History of Efforts to Reform English Spelling
Cornell Kimball
especially since the 1870s. It's about 22,000 bytes long. Please
e-mail me if you'd like a copy (remove the " spambgon. " from my
address).
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Cornell Kimball
Los Angeles
cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net
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Philip Baker
<cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net> writes
>I have a history noting some of the efforts to reform English spelling,
>especially since the 1870s. It's about 22,000 bytes long. Please
>e-mail me if you'd like a copy (remove the " spambgon. " from my
>address).
>
--
Philip Baker
http://www.thalasson.com
Cornell Kimball
>
> At around 22K its not too big to post to the NG.
Good enuff. Here it is:
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History of Efforts to Reform English Spelling Since 1870s
by Cornell Kimball
There have been some attempts to reform English spelling since at
least the 1400s. One effort at planned spelling reform took -- Noah
Webster advocated certain simpler forms for use in American English, and
some (but not all) of his recommendations became accepted as the
standard spellings in American English around the mid-19th century.
Early reform efforts were usually by individuals. Starting around
the middle of the 19th century, some reformers began working in tandem
or in small coalitions in Britain and the U.S., and in the 1870s
organized efforts to promote English spelling reform began.
An organization called the American Philological Association favored
using reformed spellings. They held an "International Convention for
the Amendment of English Orthography" in Philadelphia in 1876 (as part
of events for the 100th anniversary of the United States) with delegates
from the London Philological Association, the (British) National Union
of Elementary Teachers, and others also attending. At this convention,
the Spelling Reform Association was founded. One of the founders was
Melvil Dewey (who was also the creator of the Dewey Decimal library
classification system).
The American Philological Association's plan was for the eventual
respelling of English phonetically. For the short term, they favored
the use of a few simpler spellings, and had a list of certain types of
initial changes they proposed. They also began promoting these 11 new
spellings:
ar catalog definit gard giv hav
infinit liv tho thru wisht*
(*see note at end)
State legislatures in Connecticut, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Pennsylvania
discussed resolutions about spelling reform in the second half of the
1870s. No measures were adopted from these.
Starting in the late 1870s, the _Chicago Tribune_ used some
simplified spellings as part of their publishing style for a few years
(more on the _Chicago Tribune_ several paragraphs further down), and
the _Home Journal of New York_ began using some simpler spellings in
print.
In 1879, the British Spelling Reform Association was founded, and
supporters included Charles Darwin and Lord Tennyson.
In 1886, the American Philological Association, in conjunction with
the Philological Society of England, came out with a list of 3500
reformed spellings. The American Philological Association and the
Spelling Reform Association tried to get the U.S. Congress to adopt
bills to investigate spelling reform matters in 1880 and 1888. In 1889,
a bill was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives which would
call for use of the American Philological Association's spellings. Two
bills on this were again introduced in 1890, and then in 1893, but none
of these were passed.
In 1898, the (American) National Education Association began
promoting a list of 12 spellings. They were:
tho altho thru thruout thoro thoroly
thorofare program prolog catalog pedagog decalog*
(*see note at end)
These spelling were used in the _National Education Association Journal_
for the next six decades.
The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the U.S. in 1906, and
had a list of 300-plus spellings. One of the founding members was
Andrew Carnegie, who donated more than $250,000 over the next several
years. Among others who voiced support for the Simplified Spelling
Board were Sir James A.H. Murray, editor of the "Oxford English
Dictionary," and Mark Twain. The Simplified Spelling Society was
founded in the U.K. in 1908, as a sister organization, also with Sir
James A.H. Murray and others as supporters. (More on the Simplified
Spelling Society many paragraphs further down.)
A number of newspapers and journals used at least some of the
Simplified Spelling Board's spellings for a few years. In many of the
cases, it was the 12 spellings recommended by the (U.S.) National
Education Association that the publications used; the _Philadelphia
North American_ was among those. One magazine, the _Literary Digest_,
had also adopted the 12 spellings, and used them in print until at
least the late 1950s. A few colleges, among them Clark College and
Emerson College, used those 12 in internal writings and such for a few
years.
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt also promoted simpler spellings.
Initially, he ordered the U.S. Government Printing Office to use the
Simplified Spelling Board's 300 or so proposed spellings. This order
was issued on August 27, 1906 (while the U.S. Congress was in recess).
There was resistance from the Government Printing Office and others who
were to carry it out, and when Congress readjourned that fall, they set
to revoke Roosevelt's order. As given in "Our Times," Volume 3, by Mark
Sullivan (1937, Scribner), "Congress ... voted, 142 to 24, that `no
money appropriated in this act shall be used (for) printing documents
... unless same shall conform to the orthography ... in ... generally
accepted dictionaries.' "
It ended up that simplified spellings were used only in written
items coming from the White House itself, and at that, only 12 were
used.
