English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

One curious blunder has been foisted upon our spelling by the desire of men to go back to the Latin original of these words instead of contenting themselves with the immediate French one. The insertion of b is bad enough in redoubted and redoubtable. These came to us from the latter tongue, and at first appeared in English in the forms redouted and redoutable. Later the classical influence made itself felt and the b was inserted. Palliation for it could be pleaded on the ground that the letter belonged to the remote original. But no defence of this sort could be of avail in the case of the word denoting the military outwork called a redoubt. This has not the slightest connection either in sense or origin with the two adjectives just specified. It comes directly from the French redout and remotely from the Latin reductus, ‘withdrawn,’ ‘retired,’ which received at a later period the meaning of ‘a place of refuge.’ But it was ignorantly supposed that it came from the same source as the verb redoubt and its past participle redoubted. So from the beginning of the introduction of the word into the language, in the early part of the seventeenth century, an unauthorized b was made part of it. It is now dear to the hearts of millions. What the blundering of one age perpetrated the superstition of succeeding ages has invested with peculiar sanctity.

The cases in which c follows s present several choice examples of the vagaries which make English orthography a wonder to those who study its history, and a perpetual joy and boast to those who in this matter succeed in keeping the purity of their ignorance from being denied by the slightest stain of knowledge. In the words scene, scepter, and sciatica, coming directly or remotely from the Greek, the letter represents an original k. So, useless as it is, its retention may be defended on the ground that if it be not the same letter, it ought to be, since it has the same value. The similar apology of respect for derivation may be urged for the unpronounced c of science, scintilla, and sciolist. But in the case of scent, scion, scimitar, scissors, and scythe, no such plea can be made. In the instance of all these there is not the slightest justification for the unnecessary c. Scent comes from the Latin sent-ire, ‘to perceive.’ Until the seventeenth century it was regularly spelled sent. Scythe, from the Anglo-Saxon sîthe, once frequently and now occasionally has its strictly correct etymological form. Scion is from the old French sion. Scimitar and scissors have had a wide variety of spellings during the course of their history. English orthography has exhibited, as is not unusual, a perverse preference for the ones which depart furthest from the pronunciation.

The instances where g is silent within a word are those in which it is found preceding m or n. Its presence it owes, in most instances, to derivation. Examples of it can be found in a number of words of Greek extraction, of which paradigm, diaphragm, and phlegm may be given. With a following n it can be represented by campaign, feign, sign, and impugn. As has been the case with the final n of certain words, so also the pronunciation of the g is resumed in the derivatives. That may be deemed by some a justification for its retention in the primitive—at least, for the time being. With sign we have signify, with malign we have malignity, with phlegm we have phlegmatic. But the g is a particularly ridiculous intruder in the words foreign and sovereign. The former is from the Old French forein, which itself comes from the popular Latin foraneus, and this in turn comes from the classical Latin foras, ‘out of doors.’ Sovereign is a spelling just as bad. It comes from the Old French sovrain, the Low Latin superanus, ‘supreme,’ which was formed upon the preposition super, ‘above.’ The insertion of a g was a blunder for which our race has the sole responsibility.

There are two kinds of words in which h is silent following an initial letter. This is invariably true of words of Greek extraction beginning with rh. Rhetoric, rheumatic, and rhubarb may serve as specimens. In these, as in those like them, the h was wanting in Old French. Consequently, it was at first wanting in English also. But the deference to derivation which prevailed among the classically educated after the revival of learning, raised havoc here with the spelling as it did in so many other instances. The unpronounced h was inserted into all these words. This began in the sixteenth century. It gradually established itself firmly in the orthography. There it has remained ever since, though no one pretends that it serves any purpose save that of indicating to the few, who do not need to be informed, that the aspirate existed in the original from which these words were derived. But even this pitiable reason cannot be pleaded in the case of the noticeable words in which h follows an initial g. These are ghastly and aghast, ghost, and gherkin. In not one of them, except the last, did h appear till many hundred years after the words had been in existence. To not one of them does the useless letter belong by right. Indeed, it was apparently not till the nineteenth century that it was foisted into gherkin as the regular spelling, though it had cropped up before. There would be just as much sense in spelling German as Gherman, and goat as ghoat, as there is in the intrusion of the h into the words just mentioned. This is equally true of anchor.

There is, however, one further peculiarity about this letter. In the spelling of certain words it follows w, in the pronunciation of them it precedes it. But the fashion of suppressing the sound of the aspirate in the combination wh is very characteristic of the speech of England, at least of some parts of it. The prevalence of this sort of pronunciation which makes no distinction, for example, between where and wear, between Whig and wig, between while and wile, was a subject of great, and it may be added, of justifiable grief to the earlier orthoepists. Walker complained bitterly of the extent of its use in London. He was anxious that men should “avoid this feeble Cockney pronunciation which is so disagreeable to a correct ear.” Fortunately for the speech this suppression of the aspirate has not extended much beyond the southern half of England. In America it rarely takes place. There is, therefore, every likelihood of this pronunciation being eventually crushed, not so much because of its own inherent viciousness as by the mere weight of numbers.

