American Language Supplement 2 (65 page)

3
Renascence
, for example, was used by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy, 1869.

4
The NED says that this spelling was “prevalent in the 18th c. and not uncommon in the first half of the 19th c.” but is “now obs. exc. in legal documents.”

5
Published Dec. 26.

6
Saturday Review of Literature
, July 27, 1946, p. 10.

1
Topics of the Times, editorial page, Dec. 29, 1945.

2
Shaw’s Scheme Scouted, New York
Times
, editorial page, Jan. 14, 1946. Funk is a nephew of Dr. Isaac K. Funk (1839–1912), the publisher of the Standard Dictionary and the
Literary Digest
and one of the most ardent of the early supporters of the Simplified Spelling Board. But the younger Funk has never followed his uncle into the wilderness.

3
Bad Language, by William Barkley; London, 1945, p. 3. Anglic was launched by Zachrisson in the late 20s, and is described in detail in its inventor’s Anglic: a New Agreed Simplified English Spelling; final revised edition; Uppsala (Sweden), 1931. Zachrisson was professor of English at Uppsala. His proposal was reviewed somewhat tartly by Janet Rankin Aiken in Or Shall We Go Anglic?,
Bookman
, Feb. 1931, pp. 618–20, and by A. G. K[ennedy?] in
American Speech
, June, 1931, pp. 378–80. For a while he promoted it in two periodicals,
Anglic, an Edukaeshonal Revue
, and
Anglic Illustrated
. He was not the only foreigner to undertake the reform of English spelling. The scheme of the Germanized H. Darcy Power is described in AL4, pp. 404–05. In 1932 a Japanese named Y. Okakura published The Simplification of English Spelling in Tokyo.

1
And by Samuel Johnson. The word came in during the Fifteenth Century and was once spelled
publyke, publike, publique, publicte
and even
puplicke
and
puplik
. But
public
appeared in the statutes of Oxford University so early as 1645, and is to be found in Dryden, 1665. During the Eighteenth Century Jeremy Bentham, De Foe and Blackstone favored it. Noah Webster made it universal in the United States.

2
Barkley’s other publications on the subject include Ingglish,
Nineteenth Century and After
, May, 1938, pp. 602–15; The Two Englishes; London, 1941, and Article to End All Spelling Bees, London
Daily Express
, May 13, 1938. His colleagues of the
Daily Express
spoofed him gently by signing the last-named “by Wilyam Barkly.” “At least,” they added, “that is how our Mr. William Barkley ought to spell his name if he had his way.” The Two Englishes was noticed somewhat unfavorably in the London
Times Literary Supplement
, May 31, 1941, and Barkley replied on Aug. 30.

3
Supplement I, pp. 128–31.

4
The spelling-bee was promoted by Noah Webster’s famous blue-back speller, for many years the only book, save the Bible, in general circulation in the country. But the name
spelling-bee
, though it had congeners running back to the Revolutionary era, is not recorded until the 1870s. Before that, beginning in the 30s,
spelling-class, -match
or
-school
was used. Introduced by the radio, the
spelling-bee
had a brief but furious vogue in England in the late 1930s.

1
See his letter of Dec. 14, 1910, setting up the Carnegie Peace Fund, reprinted in the
Saturday Review of Literature
, June 1, 1946, pp. 20–21.

2
Reformers and Cranks,
Spelling
, July, 1892, pp. 231–32.

1
Spelling Reform From an Educational Point of View, reprinted in
Spelling
, May, 1887, p. 27.

2
Mr. Ed. C. Kruse, of Kansas City, tells me that in a Harmonized and Subject Reference New Testament, published at Delaware (N.J.) in 1904, the statement was made that “there are only thirty-three words in the English language pronounced as spelled.” Nothing could be more ridiculous.

3
For example, H. Johnstone Millar in the London
Times
, July 1, 1935. He said: “I still have correspondents from both Germany and France who hardly ever make spelling mistakes in the long letters with which they are kind enough to delight me.” See also Spelling Reform, London
Times Literary Supplement
, May 27, 1944, p. 259.

1
Eclectic Magazine
, April, 1882, p. 571.
Spelling
, Sept., 1894, pp. 314–17. So recently as 1947 a conference of German teachers, publishers, writers and printers was held at Berlin to draw up a new scheme of spelling reform. Prof. Wolfgang Steinitz, a member of the preparatory committee, advocated the use of
ai
alone instead of both
ai
and
ei, eu
instead of
äu, ss
instead of
sz, f
in place of
v
and
ph, ks
in place of
x
and
chs, k
in place of
ch
when the sound is
k
, and the omission of
h
after
r
. See
Word
, Aug., 1946, p. 157.

1
A Letter on Spelling Reform,
American Speech
, Oct., 1945, pp. 208–11. See also “Spanish is a Phonetic Language” – the quotation marks satirize the common delusion—, by Pierre Delattre,
Hispania
, Nov., 1945, pp. 511–16. Morrison’s paper was questioned in Some Comments on Spelling Reform, by Mario A. Pei,
American Speech
, April, 1946, pp. 129–31.

2
Literary Riots, Milwaukee
Sentinel
, editorial, July 6, 1923.

3
The high illiteracy rate in Russia in 1924 also facilitated reform there. An article on that reform in
Science
, by John P. Harrington, was summarized in
American Speech
, Oct., 1925, pp. 60–61.

1
Leonard Bloomfield says in Language; New York, 1933, p. 86 that Polish, Czech and Finnish are spelled phonetically, but inasmuch as he adds Spanish some doubts may linger.

2
This appears on p. 8 of a 16-page pamphlet of such banal confectionery, Rimes Without Reason, issued by the Spelling Reform Association; Lake Placid (N.Y.), n.d.

