English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

Besides these words there were two others of the class considered, about which variation of usage existed or exists. Because of their single occurrence in his writing, their spelling can be regarded of importance only as indicating tendency. Othello, in his account of his life, speaks of “antres vast and deserts idle,” as it is found in all modern editions. But Shakespeare has no such form as antres. In the first folio it is antars; in the quarto of 1622 it is antrees, indicating a difference of pronunciation. The word itself is rare at any period. Its later use, so far as it has been used at all, is due to its appearance in a favorite play of the great dramatist. No one among his contemporaries seems, so far as is now known, to have felt it desirable or incumbent to resort to its employment; though later investigations may cause it to turn up at any time. But the form in which we know it is not due to Shakespeare himself, but to his editors. There seems little reason for denying him the privilege of spelling the word in his own way. There is still another term, now not uncommon, which is found but once in his writings. But the villainous stuff which Henry IV.’s ambassador told Hotspur was digged from the bowels of the earth to destroy brave men, was not salt-petre, as modern editions have it, but salt-peter in the original.[14]

These are all the disputed words of this class which are found in the poems of Shakespeare as well as in his plays, as also the number of times of their occurrence. Facts of this sort are familiar, at least in a general way, to all special students of our speech. But even from the highly educated they are hidden more or less, and in many cases hidden altogether. These see ordinarily nothing but modern editions of the greatest writers; and in modern editions modern orthography is substituted for the orthography which the authors of the past favored, or at least endured. The result is that the feeling of association which attaches to every word a particular form is never subjected to the counteracting influence which would spring from coming even into occasional contact with the earlier usage. The strength of this feeling has in consequence become abnormal. From it has further developed the singular belief of the orthographically uneducated that the present spelling is somehow bound up with the purity of the language, if not with its continued existence.

It is because I look upon this sentiment of association as the main bulwark of our present orthography that I have always taken the ground that it is only through a rising generation that any thorough-going reform can ever be accomplished. It is asking too much of human nature to expect a generation already risen to go a second time through the fiery ordeal of learning to spell. Individuals belonging to it will adopt proposed changes, especially those in whom conviction is reinforced by the energy of youth or of personal character. Of these there will be a regularly increasing number with the enlightenment which is sure to follow discussion of the subject. But the action of the great mass of even highly educated men will not be affected. This state of things would probably be true of the spelling of any language; but in one so defiant of all law as our own, the aversion to change would increase in proportion to the lawlessness. We are not disposed to give up what with so much toil we have acquired. Furthermore, there comes to be in the minds of many a certain fondness for the existing orthography because of its very irrationality, of its constant unfitness to fulfil its professed aim of representing pronunciation. Its uncouthness inspires them with the same sort of devotion with which the lower order of savage tribes regard their gods. The uglier they are, the more fervently they are adored.

In the case of a rising generation there are no such feelings to be encountered. The soil is virgin. No prejudices are to be overcome, no sentiments to be shocked, no customs to be changed. The reasoning powers have not been so blunted by association that the mind looks with favor upon what is defiant of reason. Furthermore, about the changed and correct forms would speedily gather the same sentiment which has caused the previous forms to be cherished by their elders. The younger generation will in time do more than look upon the new spellings as the only conceivably rational ones. They will wonder by what perversity their fathers came to tolerate the old ones in defiance of reason. If a child has been accustomed from his earliest years to use exclusively the forms vext and mixt, the spellings vexed and mixed will not only seem offensive to him when he becomes a man, but it will be difficult for him to comprehend the precise nature of the irrationality which could ever have insisted upon it as a virtue that the combination ed should have the sound of t.

A risen generation, accordingly, cannot reasonably be expected to adopt a new spelling. The most that can be asked of it is that it shall not put itself in active opposition, that it shall let the task of improving our present barbarous orthography go on unimpeded. This, however, is the very last thing it is inclined to do. The fathers have eaten sour grapes; they have no intention of keeping their children’s children’s teeth from being set on edge. Yet there is plainly to be recognized now the existence of a steadily increasing number of persons who are disposed to consider this whole question carefully. In the case of such men—upon whose co-operation the success of any movement must ultimately depend—it is all-essential that the changes proposed should recommend themselves by their manifest propriety or by the probability of their general acceptance. They may be unwilling to take the trouble to use these new forms in their own practice, even if convinced of their desirableness; but they will be ready to cast their influence in favor of their adoption by the members of that rising generation to whom the spelling of certain words in certain ways has not yet become almost a second nature.

