American Language Supplement 2 (64 page)
Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
In another paper Craigie called attention to an impediment that nearly all spelling reformers have passed over too casually:
The question of the possibility or advantage of change becomes more difficult when the normalized spelling would reduce to a common form those homophones which at present are differentiated and on that account are immediately recognizable.
2
If the postal
mail
were respelled as
male
, the meaning of
male carriers
might well be in doubt in certain contexts, and if
sew
became
sow
it would not only eliminate a useful distinction but would add a third homograph to the noun
sow
.
3
This problem, of course, applies to all homophones with distinctive spellings, whether these have etymological justification or not. They form indeed one of the features of the English vocabulary which have to be taken seriously into account before it can be decided whether the present orthography can be usefully modified or replaced by one on a more phonetic basis.
4
Craigie concludes that phonetic spelling is not necessarily possible to
all
languages. “Irish and Scottish Gaelic,” he says, “are as far from being phonetically written as they could well be, but any one familiar with either form of the language knows how unintelligible they can become when any attempt is made to replace the conventional historic orthography by one which aims at representing the actual sounds.” He also cites the case of Faeröese, an archaic Scandinavian dialect spoken on the desolate Faeroe Islands, 200 miles north of the Shetlands. When this language was first reduced to writing, toward the close of the Eighteenth Century, use was made of “an orthography which as far as possible represented the actual pronunciation,” but it produced such uncouth effects that, after an experience of half a century, it was “replaced by a spelling closely based upon Icelandic.” “That a phonetic spelling,” says Craigie, “should in this way have been abandoned in favor of a historic after a fair trial is evidence that the value of the one or the other may depend upon the nature of the language to which they are applied.”
5
Craigie hints that English is one of the languages which resist the phonetizing process, and for two reasons. The first is that it is made up of words coming from widely different sources – “the native, Romanic, classical and exotic” —, and each element has brought in its own traditions in spelling. If, in a proposed spelling reform scheme,
the native standard is adopted, much of the Romanic and classical element becomes unrecognizable,
e.g
., if
seed
is taken as the natural representation of the sounds
s, ee, d
, then
cede
and
recede
must become
seed
and
reseed
. If
mesh
is normal, then both
cession
and
session
must become
seshon
, and
fissure
will fall together with
fisher
.
1
On the other hand if the Romanic and classical
fuse
or
muse
is taken as a model, then
news
will be
nuse
, and
huse
would represent both
hues
and the third person singular of the verb
hew
.
2
The second obstacle lies in the fact that many of the commonest words in the language have traditional spellings that could not be changed without offending the eye and causing confusion. “No one will deny,” says Craigie, “that …
ake, coff, enuff, enny, wimmen, tung, shure
and
berry
are better representation of the sounds of
ache, cough, enough, any, women, tongue, sure
and
bury
than the conventional spellings. The trouble is that to all who have a fair knowledge of orthography such forms, instead of being recognized as improvements, suggest only ignorance and illiteracy,
3
since they are such as would occur to anyone whose schooling had been decidedly imperfect.”
4
A third difficulty lies in the fact that many words are pronounced differently in England and the United States, and even in different parts of the same country. There is, for example,
schedule
, which would have to be
shedyul
or something of the sort in England and
skedyul
in America. Again, there is
ci
in
such words as
association
, which would be
shy
in England and
si
in Scotland.
1
Said George Sampson, a retired inspector of school for the London County Council and formerly honorary secretary of the English Association:
Radical reform in spelling means the exact phonetic representation of pronunciation. But whose pronunciation? There is Scottish English, Irish English, Welsh English, and American English of numerous kinds. There is even English English, of which I will offer some specimens.
I was recently talking to some eminent persons about education. One spoke of “the
grät
(
ä
as in German)
vahyoo
of the
clahssics
,” and mentioned “
Ahthuns”;
another spoke of “the
greet velyiew
of the
clessics
,” and mentioned
“Ethins”;
a third thought it “a
gret shem
that the
univahsities
should
conten so mach infairior matairiel
.” And the other day a lady told me she was
“afred bebby hed a pen
and
mǎst
hev
gert
a
curled
.”
Well, there are a few specimens of “educated English.” Again I ask, Whose pronunciation is to be represented in any
nu
spelling?
