The Writer's Desk Book / Being a Reference Volume upon Questions of Punctuation, Capitalization, Spelling, Division of Words, Indention, Spacing, Italics, Abbreviations, Accents, Numerals, Faulty Diction, Letter Writing, Postal Regulations, Etc.

by William Dana Orcutt

SPELLING

THE difficulties which a writer encounters who has not firmly anchored himself to some recognized authority are many, and for those who have found this refuge to remain consistent is almost an impossibility. To the complications occasioned by variations in spelling certain words given authority by the different recognized dictionaries, there has been added more recently the bewilderment of the “reformed” spelling. To lay down hard-and-fast rules, therefore, would be an act of folly, but a safe guide to follow is to note that when two or more forms exist in any good usage, including good minority usage, or recent usage among bibliographers, scientists, and other systematic writers, the following rules are observed:

• (a) Prefer the form most correct etymologically
• (b) Prefer the shortest and simplest
• (c) Prefer the more phonetic form
• (d) Prefer English spelling rather than foreign.

With this as a basis, the following rules may be formulated: