Questions at Issue in Our English Speech

by Edwin W. Bowen

[5] See [A Question of Preference in English Spelling].

[6] See [Briticisms vs. Americanisms].

[7] Professor T. R. Lounsbury, History of the English Language. p. 267.

A QUESTION OF PREFERENCE IN ENGLISH SPELLING.

We little think when we read or write that the words we employ are not precisely the same as those which have been in use in our mother-tongue from time immemorial. We are born into the language, so to say, and the words of our vocabulary we regard as part and parcel of our rich heritage of American liberty. Yet even the words of our English speech, like many of the institutions and customs of our Anglo-Saxon civilization, have a long history back of them, showing traces here and there of the various stages of development they have passed through. The words we use to-day are not identical in form or meaning with those employed by our forebears of the generation of Chaucer or even of the generation of Shakespeare. The forms of our English words have undergone considerable change since that remote period in the development of our mother-tongue. English spelling is far different from what it was in Alfred’s, or Chaucer’s time.

Before the invention of printing, those who spoke and wrote the English language seem to have been at liberty to spell as they chose. Their mental composure was not disturbed by the annoying suspicion that their spelling was not according to the norm prescribed by the dictionary. In those good old days there was no acknowledged criterion such as the “Century,” or “Webster,” or “Worcester”; and writers had no final appeal in the matter of orthography as present-day writers have. Since there was no standard authority on orthography to which all polite society had to conform, the authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were untrammeled by tradition and were free to spell as they pleased. Every writer was a law unto himself and followed the dictates of his own orthographical conscience, with no dictionary to molest or make him afraid. We find an allusion to this delightful sense of freedom in the comment which a well-known American humorist made upon Chaucer, that well of English undefiled from which so many modern writers have drunk copious draughts of inspiration. “Chaucer,” said he quaintly, “may have been a fine poet, but he was a —— poor speller.”

The diffusion of the art of printing and the consequent necessity for a uniform orthography gradually curtailed this liberty, and then the day of the dictionary dawned. The dictionary is a democratic invention called into being by the rise of the great middle class of society, which desired to become familiar with the practises of polite circles. Lexicographers came forward to supply the desired information. Authors not “to the mannor born,” and therefore unacquainted with courtly usage, when moved to write, felt that they must conform to the standards set up by the lexicographers, who claimed to give the received usage, the jus et norma scribendi. Before the epoch of dictionaries it appears not to have made the slightest difference whether a writer spelled the word recede, for example, according to the present accepted orthography, or whether he spelled it receed, receede, recede or recead, all of which forms are found in manuscripts of a few centuries ago. Some of these orthographic variations lingered into the eighteenth century, though English spelling had probably become stereotyped at least a century before this date. Yet the establishment of the spelling was naturally a gradual process, and some words vacillated a long time and never really became fixed. Of this more anon. Proper names showed considerable latitude of spelling. Men of the eminence of Spenser, rare Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, for example, are said to have had no fixed practise of spelling their names, but wrote them in a variety of ways.

The lack of a standard authority of orthography necessarily gave rise to much confusion and disorder in English spelling. This confusion is reflected even yet in the present chaotic and unphonetic spelling of our language. Few tongues are more unphonetic than the English. This fact is recognized and efforts have been made to bring our spelling into closer conformity with our pronunciation. Philological societies on both sides of the Atlantic have been trying for the last quarter of a century, at least, to reform English spelling; but only meager success has been achieved thus far.

The proposed reforms have been of two kinds, and they have varying aims. One recommended by the extreme phonetists, is a reform which contemplates a revision and enlargement of our alphabet. This would result in a radical transformation of our written speech, and chiefly for this reason it has found few ardent advocates. It may be briefly described as a reform of the language. The other reform is less revolutionary and contemplates mainly a simplification of our present spelling, such as the omission of silent letters, the substitution of “f” for “ph” as in phonetics (fonetics) and of “t” for final “d” as in equipped (equipt) and similar emendations. Of the two kinds of reform the latter has, manifestly, more to commend it to popular favor. This kind of reform may be termed a reform in the language.

The public concedes the unphonetic character of English orthography, but the conservatism of the Anglo-Saxon race is so binding that the people are slow to adopt even the slightest recommendations of the philological societies. A few American journals have had the courage to adopt certain emended spellings, such as thru (through), tho (though), catalog (catalogue) and the like, but the majority of our periodicals show by their practise very meager approval of spelling-reform. No publisher, so far as known to the writer, has ventured as yet to use the emended spelling in a book issued by his firm. Yet all admit the need of spelling-reform and believe that, if adopted, it would save the coming generation a vast deal of humdrum work in acquiring an accurate knowledge of English orthography.