2
The Dictionary of New Spelling conceals this difficulty by disregarding many of the pronunciations of standard English. Thus it renders
iron
as
iern, door
as
dor
and
carve
as
karv
, though the late Robert Bridges showed so long ago as 1919 that
iron
has become
ion
in England,
door
has become
daw
, and both
carve
and
calve
have become
caa’v
.
3
Bridges listed many other pronunciations that must strike an American not of the Southern Tidewater or the Boston area as strange,
e.g., board, bored
and
bawd
as
bawd; hoar, whore
and
haw
as
haw; cork
and
caulk
as
cawk, lorn
and
lawn
as
lawn, source
and
sauce
as
sauce, stalk
and
stork
as
stawk, taut, tort
and
taught
as
taut
, and
saw, soar
and
sore
as
saw
. He also added
broach
and
brooch, desert
and
dessert, whoop
and
hoop, geyser
and
gazer, verdure
and
verger, reach
and
retch
, and
tray
and
trait
as homonyms, though they are certainly not so in General American. His search of the NED revealed 505 homonyms altogether, embracing 1075 words, but many of his pairs included words seldom encountered,
e.g., acta-actor, wot-what, glose-glows, pyx-picks, cozencousin
,
plaice-place
, and
chase
(grove)-
chase
(printer’s). He showed that phonetic spelling would greatly increase their number, but he professed, though without any show of surety, to be undaunted by that fact, for he argued that in the case of the average man, “as he learns new words, there will be a tendency, if not a necessity, for him to lose hold of a corresponding number of his old words, and the words that will first drop out will be those with which he had hitherto been uncomfortable, and among those words will be the words of ambiguous meaning.” But all that this comes to is the doctrine that an increase in homonyms would lead to a corresponding impoverishment of the vocabulary.
1
Though himself an advocate of a simplified spelling scheme, Bridges ended with this anticipation of Craigie:
The complexity of [phonetic spelling] has driven off public sympathy and dashed the confidence of scholars, withdrawing thereby some of the wholesome checks that common sense might else have imposed on its practical exponents. The experts thus left to themselves, in despair of any satisfactory solution, are likely enough to adopt the simplifications most agreeable to their present ideas, and measure the utility of such simplifications by the accidental conveniences of their own science, independently of other considerations.
2
Some years ago the London
Observer
sought to resolve the matter by advocating free trade in spelling. If a word is spelled so that it is instantly recognizable, what difference does it make, after all,
how
it is spelled? George Bernard Shaw, despite his puckish advocacy, in his hortatory moments, of an entirely new and impossible alphabet, was content to use the present alphabet in a free and easy manner in his ordinary writing, and I have myself, in my humbler way, found the same system to be comfortable and rewarding. It is, in fact, followed by the overwhelming majority of other Americanos, and by multitudes in the effete United Kingdom, and it works very well. Everyone can understand a policeman when he turns in a report of a
larsensy
or an applicant for a job when he
alleges that he is a licensed
chuffer, shoffer
or even
shofar
.
1
“Correct” spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.
In Canada English spelling survives more or less, supported by the authority of the King’s Printer,
2
but many American forms are in common use in the newspapers,
e.g., curb
and
tire
.
3
Indeed, the Printer himself sanctions
jail, aluminum, forever, net, program, story, wagon
and even
alright
, though he clings tightly to
draughtsman, mould, whisky
, and the
-our
and
-re
endings.
1
Its history is told in some detail in Handbook of Simplified Spelling, by Henry Gallup Paine; New York, 1920, pp. 12–32. Among its original members were Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the
Century
; Justice David J. Brewer, of the Supreme Court of the United States; Isaac K. Funk, editor of the Standard Dictionary; Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain); William T. Harris, U. S. commissioner of education; Henry Holt, the publisher; Thomas R. Lounsbury, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William James, Melvil Dewey and Brander Matthews. Mark Twain at first poked fun at the movement, but was later converted. See The Dizzy Rise (and Ensuing Bust) of Simplified Spelling, by H. L. Mencken,
New Yorker
, March 7, 1936. What remains of the Simplified Spelling Board is now denizened at Lake Placid, N. Y., with Godfrey Dewey, son of Melvil, in charge and its name changed to Simpler Spelling Association.
2
Association Frequencies of the Vowel Sounds and Vowel Letters in the Conventional American-English Spelling; Chicago, 1941; second ed., Chicago, 1942.
3
Among the Spelling Reformers,
American Speech
, Oct., 1931, pp. 54–57.
1
Fonetik Crthografi: Krestqmathi, prejzentd widh komplimnts v dh Northwest Printery, 4617 w Grace str Chicago 41, Ills Nov 1944 – a pamphlet of twelve pages.
1
AL4, p. 405.
2
He served three terms in the Senate, from 1907 to 1925. Born in 1856, he was 85 years old when he set up as a spelling reformer. He died July 20, 1947.
3
Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 78th Congress, Nov. 7, 1945; Washington, 1945, p. 6.
4
The Global Alphabet, by Hon. Robert L. Owen, Presented by Mr. Thomas of Oklahoma; Senate Document No. 49, 78th Congress, 1st Session; Washington, 1943, pp. 8 and 9.
5
The precise number is uncertain. In another pamphlet, also entitled The Global Alphabet, Senate Document No. 133, 78th Congress, 1st Session, Oct. 18, 1943, p. 1, the hon. gentleman mentioned “forms or letters representing 18 consonant sounds and 15 vowel sounds, each of which represents one and only one sound, approximately,” but in a third pamphlet, also of the same title, Senate Document No. 250, 78th Congress, 2nd Session, Dec. 4, 1944, he spoke of “18 consonants, 18 vowel sounds and 6 compound consonants,” and in the Hearing just mentioned, p. 5, he showed 44 characters.
6
See, for example, the
Record
for Dec. 15, 1942, p. A4647; Feb. 15, 1944, p. A795; Feb. 1, 1945, p. A410; March 22, 1945, p. A1498; April 5, 1945, pp. A1790–91; April 17, 1945, pp. 3455–56; Oct. 10, 1945, p. A4578; June 21, 1946, pp. A3842–43; Aug. 1, 1946, p. A4989, and Jan. 23, 1947, pp. A264–66. His chief supporter is the Hon. A. S. Mike Monroney, of Oklahoma, for whom see
American Speech
, April, 1946, p. 85, n. 9.
1
Amxrikai Spek; Nu Yark, 1937.
2
An American Orthografi; Brooklyn, 1925.
3
April, 1926, p. 398
1
Better Spelling in a Post-War World; Athens (Ga.), April, 1946.
2
AL4, p. 404.
3
Phonetize English Spelling, April, pp. 60–61.
4
Private communication, Dec. 9, 1938.
5
Fun With Phoney Spelling; New York, 1941.
1
The Nixon System of E. Z. Speling; Philadelphia, n.d.
2
Practical Phonetic English,
Words
, May, 1936, pp. 8–9.
1
A large number of American books and articles proposing schemes of reformed spelling are listed in Kennedy, pp. 46–49, 293–97 and 430–32. Some items that Kennedy overlooked are in Krapp, Vol. I, p. 330. Many more might be added. So long ago as 1850 a
Wecli Fonetic Advocat
began to appear in “Sinsinati,” and in 1852 the projectors thereof published a Fonetic Olmanac and Rejistur ov Speling and Ritin Reform. Not a few of the pre-Civil War reformers in other fields also toyed with simplified spelling. It was used, for example, in an anti-slavery monthly called
Leterz Political & Theological
, published at “Winooski Fallz,” Vt., by Jon R. Forest from Jan., 1857 onward. Ten years earlier the
Anglo Sacsun
began to appear, and W. C. Bryant noticed it favorably in the New York
Evening Post
, June 29, 1848. Mr. Charles J. Lovell tells me that there is a partial file in the Boston Public Library. In 1852 some anonymous reformer brought out a Furst Fonetic Redur in Boston. In Aug., 1861 the Rev. B. M. Genung published a plea for a reform in spelling under the title of Orthography of Our Language in the
Ladies’ Repository
(Cincinnati), pp. 486–87.
1
He also adds
houn!
