English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

If one should bring me the report
That thou hadst touched the land to-day,
And I went down unto the quay,
And found thee lying in the port.

It certainly looks as if in this passage Tennyson had set out to make the pronunciation conform to the spelling.

Our next digraph is ea. This has a choice variety of sounds to represent. Most commonly it receives the pronunciation of “long e.” Of the scores of examples containing it, beast, hear, and deal may be taken as specimens. But while this is its most frequent sound, it is far from being the only one. Its most important rival is that of short e, which can be found in no small number of words like breath, breast, weather. In these and all other like cases the second vowel is absolutely superfluous as regards pronunciation. The unnecessary letter is in some instances due to derivation; in others it exists in defiance of it—as, for instance, in feather and endeavor. Its insertion was doubtless due to an attempt to represent a sound which is no longer heard in these words. In a large number of instances they were once spelled without the now unpronounced letter.

Common also is a third sound of this digraph—the one we call “short u.” It is heard in heard itself, in earth, in early, in learn, in search, and in a number of other words in which ea is followed by r. There is a fourth sound of it which may be represented by bear, swear, tear. A fifth sound of it occurs in the words heart, hearth, and hearken. Again, a sixth sound of it is represented by such words as great, break, steak. In all these cases it will be observed that certain of these words have in the course of their history tended to pass from one pronunciation of the digraph into another. Sometimes they have for a long time wavered between the two. Hearth, which contains the fifth sound just assigned to the combination, was often made to ryme with words containing the third sound, represented by earth. According to the New Historical Dictionary, this is true now of Scotland, and of the Northern English dialect. It is true also of certain parts of the United States, or, at any rate, of certain persons. It seems also to have been the pronunciation of Milton.

Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth

are lines found in Il Penseroso. So also great once had often the first sound here given to the digraph, as if it were spelled greet. Both this sound as well as the one it now receives were so equally authorized in the eighteenth century that Dr. Johnson triumphantly cited the fact as a convincing proof of the impossibility of making a satisfactory pronouncing dictionary, just as we are now told that we cannot have a phonetic orthography because men pronounce the same word in different ways.

The digraph ee having already been considered, we pass on to ei. Its most frequent sound is that heard in such words as rein, veil, and neighbor. But it has also the sound of “long e” in conceit, seize, ceiling, and a few others. In heir and heiress and their it has the sound of a in fare. In height and sleight it has the sound of “long i.” In heifer and nonpareil it has the sound of short e. The allied digraph ey has no such range of sounds. In accented syllables it represents only the first one given to ei, as can be seen in they, grey, and survey. Key, with the sound of “long e,” seems to be the solitary exception.

It is already plainly apparent that there is nothing in the character of our present spelling to fit it to serve as a guide to pronunciation, the very office for which spelling was created. But its worthlessness in this respect, with the consequent uncertainty and anxiety attending the use of it, forms in the case of two words containing the digraph ei, one of the most amusing episodes in the history of English orthoepy. In modern times their pronunciation has given rise to controversy and heart-burnings as bitter as the matter itself is unimportant. These words are either and neither. Were they to adopt the most common pronunciation of the digraph they would have the sound heard in such words as eight, vein, and feint. This, in truth, they once had. To indicate that fact they have occasionally been written ayther and nayther. But this pronunciation, outside of Ireland at least, had largely disappeared by the latter part of the eighteenth century. So far as many orthoepists were concerned, it was ignored entirely. Those who mentioned it often accorded it scant favor. The affections of lexicographers were long divided between the sounds heard in receive and deceit, and that heard in height and sleight. For the former there was a very marked preference. Most of them did not even admit the existence of the “long i” sound; those who did, gave it generally a grudging recognition. The various pronunciations prevailing in the latter part of the eighteenth century were specified by Nares in his Elements of Orthoepy. “Either and neither,” he wrote, “are spoken by some with the sound of long i. I have heard even that of long a given to them; but as the regular way is also in use, I think it is preferable. These differences seem to have arisen from ignorance of the regular sound of ei.” As the regular sound of ei, if any one of them is entitled to that designation, is heard in such words as skein and freight, one gets the impression that Nares himself was ignorant of what it was.

Walker, the orthoepic lawgiver of our fathers, distinctly preferred the “long e” sound of either and neither. Both the practice of Garrick and analogy led him to maintain that they should be pronounced as if ryming “with breather, one who breathes.” He was compelled, however, to admit that the “long i” sound was heard so frequently that it was hardly possible in insist exclusively upon the other. He did the best he could, nevertheless, to ignore it and thereby banish it. While in the introduction to his dictionary he recognized the existence of both sounds, in the body of his work that of “long e” was the only one given. In this course he was followed by his reviser, Smart, who succeeded to his name, and up to a certain degree to his authority. Smart went even further than his predecessor. He was apparently ignorant of the fact—he certainly ignored it—that any other pronunciation of these words than that of “long e” was known to the English people. But in spite of its defiance of analogy and of the hostility of lexicographers, the sound of “long i” continued to make its way. The fact has sometimes excited the indignation of orthoepists. Yet it is hard to understand how any one who cherishes the vagaries of English spelling should get into a state of excitement about the vagaries of its pronunciation.

Neither the digraph eo nor eu is found often. The first, however, improves fully the opportunity presented of making it difficult, if not impossible, for the learner to get any idea of the pronunciation from the spelling. In people it has the sound of “long e”; in leopard and jeopard it has the sound of short e. In yeoman again it has the sound of long o. Eu has practically the same sound as ew, as can be exemplified in feud and few. This last digraph, however, represents the long sound of u as well as that in which iotization precedes the vowel. The difference in the pronunciation of drew and dew will make manifest the contrast. There is always a tendency, however, for the digraph to pass from the latter sound to the former in a tongue in which there is nothing in the orthography to fix a precise value upon the sign indicating both. “According to my v’oo,” Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his Elsie Venner, has one of his characters saying. “The unspeakable pronunciation of this word,” he adds in a parenthesis, “is the touchstone of New England Brahminism.” In another place in the same novel he still further enforces this point. “The Doctor,” he wrote, among his other recommendations to the hero, says to him, “you can pronounce the word view.” And yet in it the iotization is plainly indicated by the vowel itself, while in such words as hew and few and new there is nothing to fix definitely the sound. Finally, it remains to say of this digraph that shew and strew, two verbs once spelled with it, have now become show and strow, a form more in accordance with their pronunciation. There is no particular reason why sew should not follow their example in substituting an o for an e.