The U.S. National Education Association continued promoting their
list until 1921. In the years after 1906, the Simplified Spelling
Board added more simpler spellings to the list they were promoting, and
continued promoting efforts during the 1910s. Andrew Carnegie had been
funding the Simplified Spelling Board, and his initial pledge was to
fund them for 10 years; he encouraged them to begin their own
fundraising efforts. (I can find no record of the Board conducting such
efforts.) Carnegie did end up funding them for 14 years in all, but did
not provide any money in his will for the Spelling Board.
The Simplified Spelling Board became fairly inactive after 1920.
The earlier-founded Spelling Reform Association was reactivated. The
organization brought out a phonemic alphabet in 1930, and issued several
other publications, including a few issues of a magazine.
In 1930 the U.S. Simplified Spelling Board and the U.K. Simplified
Spelling Society worked with a professor in Sweden, R.E. Zachrisson, to
refine a simplified system of Professor Zachrisson's called "Anglic."
The remaining Simplified Spelling Board and the Spelling Reform
Association were merged in 1946, becoming the Simpler Spelling
Association. Today this organization is the American Literacy Council,
and is a group concerned with tutoring programs for reading and spelling
as well as with spelling reform. The American Literacy Council has a
Web site at < http://www.under.org/alc > .
The _Chicago Tribune_ had used some simpler spellings during the
1870s and 1880s as earlier noted. The paper's editor and owner, Joseph
Medill, was a member of the Spelling Reform Association.
The _Tribune_ used a simpler spelling or two as part of their
publishing style during the 1920s. In 1934, a more overt effort was
instituted by chief editor and publisher Col Robert H. McCormick (who
was the grandson of Joseph Medill). A set of 80 simpler spellings were
adopted and used thereafter in the paper. These spellings were
introduced in a series of four announcements written by one of the
paper's editors, James O'Donnell Bennett. The first of these came on
January 28, 1934; two more announcements/sets of words were printed on
February 11 and February 25, and an editorial of March 11 reported that
"short spelling wins votes of readers 3 to 1." The final set of simpler
spellings was introduced on March 18.
The paper used all 80 of those for the next five and a half years.
A March 26, 1939 editorial noted these as the simpler spellings the
_Tribune_ was using: analog, apolog, catalog, decalog, dialog, eclog,
monolog, prolog, demagog, pedagog, canceled, controled, controler,
crystalize, extoled, patroled, tonsilitis, tranquility, cotilion,
fulfilment, instalment, skilful, quil, advertisment, aquilin, definitly,
doctrin, genuinly, indefinitly, intern, missil, bagatel, etiquet,
bailif, distaf, plaintif, rifraf, sherif, staf, tarif, trafic, bailiwic,
hammoc, hassoc, hemloc, hummoc, gally, hocky, jocky, lacky, pully,
ameba, subpena, derth, herse, lether, leven, reherse, yern, harken,
harth, agast, aile, bazar, burocracy, burocrat, burocratic, criscros,
crum, distraut, drouth, fantom, glamor, hefer, iland, jaz, lacker,
lacrimal, rime, warant.
On September 24, 1939, the list was reduced to 40, but "tho,"
"altho," "thru," and "thoro" were added. On September 24, 1945, "frate"
and "frater" were added, and "ph" was changed to "f" (when not at the
beginning of a word) as of July 3, 1949, adding "autograf," "telegraf,"
"philosofy," "photograf," and "sofomore."
A few words were added in the early 1950s. After the death of
publisher McCormick in 1955, the _Chicago Tribune_ began removing some
words from this list. The list of simplified spellings was shortened
bit by bit during the late 1950s and 1960s. They used "tho" and "thru"
until 1975, when they basically stopped using simplified spellings. The
newspaper continued to use the "-log" for "-logue" spellings for a while
after that, but then went back to the "-logue" forms.
One U.S. dictionary maker, Funk & Wagnalls, listed the Simplified
Spelling Board's proposed spellings alongside the conventional
spellings (at least in the larger volumes) for a few decades until
the middle of the 20th century. In the "Funk & Wagnalls Standard
Unabridged" published in 1945, for example, entries read such as:
rough adj. (ruf) having the texture
ruf of coarse or ....
debt n. (det) a state of owing money
det or other ....
Thus, "ruf" was listed in boldface flush with the margin directly
below "rough"; "det" was equally aligned with "debt," etc.
A bill was introduced into the British Parliament in the 1940s
which would have made phonetic spellings "official," the ones to be used
in government and other public uses; it was sponsored by Parliament
Member Mont Follick. The bill was debated on March 11, 1949, and
defeated.
