American Language Supplement 2 (59 page)

George Philip Krapp, in 1925,
³
described the spellings
honour, centre, defence, waggon
and
traveller
as rocks upon which the Englishman founds his pride, patriotism and faith. He might have added
storey
(of a house),
for ever
(two words),
nought, grey, cheque
, and
pyjamas
. Some of these rocks, alas, begin to show signs of faulting. When, in January, 1943, the British Foreign Office issued its first American White Paper, it made a graceful bow to Uncle Shylock by spelling
honor
and
labor
without the
u
.
⁴
All the English authorities that I am aware of (save, of course, the Simplified Spelling Society) still hold out for
centre, theatre, calibre, fibre
, etc., and also for
defence
and
offence
, but the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary has been recommending
wagon
with one
g
for years past, and the Concise Oxford confesses that there is something to be said for it by entering the word as
wag
(
g
)
on
.
⁵
The NED describes
forever
as “now chiefly U.S.,” but its quotations show that making one word of the more usual
for ever
has been favored by eminent British authors of the past, including Carlyle.
¹
So with
naught
. The NED calls it “now archaic” and prefers
nought
, but the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary ordains the American
naught
.

The amateur lexicographers who discuss and debate words in the English newspapers often go to the bat for
storey
, but the same high authority prefers
story
and is supported therein by Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford.
²
The English, of course, have always used
story
to signify a tale, but they are loath to drop
storey
in the sense of a floor in a house. One of the arguments commonly heard in defense of it is that it serves to differentiate clearly the two meanings of the word, but how anyone could ever confuse a
story
in the
Saturday Evening Post
with one in the Al Smith Building is more than I can make out. All the classical British authors down to Dickens used
story
in the latter sense, but when Dickens wrote
storey
in “Barnaby Rudge” (1840) he was presently imitated by Harriet Beecher Stowe in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852). Webster, however, preferred
story
, and at home he has had his way. It has also been argued that the English
nett
with two
t
’s, meaning free from deduction, serves to distinguish it from
net
, meaning a meshed fabric, but the Concise Oxford and the Authors’ & Printers’ Dictionary declare for one
t
in both cases, and it seems to be prevailing.
³

When a London edition of the American soldiers’ newspaper, the
Stars
and
Stripes
, was established during World War II, the English proofreader in the printing-office where it was printed corrected the American
defense
to the English
defence
every time he countered it in copy sent to the composing-room by the editors. “The proofreader,” said the London
Times
in discussing this insular sabotage, “knew with one part of his mind that
defense
, considering the paper in which the word was to appear, was right, but another, and
more influential, part was insisting that the unaccustomed looking
s
should give way to the decent and familiar
c
, and the unconscious gained yet one more victory over its eternal opponent.”
¹
There was a time when any such exercise of maternal authority would have been received humbly by decent-minded Americans, but no more. Even learned men now defend the national spelling without apology, and in the austere
American Journal of Philology
, so long ago as 1937, Dr. Kemp Malone, professor of English at the Johns Hopkins, gave Sir William Craigie and Professor James R. Hulbert a sharp rap over the knuckles for using the English
defence
and
offence
in the DAE.
²

