English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

He soone approached, panting, breathlesse, whot.

—Book II, canto iv, st. 37.

Upon a mightie furnace, burning whote.

—Ib., canto ix, st. 29.

Now, at the present day, anybody would be either amused at the appearance of such a form as whot if one so spelled the word ignorantly, or outraged if he did it purposely. But all of us in the case of whole are doing precisely the very thing we should condemn in the case of whot. In the former of these words the initial letter has now no more excuse for its existence than in the latter. Whole, by derivation, is precisely the same word as hale. The only real difference between these forms is the difference of vowel sound caused by dialectical variation. They are both related to heal and health. The closeness of the tie between them all is brought out distinctly in the phrase “whole and sound.” For centuries, too, the word had the spelling hole. At a later period, like hot, it took unto itself an initial w; unlike hot, it continued to retain it. Consequently, we find exemplified in the two words the same old influence of which we have been speaking. The very persons who would be horrified, and properly horrified, at giving to hot the spelling whot, would be equally horrified at taking away from whole a letter which, besides being never heard in pronunciation, disguises the derivation; and the recognition of this latter at a glance is insisted upon by many as essential to the proper representation of the word as well as to their own personal happiness. Here, as elsewhere, it is sentiment that rules us, not sense.

It is unquestionably a distinct objection to the introduction of new spellings that they have the temporary effect of breaking up old associations. They consequently distract the attention of the reader from the idea the word conveys to the word itself. This would to some extent be true, even were he strongly in favor of the changes made. Necessarily this is much more the case when he is bitterly opposed to them, and honestly, no matter how unintelligently, fancies that the fate of the language is bound up with the continuance of some particular method of spelling. It is true that the frequent occurrence of a new form on the printed page soon dispels the sense of strangeness with which it is greeted at first. But to produce that effort speedily, the reader must have an open mind. An open mind, however, is just what the ordinary believer in the present orthography lacks. He not only conceives an intense prejudice against the new form itself, but he is sometimes unwilling to read the book or article containing it. This, I have already intimated, is my main reason for not adopting in practice several spellings which in theory I approve. Some of the old ones to which many are devoted are too much for even the large charity I entertain for the most undesirable citizens of the orthographic commonwealth. But with others I put up because it is only by using them that one can succeed in getting a hearing from those who most need to be made conscious of the extent of their linguistic ignorance and the depth of their orthographic depravity. It is the unbelievers that require conversion, and not those who are already firm in the faith. Accordingly, for the sake of a temporary communication between the multitude which still continues to sit in linguistic darkness and him who seeks to enlighten them, the old spelling may be properly used as a sort of material bridge over which to trundle orthographic truth.

Necessarily, violent hostility to new spellings has always to be reckoned with. It is by no means so intense or so wide-spread as it was once. The language employed is now much more guarded. Men have come to gain some comprehension of the boundlessness of their ignorance of the subject, and have learned in consequence the wisdom of putting restraint upon expression. Intemperate invectives will, indeed, continue to be heard for a long while yet. Rarely, however, will they proceed from any quarter where we have a right to expect real intelligence. Doubtless belated survivals of the previous era of good old-fashioned gentlemanly ignorance will occasionally thrust themselves upon the attention; but these ebullitions now surprise and amuse rather than irritate. A case in point comes to my mind. In the latter part of 1906 I chanced to be in London during the period when a violent controversy was going on between the Times and the publishers as to the prices at which books were to be offered for sale. Every morning the columns of the great daily were filled with letters on one side or the other of the matter at issue. Naturally the participators in this bibliopolic tournament did not invariably confine themselves to the special subject under discussion. Toward the very close of the year a particularly precious effusion on a side issue came from one of the correspondents.[2] His patriotic soul had been stirred to the depths by the fact, as he asserted, that English publishers had been guilty of using what he called American spelling in their books. They had indulged in this heinous crime from the ignoble lust of gain. He had declined, in consequence, to buy works he needed and desired because they were printed in this fashion. “It is a treason against our language and country,” he wrote, “and not merely an offence against taste.” Further, the writer of this extraordinary communication incidentally took pains to inform us that he had been the winner of a prize essay at Cambridge University. Presumably, therefore, he had reached an appreciable degree of mental development and was in possession of some intelligence, however little his utterances might seem to indicate it.

English scholarship has been too commonly distinct from scholarship in English; but in these latter days it creates some little surprise to find displayed publicly by a presumably educated man so gross a manifestation of all-pervading ignorance as is exemplified in the communication just mentioned. Undoubtedly there are still many who think just such thoughts, if it be proper to dignify sentiments of this sort with the name of thoughts. But it is really too late to give them public utterance—at least, with the writer’s name attached. That should be safely sheltered behind the bulwark of type. Better still, such opinions should be reserved for the circle of one’s private friends, either ignorant enough to sympathize with them, or too much attached to the speaker to expose them to the comment of a more intelligent, but also more unfeeling, world. Things, indeed, cannot be said now that could be said with impunity, and to some extent with applause, fifty years ago—and even twenty-five years ago could be said with safety. During the last half century men have been running to and fro, and knowledge has been increased. This is true in particular of the knowledge of English orthography, of its history and its character. So generally, indeed, have special students, and even occasionally highly educated men, become familiar with the fact of the differences between the spelling of the present and that of the past, and to a less extent, with the changes that have taken place at various periods and with the causes that have brought them about, that it startles one at first to discover that there are quarters into which not even a ray of this light has penetrated.

It is, however, no difficult matter to point out the grand source of erroneous beliefs of this sort. It all goes back to the sentiment of association. Unhappily this sentiment of association never receives check or correction, because we familiarize ourselves with the language of the past in the spelling of the present. In the matter of orthography, the dead author is considered to have no rights which the living publisher is bound to respect. His spelling is regularly altered so as to conform to that of the particular dictionary which has been adopted in the printing-house as a sort of official guide. This is done even when the writer himself has felt and expressed solicitude as to the form in which his words should appear. There was a period when a somewhat similar treatment was meted out to his grammar. The great works of the past underwent at one time more or less revision at the hands of the veriest literary hacks, who made changes in the language in order to reconcile it to their notions of propriety of usage. Idioms had their structure sometimes modified, sometimes improved out of existence. Sentences were recast in order to correct supposed errors, and bring them into accord with the rules laid down in the latest school grammar. This was particularly true of the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Hence, editions of the classic authors of our tongue then appearing can frequently not be consulted with confidence by him to whom it is of importance to ascertain, in any given case, the words, forms, and constructions actually used by the writer.

This condition of things is no longer true of the grammar and expression. Modern editors, as a general rule, pay scrupulous heed to the exact reproduction of the words and constructions of the original, whether these accord or not with their ideas of propriety. But as yet there is little of this sensitiveness of feeling about the orthography. It may be conceded that the matter is not in itself so important for a certain class of readers. The expression, after all, is the vital concern. Accordingly, in a work designed for the use of the great body of men, it may not be desirable to reproduce peculiarities of orthography so numerous and so variant from present use as to interfere with ease of reading, or distract attention from the thought to the form of the words in which the thought is clothed. While, therefore, the reproduction of the exact spelling of a classic work is essential to the educated man who desires to be acquainted with the history of the speech, it is of but subsidiary importance to perhaps a majority of ordinary readers. Even an author so late as Shakespeare would hardly have been the popular writer he is had the mass of men been compelled to read him in the spelling in which his works originally appeared. Something has undoubtedly been lost by conforming his orthography to that of the present time, but doubtless much more has been gained in the wider reading his works have received in consequence.