3
Harper’s Magazine
, Oct., 1852, p. 709.

4
I take this from the just cited pamphlet of the Spelling Reform Association, inside back cover.

1
Would Spell
Fish Ghotti
, New York
Times
, March 5, 1944. This was a report of a lecture at University College, London, by Daniel Jones.

2
Webster declared for
hickup
in his dictionary of 1806, and
hiccup
is now standard in both the United States and England.

3
This was one of the marvels of my own schooldays, but every boy or girl of nine, not half-witted, could spell it. It has been supplanted in medical terminology by
tuberculosis
.

4
American Speech
, Jan., 1927, p. 217 says that
ghoughphtheightteeaux
appeared on the menu of the Lake Placid Club June 22, 1926.

5
Why not
yrrh?

6
Sir Isaac Pitman’s Life and Labors, by Benn Pitman; Cincinnati, 1902, p. 83. I am indebted here to Mr. Ed. C. Kruse, of Kansas City.

7
The last three come from What a Language!, by J. Franklin Bradley,
English Journal
(College edition), April, 1938, pp. 349–50.

8
I take this from an article in the
Youth’s Companion
, reprinted in the
Writer’s Monthly
in 1925.

9
London, 1848, pp. 42–46.

10
I leave the discovery of the spellings parodied here to readers serving leisured terms in the jug. In the rest of the letter Gregory made due use of
colonel, dough, psalm, phthisic, myrrh
and
sapphire
. Some of his horrible examples have since acquired more rational spellings, at least in the United States,
e.g., accompt, drachm
and
gaol
.

1
AL4, pp. 381–87.

2
The full list is in AL4, pp. 401–02.

3
Recent Trends in English Linguistics,
Modern Language Quarterly
, June, 1940, p. 180. In the same paper, p. 181, Kennedy complains that “it is only quite recently that students of English have begun to make careful and detailed studies of important phases of the history of English spelling, and, to our shame, they have been foreign, chiefly German, students.”

1
Problems of Spelling Reform, S.P.E. Tract No.
LXIII
, 1944, p. 75.

2
e.g., to, too
and
two
.

3
The English Simplified Spelling Society turns both
male
and
mail
into
mael
and both
to sew
and
to sow
into
soe
.

4
Some Anomalies of Spelling,
S.P.E. Tract No. LIX
, 1942, p. 331.

5
Some Anomalies of Spelling, just cited, p. 332.

1
The Dictionary of New Spelling issued by the Simplified Spelling Society duly converts
cede
into
seed, recede
into
reseed
or
reesede
, both
cession
and
session
into
seshon
, and
fissure
into
fisher
or
fishuer
.

2
Problems of Spelling Reform, before cited, p. 57. The Dictionary of New Spelling converts
news
into
nuez
, and both
hues
and
hews
into
huez
.

3
This is true even when the writer is a learned man. I offer, for example, a few extracts from Albrecht von Haller and English Theology, by Lawrence Marsden Price, professor of German at the University of California,
Publications of the Modern Language Association
, Dec., 1926, pp. 942–54: “Shaftesbury … certainly
brot
the moral sense into prominence.… Haller used the same figure to express the same
thot
.… It is clear
enuf
.…”

4
The Dictionary of New Spelling makes them
aek, kof, enuf, wimen, tung, shuur
and
bery
. The Simplified Spelling Board’s Handbook of Simplified Spelling makes them
ak(e), cof, enuf, tung, sure
and
berri
. I can’t find any substitute for
women
on its list.

1
Simplified Spelling, London
Times Literary Supplement
, May 31, 1941.

2
Reforms in Spelling, London
Times
, Feb. 26, 1936. I am indebted here to the late F. H. Tyson, of Hong Kong. Said Louise Pound in British and American Pronunciation,
School Review
, June, 1915, p. 393: “If one nation and not another simplified its spelling, or if different systems for reform were adopted by the two, or if both speeches were spelled phonetically, what severance already exists would be emphasized. They would differ to the eye as they already do to the ear. The process once started might be more rapid if the anchor of fixed spelling were torn loose.”

3
On English Homophones,
S.P.E. Tract No. II
, 1919, p. 14.

1
Bridges listed a number of homonyms that have dropped out of English since Shakespeare’s time,
e.g., neat
(an ox),
pill
(to plunder),
rede
(counsel),
ear
(to plow) and
speed
(aid), and also a few that he believed were in process of passing out in 1919,
e.g., cruse, clime, gambol, mien, rheum, wile, wrack
and
teem
.

2
On English Homophones, before cited, p. 42. The most comprehensive study of homonyms is The Conflict of Homonyms in English, by Edna Rees Williams; New Haven, 1944. It is reviewed by Rudolph Willard in
American Speech
, Feb., 1945, pp. 61–62.

1
Sojers Shad Lite on Simpul Spallin, by Raphael Avellar, New York
World-Telegram
, Jan. 9, 1946.

2
Preparation of Copy for the Printer, prepared and published under the authority of F. A. Acland, King’s Printer; fifth edition; Ottawa, 1928.

3
A Note on Canadian Speech, by Morley Ayearst,
American Speech
, Oct., 1939, p. 232.

Names like
führer, Göring, Brüning
become
fuehrer, Goering, Bruening
and so forth, while less famous names like
Dürer
usually become simply
Durer. Cañon
has been Americanized as
canyon
, but
mañana
becomes
manana
, not
manyana
, and
Azaña
gets into most American print as
Azana
, not
Azanya
. To Spaniards and Latin Americans, French and Germans and Scandinavians the diacritical marks are integral parts of the words, and their omission is as offensive as a gross misspelling is to an educated American. Not many newspaper offices, however, have these marks in their matrix fonts, and not many more have the time to spot them in from the pi channel, except in extraordinary circumstances.
⁵