Boswell resembled most of the ardent partisans of the ending our in the fact that his curiosity in the formation of language had never been rewarded by any intelligent knowledge of it. The k was, in his eyes, a mark of the Saxon original. The only comment that it is necessary to make upon this assertion is that the letter k was not in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet any more than it was in the Roman, from which the former was derived. Hence, as has been already pointed out, monosyllabic words like back, sack, sick, thick, in the earliest form of our speech, ended with c; and if we were really so devoted to derivation as we pretend, we should have to discard the k from the end of monosyllables, just as we have from the end of polysyllables. Boswell, however, carried out his views to their logical conclusion. Johnson might exhibit the weakness of deferring in particular instances to general custom; not so his follower and admirer. So we find him running counter to his master’s teachings by using the spellings authour, doctour, rectour, taylour, and others among the dissyllables; and among the polysyllables there were the forms professour, spectatour, conspiratour, preceptour, innovatour, legislatour, and a large number that need not be given here.
It is evident from Boswell’s protest that the disposition to drop the u had become so prevalent that there was danger of its prevailing. The aversion was increasing to the use of this very honest letter, as Armstrong had called it. Johnson’s authority retarded the progress of this tendency, but outside of a certain limited number of cases did not check it effectually. It was not long before the vowel was pretty regularly dropped in polysyllabic words. In them it has remained dropped ever since. Few, indeed, are the persons who can now be found writing ambassadour, emperour, governour, oratour, possessour, and no small number of others which the great lexicographer insisted upon as the proper way. Even some of his dissyllabic words have gone over to the form in or, notably those which had rr before the suffix, such as error, horror, and terror.
No idea of the strength of the movement towards uniformity can be gathered from the dictionaries of the time. These, as a general rule, followed Johnson even when the rest of the world was going the other way. Both Sheridan and Walker stuck to the final k long after nearly everybody else had given it up. The latter, indeed, deplored the custom of omitting it because it had introduced into the language the novelty of ending a word with an unusual letter. This, on the face of it, he said, was a blemish. Still less did the lexicographers represent the general attitude of the time towards the class of words here considered, especially the attitude of aristocratic society. The fortunes of two of these words, in particular, on account of the frequency of their appearance on cards of invitation, reached at this period the highest social elevation. These were honor and favor. To spell them with a u became and remained for a long while a distinctive mark of rusticity and ill-breeding—not, as now, an evidence of imperfect acquaintance with their history.
On this point we have plenty of unimpeachable testimony. The dictionary of Walker, the leading lexicographer of his own generation and of the generation following, came out towards the end of the eighteenth century. In it he gave utterance to his grief on this very subject. His remarks occur under the word of which, in defiance of general custom, he continued to authorize the form honour. “This word,” he said, “and its companion favour, the two servile attendants upon cards and notes of fashion, have so generally dropped the u that to spell these words with that letter is looked upon as gauche and rustick in the extreme. In vain did Dr. Johnson enter his protest against the innovation; in vain did he tell us that the sound of the word required the use of u, as well as its derivation from the Latin through the French: the sentence seems to have been passed, and we now hardly even find these words with this vowel but in dictionaries.”
But Walker, though he followed, as in duty bound, his great leader, was subject to qualms of common sense. These, when they occur, always make sad work with orthographic prejudices. When he looked at the matter dispassionately he had to confess that Johnson’s arguments in behalf of the spellings which he had authorized did not impress him altogether favorably; in fact, he manifested a sneaking inclination for the forms without u. “Though,” he said, “I am a declared enemy to all needless innovation, I see no inconvenience in spelling these words in the fashionable manner: there is no reason for preserving the u in honour and favour that does not hold good for the preservation of the same letter in errour, authour, and a hundred others; and with respect to the pronunciation of these words without u, while we have so many words where the o sounds u, even when the accent is on it, as honey, money, etc., we need not be in much pain for the sound of u, in words of this termination, where the final r brings all the accented vowels to the same level; that is, the short sound of u.”
The fashionable method of spelling these words prevailed for a long time. The behavior of high society in so doing stirred profoundly the deep-seated conservatism of the middle class. The great founder of Methodism warned his followers against this vanity. “Avoid,” wrote Wesley, in 1791, “the fashionable impropriety of leaving out the u in many words, as honor, vigor, etc. This is mere childish affectation.” Remarks of this sort availed nothing—at least, they did not affect the right persons. The aristocratic world cared little for the woes of lexicographers or the denunciations of religious leaders. As is its wont, it went on in its usual heartless way, paying no heed whatever to the remonstrances directed against its conduct in this matter.
The practice seems to have continued during the first third, at least, of the nineteenth century. As late as 1832 Archdeacon Hare denounced it in the Philological Museum. Hare was, in his way, a spelling-reformer, and drew upon himself much obloquy for the orthographical peculiarities he adopted. He furnished us himself with some specimens of the sort of objections which were raised to his efforts. As might be expected, they were made up of the same old combination of virulence and ignorance with which we are all familiar. In the eyes of one, change of spelling was a piece of impudent presumption. In the eyes of another, it was a piece of silly affectation. Or, again, it was a mistaking of singularity for originality, a waste upon trifles of attention which ought to be reserved for matters of real importance. What surprises us now is that so much excitement should have been provoked by alterations so petty; for all of any importance that Hare proposed was spelling the participial ending ed as t when it had the sound of t. Thus, we find in his writings reacht, vanquisht, pickt, supprest, rusht, publisht, and no small number of similar forms. These he defended, as it was easy to do, by the usage of Spenser and Milton and their contemporaries—even, indeed, from the practice of the comic dramatists who followed the Restoration period, such as Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. That petty changes of this nature should have been regarded by educated men as serious innovations shows how all-extensive had become with them the ignorance of the history of their own tongue.
Hare’s countrymen ought, indeed, to have been reassured by his other spellings that there was no danger of immediate ruin to the language by any innovations he might be supposed to favor. The truth is that he knew almost as little of the real principles governing orthography and talked of them nearly as much as did his friend and fellow-reformer, Walter Savage Landor. But however perverse were his vagaries in other matters, upon the class of words ending in or or our he was, unlike Landor, eminently sound. Indeed, he was more than sound. He reintroduced the u into some words of this class where it had at one time often appeared but had then become generally discarded. He trotted out, as was in those days almost inevitable, the old bugaboo of derivation, as unconscious of its erroneousness, scholar as he was, as are now the most unscholarly who persist in obtruding it upon a generation which knows better. “If,” he wrote, “honour, favour, and other similar words had come to us directly from the Latin, it might be better to spell them without a u; but since we got them through the French, so that they brought the u with them when they landed on our shores, it will be well to leave such affectations as honor and favor to the great vulgar for their cards of invitation.”
The concluding sentence of this quotation shows conclusively that with people of high position—“the great vulgar,” as Hare calls them—fashion at the close of the first third of the last century still dictated the use of the spellings honor and favor. Herein Hare was opposed to his fellow-reformer Landor. “We differ,” says the latter, “on the spelling of honour, favour, etc. You would retain the u; I would eject it for the sake of consistency.”[34] If Landor can be trusted to have given a faithful picture of contemporary practice, this method of spelling must have continued for at least a score of years after the date already given. In 1846 came out the third edition of his Imaginary Conversations. To the dialogue on language which is represented as having taken place between Doctor Johnson and John Horne Tooke, he added then a number of passages. Among them was the following:
Tooke. Would there be any impropriety or inconvenience in writing endevor and demeanor, as we write tenor, without the u?