English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

The second word has varied between the spellings gauge and gage almost from its very entrance into the language in the fifteenth century. One gets the impression that there was a time when the latter was the preferred form. But with our present knowledge no statement of this sort can be made positively. “You shall not gage me by what we do to-night,” says Gratiano to Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. Modern editions, in defiance of the original, print gauge; for the folio and both the early quartos agree in having gage. Shakespeare’s use seems to be nothing but another illustration of his perverse preference for the so-called American spelling, or the American preference for Shakespeare’s spelling, just as one chooses to put it. Such an anomalous form as gauge proved at times too much for the tolerance of the orthographically much-enduring Englishman. Even him it has struck as peculiarly objectionable. So in the eighteenth century he set out to remove this particular blot upon the speech. But as he was in nowise tainted with the virus of reform, he exhibited the usual incurable aversion to having the spelling bear any relation to the pronunciation. Accordingly, he refused to take the natural as well as time-honored course of dropping the unnecessary and misleading u. Instead, he reversed the order of the letters of the digraph. The au became ua.

There have been in modern times men who advocated this method of spelling the word with all that fervor of faith which is so frequent an accompaniment of limited knowledge. On this point, for instance, the late Grant Allen felt called upon to bear his testimony. He was wont to make his novels a vehicle for conveying his linguistic views as well as those pertaining to religion, society, and politics. “Cynicus replied, with an ugly smile,” he wrote, “that nobody could ever guage anybody else’s nature.”[16] Then, with what might fairly be called an ugly smile of his own, Allen added in a parenthesis, “not gauge, a vile dictionary blunder.” There was no apparent reason for this lexical outburst; there was certainly no proof vouchsafed of the justice of the assertion. As the originals of the word were the Old French noun gauge and the verb gauger, it is hard to see how dictionaries could be held responsible for blunders, if blunders they were, which foreigners had perpetrated centuries before. There is, in truth, as little etymological justification for guage as there is phonetic for gauge. Gage, if it were not the most common way of spelling the word during the Elizabethan period, was certainly a common one. It is now, on the whole, the preferred form in the United States. Except in the nautical term weather-gage, the u is very generally retained in England. This is doubtless due to the desire of gratifying the ardent enthusiasm pervading the toiling millions of Great Britain for spellings which remind them of the Old French originals, from which were derived the words they employ.

In the case of the second vowel, the short e sound is properly shown in a large number of words of which let, felt, bed may be taken as representatives. These are all phonetically spelled. No educated man who saw them for the first time would have any hesitation about their pronunciation. Such a condition of things tends to chasten the feelings of that class of persons, not inconsiderable in number, who think it distinctively to the credit of the spelling that it should get as far away from the pronunciation as possible. They may be consoled, however, by the fact that this same sound is represented by a in any and many; by ea in a large number of words, such as health, endeavor, weather; by ai in said and again; by ay in says; by ei in heifer and nonpareil, and by eo in jeopard and leopard. There are those who give this short sound to leisure, rhyming it with pleasure, as did Milton,[17] instead of the more common long sound heard with us. Indeed, it is noticeable that preference is given to the former in the New Historical English Dictionary, though that pronunciation is absolutely ignored in some of the best American ones. The compilers of these last may have been touched by Walker’s pathetic plea for the long sound. “Leisure,” he wrote, “is sometimes pronounced as rhyming with pleasure; but in my opinion very improperly; for if it be allowed that custom is equally divided, we ought, in this case, to pronounce the diphthong long, as more expressive of the idea annexed to it.”

Any and many are now the only two words where a has the sound of short e. At one time it was heard in others, and was not unfrequently so represented in literature. It lingers, too, in some instances, and even, indeed, flourishes in spite of all the efforts of education to extirpate it. The present authorized pronunciation of catch, instead of ketch, is one of the comparatively few triumphs gained by the written word over the spoken. In days when devotion did not exist to orthography irrespective of the purpose it was designed to fulfil, the a assumed the spelling of e along with its sound. The earlier cag, for illustration, has been abandoned for the pure phonetic spelling keg. Apparently no serious harm has befallen the language in consequence. Even more distant from the remote Latin original, canalis, denoting the home of canis, ‘the dog,’ is the form kennel. This turns its back upon its primitive, and contents itself with simply representing the pronunciation. So much are we the creatures of habit and association in the matter of spelling that the most ardent believer in the doctrine of basing orthography upon derivation could in neither of the cases just mentioned be persuaded to revert to the form nearest to that in the original tongue.

The sound to which we give the name of “long e” belongs strictly, as has been pointed out, to i. A few of the words have also been given in which it still continues to be so indicated.[18] There are certain conditions under which it is represented by the simple letter itself. One is when it alone constitutes an accented syllable, as in equal, era, ecliptic. Another when it ends a monosyllable or an accented syllable, as in he, be, regal, cohesion. It appears finally with a good deal of frequency in words in which the sound of the simple vowel is lengthened by the artificial device of an appended mute e, as in theme, precede, complete. This last word, it may be said in passing, was once often spelled compleat. But as the letter itself represents much more usually the short sound of the vowel, the long sound has come to be indicated often by various digraphs. Of these, two are particularly prominent. One of them is ee, seen in a large number of words, such as meet, thee, proceed. The second digraph is ea, found in bean, meat, eagle, and a host of others. But the sound is not limited to these two combinations. It is represented by ei in receive, conceit, seize; by ie in believe, chief, fiend; by ey in key; by eo in people; by ay in quay; by æ in ægis, pæan, minutiæ; and several other words not fully naturalized.

Once, indeed, this last method of indicating the sound was far more common. In many instances it has been supplanted by the simple e. It was not till a comparatively late period that such spellings as era and ether drove out in great measure the once prevalent æra and æther. As æ has with us strictly but one sound, the change cannot, from all points of view, be deemed an improvement. In the case of an unknown word first brought to the attention, no one could now be positive, under certain conditions, whether the vowel should be treated as long or short. Take, for illustration, encyclopedia, once often spelled encyclopædia. He who sees the word for the first time is as likely to pronounce the antepenultimate syllable pĕd as pēd. He certainly could not tell from the orthography employed how this particular syllable should be sounded. Still, for much more than a century the tendency of the users of the language has been steadily directed toward the discarding of the æ in all cases. As long ago as 1755 Dr. Johnson, in his dictionary, recommended its disuse. “Æ,” he wrote, “is sometimes found in Latin words not completely naturalized or assimilated, but is by no means an English diphthong, and is more properly expressed by single e, as Cesar, Eneas.” Dr. Johnson was hostile to spelling reform; but he could venture to sanction a spelling of these two Latin proper names, at which even the average spelling reformer would shudder.

Fortunately for those of us who believe that spelling exists for the sake of indicating pronunciation, the sound of short i, one of the most common vowel sounds in the language, is almost always represented by the letter itself. The exceptions are few, comparatively speaking. The only sign to take its place in any body of words sufficiently numerous to be entitled a class is y, as seen in syntax, abyss, system, and other words, generally of Greek origin. The instances where different signs are employed are purely sporadic. Most of them, however, are for various reasons remarkable. The sound is represented by e in the name of the language we speak and of the country where it came into being. It is further represented by the e of pretty, by the o of women, by the u of busy and business, by the ie of sieve, and by the ui of guild and guilt and build. Once in the speech of most men, and now in that of many, it is given to the ee of been, and regularly to that combination as found in breeches.

Gild is a variant spelling of guild, and represents the earlier form. The ui of the two additional examples given ought to be a saddening spectacle to the devout believer in derivation as the basis of orthography. The original form of guilt was gylt. So it remained with various spellings—of which gilt was naturally the most common—until the sixteenth century. But there was also an allied form, gult. These two undoubtedly represented distinct and easily recognizable pronunciations of the word. They were at last combined so as to create a spelling, of the pronunciation of which no one could now be certain until he was told. This did not take place on any scale worth mentioning until the latter part of the sixteenth century, though the combination had occasionally been seen much earlier. Essentially the same thing can be said of build. It originally appeared in various ways, of which byld, bild, and buld were the prominent types. At the end of the fifteenth century the practice began of recognizing both forms by writing build or buyld. In a measure this doubtless represented a then existing shade of pronunciation. The spelling, once established, has continued since. No one ever thinks of pronouncing the u; perhaps no one has ever thought of it since the combination was formed. Yet there is no question that intense sorrow would be occasioned to a certain class of persons were they to be deprived of the pleasure of inserting in the word this useless and now orthoepically misleading letter.

The so-called “long i” ought strictly to be treated under the diphthongs; but as it is popularly associated in the minds of men with the simple vowel, its diphthongal sound will be considered at this point. Its most usual representative is the letter itself. This presents little difficulty in the pronunciation if the words end with a mute e, as in mine, desire, bite. The distinction between thin and thine, for instance, is then easily made. But when it comes to such words as mind, child, and pint on the one hand, and lift, gild, and tint on the other, there is nothing in the spelling to indicate with certainty how the i of these words should be sounded. As no general rule can be laid down, the pronunciation of each has in consequence to be learned by itself. This uncertainty was perhaps one of the causes which led to the transition of the diphthongal sound of i in wind to the short sound wĭnd, which so aroused the wrath of Dean Swift. But besides i the sound is also indicated by the y of type, ally, thyme, and a number of words derived from the Greek; by ie, especially in monosyllables, such as die, lie, and tie; by ye in the noun lye; by ei in height and sleight, and according to one method of pronunciation in either and neither. It is further represented by the ai of aisle, by the ey of eye, and by the uy of buy.

The third vowel now demands attention. Orthoepists contend that there is no genuine short o in English utterance. Without entering into a discussion of this point, it is sufficient to say that the two sounds of the letter, which are ordinarily designated as short and long, are represented respectively in the words not and note. The former sound remains fairly faithful to this vowel. It is hardly indicated by any other sign. The a of what, squad, quarry is about the only one to take its place. Very different is it with the long sound heard in note. This is far from confining itself to any single letter. In no small number of words it is represented by oa, as in boat, groan, coal; by oe, as in foe, toe, hoe; by ou, as in pour, mould, shoulder; or again by ow, as seen in crow, snow, show. Less common, but still to be met with, is this sound heard in the combination ew, as seen in sew; as well as in shew and strew, as these words were once regularly and are now occasionally spelled; in oo, as in door and floor; in eau, in beau, bureau, and flambeau; and in the eo of yeoman.