/ endings and to /annexe/, /waggon/ and /cheque/, but
it prefers /jail/ to /gaol/, /net/ to /nett/, /asphalt/ to /asphalte/
and /story/ to /storey/, and comes out flatly for /judgment/, /fuse/
and /siren/.
Current English spelling, like our own, shows a number of
uncertainties and inconsistencies, and some of them are undoubtedly
the result of American influences that have not yet become fully
effective. The lack of harmony in the /-our/ words, leading to such
discrepancies as /honorary/ and /honourable/, I have already
mentioned. The British Board of Trade, in attempting to fix the
spelling of various scientific terms, has often come to grief. Thus it
detaches the final /-me/ from /gramme/ in such compounds as /kilogram/
and /milligram/, but insists upon /gramme/ when the word stands alone.
In American usage /gram/ is now common, and scarcely challenged. All
the English authorities that I have consulted prefer /metre/ and
/calibre/ to the American /meter/ and /caliber/.[18] They also support
the /ae/ in such words as /aetiology/, /aesthetics/, /mediaeval/ and
/anaemia/, and the /oe/ in /oesophagus/, [Pg258] /manoeuvre/ and
/diarrhoea/. They also cling to such forms as /mollusc/, /kerb/,
/pyjamas/ and /ostler/, and to the use of /x/ instead of /ct/ in
/connexion/ and /inflexion/. The Authors' and Printers' Dictionary
admits the American /curb/, but says that the English /kerb/ is more
common. It gives /barque/, /plough/ and /fount/, but grants that
/bark/, /plow/ and /font/ are good in America. As between /inquiry/
and /enquiry/, it prefers the American /inquiry/ to the English
/enquiry/, but it rejects the American /inclose/ and /indorse/ in
favor of the English /enclose/ and /endorse/.[19] Here American
spelling has driven in a salient, but has yet to take the whole
position. A number of spellings, nearly all American, are trembling on
the brink of acceptance in both countries. Among them is /rime/ (for
/rhyme/). This spelling was correct in England until about 1530, but
its recent revival was of American origin. It is accepted by the
Oxford Dictionary and by the editors of the Cambridge History of
English Literature, but it seldom appears in an English journal. The
same may be said of /grewsome/. It has got a footing in both
countries, but the weight of English opinion is still against it.
/Develop/ (instead of /develope/) has gone further in both countries.
So has /engulf/, for /engulph/. So has /gipsy/ for /gypsy/.
American imitation of English orthography has two impulses behind it.
First, there is the colonial spirit, the desire to pass as English--in
brief, mere affectation. Secondly, there is the wish among printers,
chiefly of books and periodicals, to reach a compromise spelling
acceptable in both countries, thus avoiding expensive revisions in
case of republication in England.[20] [Pg259] The first influence
need not detain us. It is chiefly visible among folk of fashionable
pretensions, and is not widespread. At Bar Harbor, in Maine, some of
the summer residents are at great pains to put /harbour/ instead of
/harbor/ on their stationery, but the local postmaster still continues
to stamp all mail /Bar Harbor/, the legal name of the place. In the
same way American haberdashers sometimes advertise /pyjamas/ instead
of /pajamas/, just as they advertise /braces/ instead of /suspenders/
and /vests/ instead of /undershirts/. But this benign folly does not
go very far. Beyond occasionally clinging to the /-re/ ending in words
of the /theatre/ group, all American newspapers and magazines employ
the native orthography, and it would be quite as startling to
encounter /honour/ or /jewellery/ in one of them as it would be to
encounter /gaol/ or /waggon/. Even the most fashionable jewelers in
Fifth avenue still deal in /jewelry/, not in /jewellery/.
The second influence is of more effect and importance. In the days
before the copyright treaty between England and the United States, one
of the standing arguments against it among the English was based upon
the fear that it would flood England with books set up in America, and
so work a corruption of English spelling.[21] This fear, as we have
seen, had a certain plausibility; there is not the slightest doubt
that American books and American magazines have done valiant
missionary service for American orthography. But English conservatism
still holds out stoutly enough to force American printers to certain
compromises. When a book is designed for circulation in both countries
it is common for the publisher to instruct the printer to employ
"English spelling." This English spelling, at the Riverside Press,[22]
embraces all the /-our/ endings and the following further forms:
cheque
chequered
connexion
dreamt
faggot
forgather
forgo
grey
inflexion
jewellery
leapt
premises (in logic)
waggon
It will be noted that /gaol/, /tyre/, /storey/, /kerb/, /asphalte/,
/annexe/, /ostler/, /mollusc/ and /pyjamas/ are not listed, nor are
the words ending in /-re/. These and their like constitute the English
contribution to the compromise. Two other great American book presses,
that of the Macmillan Company[23] and that of the J. S. Cushing
Company,[24] add /gaol/ and /storey/ to the list, and also /behove/,
/briar/, /drily/, /enquire/, /gaiety/, /gipsy/, /instal/, /judgement/,
/lacquey/, /moustache/, /nought/, /pigmy/, /postillion/, /reflexion/,
/shily/, /slily/, /staunch/ and /verandah/. Here they go too far, for,
as we have seen, the English themselves have begun to abandon /briar/,
/enquire/ and /judgement/. Moreover, /lacquey/ is going out over
there, and /gipsy/ is not English, but American. The Riverside Press,
even in books intended only for America, prefers certain English
forms, among them, /anaemia/, /axe/, /mediaeval/, /mould/, /plough/,
/programme/ and /quartette/, but in compensation it stands by such
typical Americanisms as /caliber/, /calk/, /center/, /cozy/,
/defense/, /foregather/, /gray/, /hemorrhage/, /luster/, /maneuver/,
/mustache/, /theater/ and /woolen/. The Government Printing Office at
Washington follows Webster's New International Dictionary,[25] which
supports most of the innovations of Webster himself. This dictionary
is the authority in perhaps a majority of American printing offices,
with the Standard and the Century supporting it. The latter two also
follow Webster, notably in his /-er/ [Pg261] endings and in his
substitution of /s/ for /c/ in words of the /defense/ class. The
Worcester Dictionary is the sole exponent of English spelling in
general circulation in the United States. It remains faithful to most
of the /-re/ endings, and to /manoeuvre/, /gramme/, /plough/,
/sceptic/, /woollen/, /axe/ and many other English forms. But even
Worcester favors such characteristic American spellings as /behoove/,
/brier/, /caliber/, /checkered/, /dryly/, /jail/ and /wagon/.
§ 5
/Simplified Spelling/--The current movement toward a general reform of
English-American spelling is of American origin, and its chief
supporters are Americans today. Its actual father was Webster, for it
was the long controversy over his simplified spellings that brought
the dons of the American Philological Association to a serious
investigation of the subject. In 1875 they appointed a committee to
inquire into the possibility of reform, and in 1876 this committee
reported favorably. During the same year there was an International
Convention for the Amendment of English Orthography at Philadelphia,
with several delegates from England present, and out of it grew the
Spelling Reform Association.[26] In 1878 a committee of American
philologists began preparing a list of proposed new spellings, and two
years later the Philological Society of England joined in the work. In
1883 a joint manifesto was issued, recommending various general
simplifications. In 1886 the American Philological Association issued
independently a list of recommendations affecting about 3,500 words,
and falling under ten headings. Practically all of the changes
proposed had been put forward 80 years before by Webster, and some of
them had entered into unquestioned American usage in the meantime,
/e. g./, the deletion of the /u/ from the /-our/ words, the substitution
of [Pg262] /er/ for /re/ at the end of words, the reduction of
/traveller/ to /traveler/, and the substitution of /z/ for /s/
wherever phonetically demanded, as in /advertize/ and /cozy/.
The trouble with the others was that they were either too uncouth to
be adopted without a struggle or likely to cause errors in
pronunciation. To the first class belonged /tung/ for /tongue/, /ruf/
for /rough/, /batl/ for /battle/ and /abuv/ for /above/, and to the
second such forms as /cach/ for /catch/ and /troble/ for /trouble/.
The result was that the whole reform received a set-back: the public
dismissed the industrious professors as a pack of dreamers. Twelve
years later the National Education Association revived the movement
with a proposal that a beginning be made with a very short list of
reformed spellings, and nominated the following by way of experiment:
/tho/, /altho/, /thru/, /thruout/, /thoro/, /thoroly/, /thorofare/,
/program/, /prolog/, /catalog/, /pedagog/ and /decalog/. This scheme
of gradual changes was sound in principle, and in a short time at