The bill was reintroduced in 1953; out of this ultimately came a
compromise, promoted by a Member of Parliament named James Pitman, to
use an idea called the "Initial Teaching Alphabet." Basically, children
were taught to read and write first using a totally phonetic system,
then later shifted to conventional spelling. This method was used in
many British schools in the 1960s, and was also used in a few schools in
the U.S. at the time.
Writer George Bernard Shaw also expressed support for changing
English spelling. In his will, Shaw provided for a contest to design
a new, phonetic (in this case based on the speech of England's late King
George V) alphabet for English. The contest was held during 1958. The
alphabet chosen, which is referred to as the "Shavian" alphabet, has 48
characters, which are different looking from Roman letters; the
designer's name was Kingsley Read.
The Simplified Spelling Society, based in the U.K., has been
operating since 1908. They have promoted a few plans for phonetically
respelling English. One of these is called "Nue Speling," which, for
instance, spells all long "a" as "ae," all long "e" as "ee" etc.
Another plan is "World English Spelling," which they made in conjunction
with the U.S. spelling reform groups. James Pitman, who was behind the
"Initial Teaching Alphabet," was a member of the Simplified Spelling
Society. In 1969, a member named Harry Lindgren came out with a reform
called SR1 which only changes the spellings of a small category of
words: It respells all short "e" with just "e" (thus "head" is changed
to "hed," etc.), and was adopted for some uses by a government agency
and a few journals in Australia in the early 1970s.
The Simplified Spelling Society has published and distributed (and
continues to) material addressing the problems of English spelling, and
of the need for reform. The Society today is a forum for discussing
the problems of spelling and different solutions. They aren't
officially promoting just one particular scheme now, but there is a
plan at the forefront of their work called "Cut Spelling," which calls
for removing certain letters from words. They are also considering a
plan for a small, first-step reform which would change the spellings of
just a few types of words. The Society's Web site is at
< http://www.les.aston.ac.uk/sss/ > .
Better Education thru Simplified Spelling, founded in the U.S. in
1978, adopted a plan to get reform started by encouraging people to use
"tho," "thru," and "hav." (They have been less active in the late
1990s.) This group is not an outgrowth of any earlier one, but they
have ties with the Simplified Spelling Society and the American Literacy
Council. Better Education thru Simplified Spelling may be contacted at:
300 Riverfront Drive Suite 2608; Detroit, MI 48226, U.S.A.; Fax:
(011)-1-313-393-5850.
This section looks first at items before the 1870s -- Noah Webster's
proposals, at least later ones (Webster's earlier ideas called for more
spelling reforms) -- and changes since then.
This list from "Written Dialects" by Kenneth Ives shows the 10 main
classes of words that Webster's (ultimate) plan for reforming English
spelling centered on:
1. "-our" to "-or"
2. "-re" to "-er"
3. drop final "k": "publick" --> "public," etc.
4. change "-ence" to "-ense" to give: defense, offense, pretense
5. use single "l" in inflected forms, e.g. "traveled"
6. use double "l" in words like "instill"
7. use "-or" for "-er" where done so in
Latin, e.g. "instructor," "visitor"
8. drop final "e" to give: ax, determin, definit, infinit,
envelop, medicin, opposit, famin, (others)
9. use single "f" at end of words like "pontif," "plaintif"
10. change "-ise" to "-ize" wherever this can be traced
back to Latin and Greek (where a "z"/zeta *was* used
in the spellings) or a more recent coining which
uses the suffix "-ize" (from Greek "-izein")
The U.S. Government Printing Office adopted almost all of the
words in categories 1 thru 7 and category 10 in 1864, and these forms --
color, center, offense, traveled, organize, etc. -- have been the ones
used in all U.S. government documents since. Many other Americans were
already using these spellings by that time.
Items in category 8 have generally not become the accepted forms in
American English, and the closest case would be a word like "ax/axe,"
where the two spellings are equal variants in American usage.
The words promoted by the Simplified Spelling Board beginning in
1906 were basically within categories, several words each having a
certain type of change.
Some of these simply reaffirmed the changes which Webster had set
down in his dictionary and which had been adopted by the U.S. Government
in 1864. A few called for writing "-or" instead of "-our," thus
"harbor," "humor." Others covered using "-er" for "-re" as in "center"
and "fiber," some concerned using "-ize" for "-ise." These spellings
were already the preferred forms in most U.S. publications by 1906 (but
a few Americans were still using "centre" etc. in print).
Among the other kinds of changes, for example, some called for
removing silent "b's," thus "det," "dout," "lam," etc.; some respelled
"-ed" for past tenses in some cases as "d" or "t" giving "turnd,"
"lookt," "equipt."
Some changes respelled "ph" with "f," while some others called for
dropping final letters such as "-me" from "-gramme" or "-ue" from
"-ogue." One of the items concerned respelling "ough" when pronounced
as long "o" or long "u."