2
See his English Spelling,
Modern Language Journal
, May, 1941, pp. 628–32. The scheme of Berg is expounded in Scientific Spelling Formula; Seattle, 1936; that of Hayden in Phonetic Spelling; High Point (N.C.), 1944; that of Clark in A Dicshunary of Reformed and Simplified Spelling; New Milford (Conn.), 1914, and that of Laubach in Wanted: a Global Alphabet,
National Education Association Journal
, Jan., 1947, pp. 28–29. I do not attempt a complete bibliography. Such works often appear as pamphlets in remote places, and others exist only in MS.
3
p. 406.
1
Lacky, Pass the Hemloc, editorial, March 26, 1939.
2
Simplified Spelling, editorial, April 9, 1939.
3
To Phyllis Who Might Spell It
Phreight
, editorial. I am indebted here to Mr. Arthur R. Atkinson.
4
Stanley Walker reported in the
New Yorker
, April 6, 1946, p. 87, that its readers were still showing signs of annoyance with
frate
. The
Tribune
comes by its weakness for phonetic spelling by inheritance. Its great editor, Joseph Medill (1823–1899), was a member of the council of the Spelling Reform Association.
5
Foto
, Baltimore
Evening Sun
, May 16, 1936, p. 6. The
Evening Suv
argued for
foto
, but has never adopted it. See The Wayward Press,
New Yorker
, June 8, 1946, p. 90.
Fone
has got to England, and was denounced by a Captain Richard Pilkington in the London
Times
, June 7, 1943. On June 10 it was defended by George Bernard Shaw.
American Speech
reported
fotographer
on a Fifth avenue sign, April, 1936, p. 160. On Jan. 13, 1890, the Hon. Frank Lawler, of Illinois, introduced in the House of Representatives a resolution ordaining the use of
fotograf, alfabet, filosofy
and
paragraf
in public documents, but it died in committee. It was supported by Alexander Melville Bell (father of the inventor of the telephone); William T. Harris, then United States commissioner of education, and F. A. March, but opposed by A. R. Spofford, librarian of Congress. Allen Walker Read says in Amphi-Atlantic English,
English Studies
, Oct., 1935, p. 175, that when spelling reform was revived in Congress in 1906 “congressmen of both parties expressed subserviency to English models” and it died again.
1
The Kraze for K,
American Speech
, Oct., 1925, pp. 43–44. In Nineteenth-Century Humor,
American Speech
, Aug., 1927, p. 460, Richmond P. Bond recalled that The Harp of a Thousand Strings, by S. P. Avery, published in New York in 1858, was described on its title page as “
konceived
, compiled and
komically koncocted
… and abetted by over 200
kurious kutz
.”
K
was the Greek
kappa
. The Romans changed it to
c
. Its subsequent history in the principal European languages is recounted in NED, Vol. V, p. 647. The
kraze
for
k
continues. In The Coming of the
Big Freeze, New Yorker
, Sept. 14, 1946, p. 72, E. J. Kahn, Jr., listed
Kol-Pak
and
Kold-Kist
among the new brand names of frozen foods, and on Sept. 28, 1946, pp. 19–20, the
New Yorker
added
Filto-Kleen
filters and
Kellogg Koiled Kords
(“Make ironing quicker, easier”).
2
Word-Coinage and Modern Trade-Names,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part I, 1913, pp. 29–41, and Spelling Manipulation and Present-Day Advertising,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. V, Part VI, 1923, pp. 226–32.
1
Why Not
U
for
You
?, Oct., 1929, pp. 24–26.
2
Drivurself
and
u-dryvit
had been reported from Cambridge, Mass., by Phillips Barry,
American Speech
, Sept., 1927, p. 514.
3
American Speech
, Dec., 1941, p. 277.
4
See Supplement I, p. 327.
5
Showing Hollywood, by Cecilia Ager,
Variety
, July 23, 1930.
6
Notes of a Peninsula Commuter, by Joseph Burton Vasché,
American Speech
, Feb., 1940, p. 54.
7
See AL4, p. 407.
8
Dec., p. 374.
9
The Value of English Linguistics to the Teacher,
American Speech
, Nov., p. 100.
10
Saving a Letter, Liverpool
Daily Post
, July 27, 1944. I am indebted for this to Mr. P. E. Cleator.
11
Obituary of Lora Valedon, Sept. 18, 1946, p. 34.
1
Nation
, Aug. 15, 1942, p. 133.