The permanent success of any spelling reform, according to this view, depends upon its adoption by a rising generation. To have it so adopted, it must recommend itself to the risen generation as being both desirable and feasible. Unreasoning ignorance, intrenched behind a rampart of prejudice, can be ignored. Not so the honest ignorance of those whose training naturally inclines them to favor what has been long received, but who are not averse to consider the question in dispute fully and fairly. In any case the changes proposed, in order to succeed, must follow the line of least resistance; for they have to encounter that peculiarly formidable of hostile forces—the unintelligent opposition of the intelligent. The altered forms recommended for adoption must, therefore, have at the outset some support either in present or past usage, or they must be in accord with the operation of some law modifying orthography, which has always been steadily, even if imperceptibly, at work in the language.

It is because it does not conform to either of these principles that, had I had anything to say about it, I should have objected to the recommendation of the spelling thru. My reasons for taking such ground would have had nothing to do with the abstract propriety or impropriety of the new form. Nor could exception be taken to it on the score of derivation. The original word, indeed, from which it came was thurh. Later this appeared at times as thruh. No fault could, therefore, be found with the alteration beyond the dropping of the sign of the no longer pronounced guttural. It is not principle, therefore, that would have come into the consideration of it, but expediency. I should have objected to it solely on the ground that it is a violent break with the literary past. Therefore, instead of following the line of least resistance, it would follow the line of greatest. It would be sure, in consequence, to excite bitter hostility and to repel support from the other recommendations made. Its adoption into the list would, therefore, not have seemed to me good policy. This is a view of the matter entirely independent of my personal indisposition to favor vowel changes in the spelling until a settled plan for the representation of the vowel sounds has been agreed upon and accepted. Yet it is fair to add that in consequence of the frequency with which the new form has been made the subject of attack, the sense of strangeness and the resultant hostility with which it was first greeted have now largely worn away.

It has been asserted that hostility to the very idea of reforming the spelling has largely its source in the erroneous beliefs, with the prejudices engendered of them, that have come to prevail in consequence of tampering with the orthography found in the works of the past, and reproducing them in the orthography of the present. In time, and with effort, the widely diffused ignorance so generated can be trusted to disappear. But even when this obstacle is removed, another of the same general nature still remains. It is, perhaps, full as formidable. There is no reference here to the difficulty inherent in the very character of our spelling—a difficulty that is far the most serious of all. This is, however, a subject which will come up for consideration by itself. The obstacle here in mind lies in the very nature of the men of our race. It is an obstruction by no means confined to them; only in them it is more pronounced than in the case of other nations with other tongues. The English-speaking people, in their attempts at carrying out any reform, are little inclined to act logically. They do not place clearly before themselves the exact nature of the evil they propose to attack, and then set out to extirpate it root and branch, according to certain well-defined principles. On the contrary, they work by the rule of thumb. They find a flaw here, a defect there. They then proceed to remedy it as best they can without disturbing and disarranging the rest of the structure. Accordingly, no symmetry is displayed in the character of the alteration made and no perfection in the result.

Still, about this method there are manifest advantages. Whatever changes are effected are effected with the least possible friction, and after the least possible struggle. They are brought about so gradually that the minds of men are comparatively little disturbed by the break with the past which has been made. There still remain relics of its absurdities with which they can console themselves for what they have lost. Consequently, the alterations, however much an object of dislike, cause nothing of that intense hostility which attends any scientific and, therefore, sweeping reform.

In this respect our race stands in sharpest contrast with that foreign one with which its connections have been closest—which has often been its enemy and occasionally its ally. The French mind, unlike the English, is by nature severe and logical. It cares little for precedent. It fixes its eyes upon principle. It is disposed to follow any reform it accepts to its remotest conclusion. It drops without hesitation long-cherished excrescences, brings order out of chaos, even if in so doing it is forced to disregard traditions and override cherished sentiments. We can see the attitude of the French mind as contrasted with that of the English best illustrated in comparatively recent French history. The Revolution was a period of storm and stress. Things were then attempted which would hardly have been thought of, far less tried, at any ordinary period. But the point here is that such things could never have been carried out by the men of the English race at the most extraordinary period. It is not merely that they would not have been done; they would not have been contemplated. To unify France, for illustration, it was essential, in the eyes of the revolutionists, that the ancient provinces should be obliterated, so far as their size would permit their entire effacement. They therefore cut up the land into departments. In these the old boundaries were disregarded. Sections of different provinces were brought into political union wherever practicable. New affiliations were to take the place of the old. The idea of federation was to be destroyed. The provinces were to be made to disappear as living entities from the minds of men. In place of them the department, a purely artificial creation, was to be constantly before their eyes. Men were no longer to be Normans or Bretons or Gascons or Burgundians; they were to be simply Frenchmen. In diverting the thought of the people from the provinces to the whole country, the reformers had no hesitation in uprooting the traditions and common associations which the inhabitants of these provinces had inherited from the past, and in running counter to sentiments which had been the outgrowth of centuries.