As of 1906, "phantasy" was the more common, preferred spelling;
"fantasy" then became the more common, standard spelling in the U.S. and
Britain. "Programme" was the preferred, dominant spelling in the U.S.
as well as other English-speaking countries around 1900; "program" went
on to become the standard U.S. spelling by the middle of the 20th
century. (Further "program" is standard in all English-speaking
countries for the computer sense.) "Catalog" has become the preferred
form in American English in the last couple of decades of the 20th
century.
Among the other 12 spellings promoted by the (U.S.) National
Education Association, "tho," "altho," "thru," "prolog," and "decalog/
Decalog" are listed in American English dictionaries as acceptable
variants, and "thoro" and "pedagog" can sometimes be found listed as
informal or variant forms.
------------------------------------------------------
See too the entry for "spelling reform" in the "Oxford Companion to the
English Language," edited by Tom McArthur
Other sources (these were published in the U.S.):
Abraham Tauber, "Spelling Reform in the United States" (1958),
Doctoral thesis for Columbia University, New York
H.L. Mencken, "The American Language" (There are many printings of
this; 1937, 1977, other years, Alfred A. Knopf), 1937 ed: pages
380-407; 1977 ed: pages 479-497
Kenneth H. Ives, "Written Dialects N Spelling Reforms: History N
Alternatives" (1979, Progresiv Publishr, Chicago)
David Grambs, "Death By Spelling" (1989, Harper & Row), pages 55-59
"Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage" (1989), pages 864-
866, 906
Eric Zorn, "Moves for simplification turn Inglish into another
langwaj," _Chicago Tribune_, June 8, 1997, Section 3A page 14
A book by Mont Follick, who sponsored the spelling reform bills to the
British Parliament:
Mont Follick, "The Case for Spelling Reform" (1965, Pitman Press,
Bath)
A few other sources (which I haven't seen, but know of from
bibliographies); these may be available at large libraries:
David Abercrombie, "Some Orthographic Experiments of the Last
Four Centuries" (1981), in "Towards a History of Phonetics,"
edited by R.E. Asher and J.A. Henderson (University Press,
Edinburgh)
Thomas R. Lounsbury, "English spelling and spelling reform"
Frederick S. Wingfield, "Among the Spelling Reformers," _American
Speech_, October 1931
Francis A. March, "The Spelling Reform," _Bureau of Education
Circular of Information_, No. 8 (1893, United States
Government Printing Office)
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* Notes Regarding the 1876 and 1898 Lists of Words:
I have found two slightly different lists of what the 12 words were
that the U.S. National Education Association began promoting in 1898,
and have also found more than one set given as being what the American
Philological Association adopted in 1876. For the record, here are the
differences:
Per H.L. Mencken's "The American Language," "Compton's Encyclopedia
Online," and David Grambs' "Death By Spelling," the 12 words which the
(American) National Education Association selected and began promoting
in 1898 were:
tho altho thru thruout thoro thoroly
thorofare program prolog catalog pedagog decalog
Per Ken Ives' "Written Dialects" and Abraham Tauber's "Spelling
Reform in the United States," the 12 words were:
tho altho thru thruout thoro thorofare
program prolog catalog pedagog decalog demagog
Thus, the first list contains "thoroly" but doesn't have "demagog";
this second list has "demagog" but not "thoroly." Additionally, Tauber
shows "Decalog" with a capital "d."
To the second list of words, we also have this from "The Greatest
Good Fortune," a biography of Andrew Carnegie written by Simon
Goodenough (1985, Macdonalds, Edinburgh):
"Fifty distinguished Americans were approached who would
agree to adopt the simplified spelling of several
commonly used words, altho, catalog, decalog, demagog,
pedagog, prolog, tho, thoro, thorofare, thru, and
thruout."
(Note: The organization in the U.S. currently known as the National
Education Association was called the National Educational Association
in 1898. This organization was founded in 1857 as the National Teachers
Association, became the National Educational Association in 1870, then
the National Education Association in 1906.)
Per H.L. Mencken and David Grambs, the American Philological
Association adopted 11 words in 1876. These words were:
ar catalog definit gard giv hav
infinit liv tho thru wisht
Per Ken Ives, 10 words were adopted by the APA at that time:
ar catalog definit gard giv hav
liv tho thru wisht
Per Abraham Tauber, the APA chose 11 words, and they were:
ar catalog definit gard giv hav
infinit liv tho thru wich
## To the matter of another "discrepency": H.L. Mencken's "The
American Language" gives January 28, 1935 as the date that the _Chicago
Tribune_ made the first in their series of announcements of simplified
spellings, while I note it above as 1934. I have a copy of this first
announcement made from microfilm of the _Chicago Tribune_, and it is
indeed January 28, 1934, and not 1935.
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Cornell Kimball
cor...@spambgon.pacificnet.net
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(To reply, remove " spambgon. ")