There is a limited body of words in which l and p are silent. The former letter in such cases as balm and calm, for instance, may perhaps have been effective in preserving the sound of the preceding vowel. The most signal example of its appearance, where it has no justification for its existence, is in the word could. This takes the place of the earlier and more correct coude, coud. The l was introduced by a false analogy with would and should. These two last words, it may be added, at times dropped this letter, to which etymologically they were entitled, out of deference to the pronunciation, just as could, though not entitled to it, assumed it in defiance of the pronunciation.

The most noticeable instances in which p is not pronounced are when it follows m and is itself followed by t. Empty, tempt, prompt, and sumptuous will supply a sufficient number of illustrations. In most of these cases the letter still appears because it was in the original. In empty, however, it is a later insertion. There are two or three sporadic instances in which a p is present but fails to be called upon for duty. Such are raspberry and receipt. In the first of these two rasberry seems to have been for a long time the preferred spelling. Unless there is a prospect that the sound of the letter will be resumed in the pronunciation, there is no apparent reason why we should not go back to the once more common form. But receipt, with the allied conceit and deceit, furnishes as good an illustration as can well be offered of the vagaries of English orthography, and of the system which has prevailed in and the sense which has presided over its development. These three words all come remotely from the three closely allied participial forms receptus, conceptus, and deceptus. The earlier most common spelling of the first was receit or receyt. While the form with the inserted p existed previously, it was not till the Elizabethan period that it began to be much in evidence. Furthermore, it was not till the latter part of the seventeenth century that the unnecessary letter established itself in the unfortunate word. Conceit and deceit went through what was in many respects the same experience. The forms conceipt and deceipt were found not unfrequently. But in them the p failed to maintain itself. So words from a common Latin root have developed two different ways of spelling, with not the slightest reason in the nature of things why any distinction whatever should be made between them.

The silence of s in some few words, such as isle, aisle, and island, has already been mentioned. In viscount it is also suppressed, doubtless in deference to the French original. But in the middle of words t is far more frequently left unpronounced than s. This is especially noticeable when it is followed by le on the one hand, as can be seen in castle, wrestle, thistle, ostler, and rustle; on the other hand, when followed by en, as in fasten, hasten, listen, and moisten. There are a few other words besides those with these endings in which it is silent. Such are Christmas, chestnut, mortgage, bankruptcy. That it should not be heard in words of French origin like billet-doux and hautbois is not hard to understand; they have never been fully naturalized.

This exhausts the list of simple consonants that are found in the written language, but are not heard in the spoken. There remains, however, a digraph which is encountered too frequently not to receive brief mention. This is gh, both at the end and in the middle of words. In these positions it once stood for something. It had, therefore, originally a right to the place in which it now appears. But the guttural sound it indicated disappeared long ago from the usage of all of us. Even the knowledge that it had ever existed has disappeared from the memory of most of us, if it was ever found there. Accordingly it serves now no other purpose than to act as a sort of tombstone to mark the place where lie the unsightly remains of a dead and forgotten pronunciation. The useless digraph is still seen at the end of numerous words of which weigh, high, and dough may be taken as examples. Again an unpronounced medial gh is seen in neighbor and a large number of words ending in ght, such as caught, height, fight, and thought. In many of these words the digraph was frequently dropped in those earlier days when there was a perverse propensity to make the spelling show some respect to the pronunciation. High, for instance, often appeared in the forms hye, hy; nigh in the forms nye, ny. This is now all changed. The disposition to pander to any sneaking desire to bring about a scandalous conformity between orthography and orthoepy is steadily frowned upon by those who have been good enough to take upon their shoulders the burden of preserving what they are pleased to call the purity of the English language.

This survey of the subject, brief as it is, brings out distinctly the superiority of the consonant system over the vowel, in the matter of unpronounced letters. Far from perfect as is the former, it shines by contrast with the latter. The useless consonant appears in but a few words, where the useless vowel appears in scores. But when we pass on to the cases in which the sign is represented by any but its legitimate sound, the contrast between the two classes of letters becomes far more noticeable. It is the superiority in this particular which alone makes our present spelling endurable. Most of the consonants, if pronounced at all, have in all cases one and the same sound. Any possible acquisition of the speech in the term of a man’s natural life has depended upon the fact that these members of the alphabet are in general really phonetic. Their faithfulness to their legitimate sounds stands in sharpest contrast to the almost hopeless disorganization which has overtaken the vowels. In the case of some of the consonants there is never any variation from their proper pronunciation. In the case of others the exceptions to the regular practice are purely sporadic. The p of cupboard, for instance, has the sound of b, the j of hallelujah has the sound of y. Even these exceptions which have prevailed in the past there has been a tendency to reduce, owing to the operation of agencies of which there will be occasion to speak later.