2
Journal of the American Medical Association
, Nov. 13, 1943, p. 54 (advertising section).
3
Baltimore
Sun
, Aug. 1, p. 16, col. 2.
4
American Speech
, Oct., 1936, p. 274.
5
American Speech
, Oct., p. 70.
6
Sept. 2, p. 19.
7
College English
, April, 1943, p. 438, in answer to a protest against
nu, glo, blu, sox, lite
, etc., remarked sagely that “their very unconventionality gives them a commercial value; that is to say, they call attention to themselves because they are not what the reader expects.”
8
Sir George was a Scotsman, and also laid out a lot of money on the National Temperance Federation. He was knighted in 1918. His firm built the
Lusitania
.
1
New Spelling, by Walter Ripman and William Archer; London, 1940, p. 3.
2
The
Ur
-Pitman was himself an ardent spelling reformer. In fact, the movement in England was launched by an article he printed in his stenographic magazine, the
Phonotypic Journal
, in Jan., 1843. See On Early English Pronunciation, by Alexander J. Ellis; London, 1874, Vol. IV, p. 1182. His phonetic alphabet included letters borrowed from the Greek and others of his own design. In 1849 he printed the Book of Psalms in it, and during the years following he brought out other books and pamphlets in it, but in his old age he abandoned it for the easier scheme of the Simplified Spelling Society. His publishing firm, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., is still the Society’s official publisher. He was knighted for his services to stenography in 1894. Like all other reformers, he was unsatisfied by one arcanum, and also embraced vegetarianism and teetotalism. There are lives of him by his younger brother, Benn (1822–1911), and by Alfred Baker, and a good short account of him is in The Man Who Wrote by Sound, London
Sunday Express
, Dec. 30, 1940.
1
London
Times
, March 2, 1939.
2
But for some reason unknown it uses
erbaen
for
urbane
. Such inconsistencies are in all known simplified spelling systems.
3
New Spelling, before cited, p. 90.
1
The Society published a Dictionary of New Spelling, compiled by Walter Ripman and including about 18,600 words, in 1941. After it received the Hunter trust money it greatly extended its list of publications, which now includes,
inter alia
, A Short Account of New Spelling; London, 1940; A Spesimen ov Nue Speling; Wallsend-upon-Tyne, 1940; Dhe Etimolojokal Arguement, by William Archer; London, 1941; Dhe Eesthetik Arguement, by the same; London, 1941; I Hav Lurnt to Spel, by the same; London, 1941; On the History of Spelling, by W. W. Skeat; London, 1941; The Best Method of Teaching Children to Read and Write; London, 1942; Dhe Proez and Konz ov Rashonal Speling; London, 1942; A Breef History of Inglish Speling; London, 1942; Braeking dhe Spel; London, 1942; Dhe Star, by H. G. Wells; London, 1942; How to Teach the New Spelling, by Walter Ripman; London, 1942; Dhe Fonetik Aspekt ov Speling Reform by Daniel Jones; London, 1942, and Views on Spelling Reform, by Ripman and others; London, 1944. Some of these are reprints of earlier publications. About half bear the imprint “Sur Isaac Pitman & Sunz, Ltd., London.” I am indebted for information about the Society and its doings to Mr. Bernard C. Wrenick, of Walton-on-Thames, a member of its committee. Other members are Ripman and Dr. Jones. Its president, in 1946, was Gilbert Murray, formerly regius professor of Greek at Oxford.
2
AL4, pp. 397–98.
3
Comus, 1634, l. 41; Paradise Lost, 1667, I, l. 246. He was imitated by Coleridge, Lamb and Tennyson.
4
Spare Hours: Second Series, by John Taylor Brown; Boston, 1867, p. 346.
1
A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue; a letter to the Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, London, Feb. 22, 1711/12. In this he proposed that an academy be set up for “ascertaining and fixing our language for ever.” His position is discussed at length in Wyld, pp. 158–61.
2
This is on the testimony of Southey’s son-in-law, in his notes to The Doctor.
Tho
, in fact, had been used by the before-mentioned Ormin,
c
. 1200. It is to be found in John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, 1642; in Shaftesbury, 1711, and in a
Spectator
paper by Addison, No. 557, 1714, and Benjamin Franklin, though a purist, used it in a letter to Webster, 1789.
