English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

This last word was once spelled at times yoman and at times yeman. These forms doubtless represented the two ways of pronouncing it that existed. The Toxophilus of Roger Ascham, for illustration, was dedicated to the use “of the gentlemen and yomen of Englande.” But the sound of the vowel of the first syllable wavered for a long period between the long o and the short e. Ben Jonson, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, observed of the word that “it were truer written yĕman.” In the latter half of the eighteenth century Doctor Johnson tells us that the eo of this word “is sounded like e short.” This was the view taken by perhaps the larger number of orthoepists, who immediately followed him. In spite of them the o pronunciation has triumphed. It has shown, however, a tender consideration for its defeated rival by allowing it to lead a useless existence in the syllable in which, in the utterance of many, it once represented the actual sound.

The corresponding short and long sounds of u are seen in the words full and rule. But o, either singly, or in combination with other letters, is a favorite way of indicating both. The short sound of this vowel, which is far from common, is represented by the o of bosom, woman, wolf; by the oo of good, foot, stood; by the ou of could, would, should. On the other hand, the corresponding long sound is also represented by the o of move, prove, lose; by the oe of shoe and canoe; by the oo of too, root, fool; by ou in such words as uncouth, routine, youth, and a number of others derived generally from the French. There has been and still is something of a tendency on the part of the users of language to change the long sound of oo into its short one. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his poem of Urania, represents Learning as giving a lesson on propriety of pronunciation. Among other points considered, occurred the following observations:

She pardoned one, our classic city’s boast,
That said at Cambridge mŏst instead of mōst,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a rōot a rŏot.

This is perhaps as good an example as can be furnished of the waste of time and labor imposed by our present orthography in mastering distinctions of sounds in words when there is nothing in the sign employed to indicate which one is proper. To men not given up to slavish admiration of our present spelling, it would seem that Learning, instead of stamping her foot, would have been much more sensibly engaged in using her head to devise some method by which one and the same combination of letters should not be called upon to represent two distinct sounds in words so closely allied in form as foot and root; or distinct sounds in words with the same ending as toe and the shoe that covers it.

Another way of indicating the long sound of this vowel is either by the simple letter itself or by it in combination with other letters. For instance, it is represented by ue in such words as true, avenue, pursue; by ui in fruit, bruise, pursuit; by eu in neuter, deuce, pentateuch; by ew in brew, sewer, lewd; and by ieu in adieu, lieu, purlieu. But there is a peculiarity in the words containing this vowel, the consideration of which involves too much space to have little more than a reference here. We all recognize the difference of the sound of u as heard respectively in fortune and fortuitous, in annual and annuity, in volume and voluminous, in penury and penurious. In the first one of each of these pairs of words a y-element is introduced into the pronunciation; in the second the u has its absolutely pure long sound. Nor is this introduction of the y-element limited to the letter when used alone. We can find it exemplified in the ue of statue, value, tissue; in the eu of eulogy, euphony, Europe; in the ew of ewe, hew, few. This iotization, as it is called, is especially prevalent in words with the termination ture, as nature, furniture, sculpture, and agriculture. Now and then some one is heard giving, or attempting to give, to the u of this ending the pure sound; but such persons are usually regarded as possessed of “cultoor” and not culture.

The only word of this special class in which such a method of pronunciation can be said to have attained any recognition whatever is literature. The word itself is an old one in our speech. Once, however, it meant merely knowledge of literature. It did not mean that body of writings which constitute the production of a country or of a period. This sense of it, now the most common, is comparatively modern. The earliest instance I have chanced to meet of it—though it was doubtless used a good deal earlier—is in the correspondence of Southey and William Taylor of Norwich. There it occurs in a letter belonging to the year 1803, in which Southey tells his friend that he was expecting to undertake the editorship of a work dealing biographically and critically with “the history of English literature.”[19] Still, the pronunciation just mentioned of this word, differing as it does from the others of the same class, must even then have been occasionally heard. It was certainly made the subject of comment by Byron. He somewhere speaks—I have mislaid the reference—of a publisher who was in the habit of talking about literatoor. This peculiar pronunciation still comes at times from the lips of educated men.

But the regular long and short sounds of u yield in frequency of occurrence to that sound of it heard in but and burn. In common speech this has usurped with us the title of “short u.” By orthoepists it itself is divided into a long and a short sound, according as it is or is not followed by an r. Into it, as has been pointed out, the pronunciation of all unaccented syllables tends to run. Hence, in the case of these, there has come to exist the greatest possible variety of signs by which it is indicated. But even in the accented syllables there is a sufficient number of different ones to arrest the attention. Naturally the most usual representative of it is the vowel from which it has taken its name. But it is far from being limited to this sign. Its short sound is further represented by the o of such words as love, dove, and son; similarly by the ou of double, touch, and young; and by the oo of blood and flood. In vulgar speech soot would have to be added to the last two. Furthermore, it is represented by the sporadic example of the oe of does. The long sound runs through a still wider range of examples. Words containing it but denoted by various signs could be given by the score. It is represented by all the vowels except the first. The e of her, were, fern, stands for it. So does the i of fir, bird, virgin. So does the o of work, worship, worth. It is likewise largely represented by ea in such words as heard, learn, search; by ou in scourge, journal, flourish, and no small number of others containing this particular sign. In the single instance of tierce the sound is denoted also by ie. Were its use in unaccented syllables indicated, this list of signs would be largely extended. As it is, it will be seen that nine is the number employed in accented syllables to represent it.

So much for the simple vowels. We come now to the three diphthongs. The first of these, which is made up of the sound of the a of father and that of the e of they, has already been considered in treating what is called “long i.” Eight signs were given by which it was denoted.[20] This wealth of representation does not belong to the two other diphthongs. There are but two signs by which the sound of the second is indicated. These are the ou of south, found, about, and the ow of now, town, vowel. The third diphthong again has but two signs, the oi of boil, point, spoil, and the oy of boy, joy, destroy. Many of the words in which oi appears had once the pronunciation of the first mentioned diphthong. To the truth of this both the rymes of the poets and the assertions of the early orthoepists bear ample testimony. The statement is still further confirmed by the fact that the sound still lingers, or, rather, is prevalent, in the speech of the uneducated, the great conservators of past usage. The words given above as illustrative of this sign of the diphthong would have been pronounced by our fathers bīle, pīnt, spīle. So they are still pronounced by the illiterate. In one word, indeed, this sound has not passed entirely from the colloquial speech of the cultivated either in England or America. Roil is not merely heard as rīle, but is not unfrequently found so printed.

IV
THE DIGRAPHS

Up to this point we have been engaged in making manifest the numerous different ways in which the same vowel-sound is represented in our present orthography. Necessarily a reversal of the process would present an equally impressive showing, for examples just as impressive would make manifest how the same sign adds to the further confusion of English spelling by denoting a number of different vowel-sounds. But there is a limit to the endurance of the reader, to say nothing of that of the writer. Furthermore, there is little need of this addition in the case of the vowels. The facts about to be furnished will be more than sufficient to satisfy any demand for illustrations of the extent to which the same sign has been made to indicate a wide variety of different sounds, though in the sporadic instances the examples already given must be repeated. For we come now to the consideration of those combinations of letters, numerous in English spelling, to which has been given the name of digraphs. They are sometimes made up of a union of vowels, sometimes of a union of a vowel and a consonant, sometimes of a union of two consonants.