Thornton, in his “American Glossary,”
³
says that the reduction of two
l’s
to one in such words as
traveller, jewellery
, etc., began in the United States “about the year 1835,” and that it was “a gradual process.” There seems to be every reason for believing that Webster was responsible for it, though previous lexicographers, notably Walker and Lowth, had recommended it. In his “Compendious Dictionary” of 1806 he was content to record the spellings which then prevailed and still prevail in England, but in his “American Dictionary” of 1828 he not only gave the forms with one
l
, but defended them at length. The rule he set up was that when a final consonant appears in an accented syllable, it may be doubled in derivatives, but not when it appears in an unaccented syllable. Thus he arrived at
jeweler, traveler, counselor, duelist, marvelous
, etc., but permitted
distiller, forgetting, appalling, installment, beginning
, etc. Unhappily, he added some exceptions on dubious phonological or etymological grounds,
e.g., metallurgy, chancellor
and
crystalline
, and most of these have survived. But even the English have now dropped the redundant
l
from
instalment
. Webster did not include
aluminum
in his dictionary of 1806, for the metal was not discovered by Sir Humphry Davy until 1808. Davy at first proposed to call it
alumium
, but in 1812 he changed its name to
aluminum
. To this the
Quarterly Review
⁴
objected on the ground that
aluminum
lacked “a classical sound,”
i.e.
, did not harmonize with the
names of
potassium, sodium, calcium
, etc., and proposed that
aluminium
be used instead. This was done in England, but Webster decided for
aluminum
in his dictionary of 1828, and it has remained
aluminum
in the United States ever since. The English, however, still stick to
aluminium
,
¹
though the rule evoked by the
Quarterly
had been violated before 1812 by
aurum
(gold),
tantalum, platinum
and
molybdenum
, and has been violated since by
lanthanum
.
²
But this is only incidentally a matter of spelling. It is really the English and American names for the metal that are different.

The distinction between
practice
the noun and
to practise
the verb seems to be breaking down. Webster 1934 apparently prefers
practice
in both cases, and so do the Government Printing Office
³
and the American Medical Association Press,
⁴
but other authorities show a considerable uncertainty. Both noun and verb descend from an earlier
practic
or
practique
, and until Shakespeare’s time both were spelled with an
s
and pronounced
practice
. The spelling with
c
apparently arose in imitation of
justice, service
, etc. Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, argued that “the distinction in spelling between the noun and the verb belongs properly only to words which are accented on the last syllable, as
device
and
devise
, where the verb has the sound of
-ize
.” The use of
s
in the verb, he went on, encouraged the uneducated to pronounce it
practize
. My impression is that the use of
practise
for both noun and verb is increasing in the United States, despite the weight of authority against it. Perhaps the general use of
s
in
defense
and
offense
has had some influence here. But all the English authorities continue to distinguish between
practice
the noun and
to practise
the verb.

In AL4
⁵
I exposed Christopher Morley to the contumely of 100% Americans by showing that he had used the English spelling,
harbour
, in the name of an American town in his “Thunder on the Left.”
⁶
He replied by putting the blame on his publishers. His manuscript, he said, showed
harbor
throughout, but his publishers
insisted on English spelling “in any book of which they hoped to sell sheets in London.”
¹
This plea in confession and avoidance touched me on a tender spot, for my own publisher, Knopf, once followed the same practise, so I offered Morley my sympathy and apologies.
²
Knopf, indeed, went further: his first printing of his “Rules for the Guidance of Authors and Translators” actually set up the NED as his sole office authority, and ordained specifically such arrestingly English spellings as
anaemia, arbour, behaviour, defence, favour, for ever, jewellery, mediaeval, mould, neighbour, plough, sceptic, to-day
and
woollen
. To be sure, he permitted the American
ax
and
program
, but that, apparently, was only because the English had begun to tolerate them. Later on, however, he lowered the Union Jack and hoisted what English sailors call the Bedtick, and his current style-sheet sets up Webster 1934 as his office authority, with the NED to be followed only in books intended for English consumption. Most other American publishers do likewise, and English spelling is now rare in the United States, though it seems to hold its own in Canada, at least officially.
³
But the -
re
is still commonly used in
theatre
in the stage world, even though it occasionally produces such grotesqueries as
Center Theatre
,
⁴
and the
Racquet
and Tennis Club still survives in Park avenue, though the English themselves now prefer
racket
.
⁵
A Vogue
Tyre
, fortified with vitamins, was announced in 1945,
⁶
but
tire
continues to hold the American fort. Meanwhile, the following dispatch from the London correspondent of the
Christian Science Monitor
⁷
shows how the wind is blowing in England: