“ The United States and Great Britain are two countries split by a common voice communication . ” So goes the honest-to-god chestnut tree commonly impute to dramatist George Bernard Shaw . One of those separation is in the spelling of word like color ( people of color ) , theater ( theatre ) , and realize ( realise ) . But how did this separation occur ?
Spelling Before the American Revolution
Modern English has always been a slippery language to wrangle . While it has some base in Anglo - Saxon , English has been altered by Norman conquerors , Dutch typesetters , and orthographers who want to pretty up the terminology . And while spelling textbooks have been popular among the English upper grade for centuries , English spelling was not completely stock . In fact , the -or Holy Writ terminate that we know companion with American English in discussion like “ purity , ” “ color , ” and “ labor ” was preferred by some English lexicographers , who choose to scratch the French “ u , ” an artefact of the Norman conquering , from the English language and recall to the words ’ Latin theme .
Early American colonial spelling was a number more of a mess , with such creative spellings like “ jinerll ” for “ universal ” appear in prescribed Hartford document even as of late as 1716 . But finally , two very important book would go a long manner to standardise English in both England and its colony .
The first of those Good Book is Thomas Dilworth ’s A New Guide to the English Tongue , a textbook design to teach children proper English spelling and orthoepy . The book was published in London in 1740 , and then appeared in America seven years later thanks to America ’s gatekeeper of the printed word , Benjamin Franklin . The poor speller is important in part because it was such a striking , with numerous Brits and colonists reared on Dilworth ’s advance to the English terminology , and in part because it would provide the basis for a later American speller .
The other record is Samuel Johnson ’s 1755 masterwork A Dictionary of the English Language . English speech dictionary had existed before Samuel Johnson , but primarily for obscure words . Johnson , on the other hand , created a comprehensive record of the language . If anyone require to know the definition or spelling of just about any word , they could simply await it up . It was a revolutionary text , one that would go unmatched for multiplication .
There was a minute of a prescriptivist bended to Johnson ’s monolithic undertaking . He sense that the English language was a mess ( call off the language ’s inconsistencies “ a mark of weakness ” ) and that his dictionary could aid to standardized the language . It was Johnson ’s dictionary that finally codify the -our in so many British Book — although some of his “ u”s have since been dropped for Book he spelled “ horrour , ” “ emperour , ” “ mirrour , ” and so forth . He also end a number of word like “ publick , ” “ attick , ” “ critick , ” and “ chaotick , ” with a “ k , ” something that disappeared from English spelling within a few decades .
Johnson did not listen the change language , however . After nine age knead on his lexicon , he accredit that English was a alter , growing thing , and there was nothing any lexicologist could do to stop that change . As much as Johnson ’s dictionary did to standardise the English language , he came to believe that a dictionary writer ’s job was not to prescribe language , but to document how masses in reality use it . He began his endeavor ( apologia for my American spelling , Dr. Johnson ) a prescriptivist and ended it a descriptivist .
One revolution that Johnson did not approve of , however , was the American Revolution , which he believed would end with “ English high quality and American obeisance . ”
A New Country and a New Linguistic Identity
Johnson ’s political predictions proved less prescient than his linguistic one , and after America won its independency from England , questions of national identity rise . Some thinkers of the era actually wondered if Americans should even speak English anymore , as the terminology suggested the duo of England . More radical suggestions included changing the interior language to German ( which around ten percent of the country already utter ) or Hebrew ( which was taught in some New England school ) .
Benjamin Franklin , meanwhile , had his own melodic theme for the English linguistic process . Franklin proposed a major spelling reform , on that make English spelling entirely phonic . This would involve an renovation of the first principle , fall behind carbon , j , q , w , x , and y , and adding six unexampled letter . The idea never trance on .
The Speller and Noah Webster
Into the linguistic ruffle ill-treat Noah Webster , lexicographer , writer , and grim self - plugger . Webster was exhaustively Yankee ; his family on both sides were American colonists several generations back and he even had an ancestor on the Mayflower . Webster ’s class was n’t specially wealthy ; his founding father was a farmer , but he did terminate up attending Yale and later join the Connecticut prevention . He developed relationship with many of America ’s most prominent citizen , including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin , but he had a reputation for being rather objectionable . Webster suffered from profound societal anxiety , and tended to compensate for it with arrogance and bravado . Dr. Benjamin Rush was fond of telling a taradiddle about when he once greeted Webster and congratulated him for arriving in Philadelphia . Webster reportedly answer , “ Sir , you may congratulate Philadelphia upon the juncture ! ”
Webster worked as a teacher and a attorney , but he come in to internal prominence thanks to his spelling textbook . Webster had teach kid with Dilworth ’s speller , but notice it didactically lacking . So , using Dilworth ’s book as a starting stop , Webster wrote a speller of his own . This was meant to be a thoroughly American speller . While Dilworth ’s good speller included the gens and pronunciations of English town , Webster ’s let in prominent American cities , with a special emphasis on his aboriginal Connecticut .
Webster ’s good speller actually used Samuel Johnson ’s spelling rather than any new American ones ( although it was these spellers that had Americans pronouncing the letter Z as “ zee ” rather than “ zed ” ) , but Webster get hitched with some patriotic ideas regarding his textbook . He felt that , unlike England , which had a host of regional accents , America should be united under a single exercise set of orthoepy rules . Naturally , he select the pronunciation that he develop up with , and his spellers were plan to learn children to speak like they had stepped out of New Haven . Webster ’s poor speller was a best vendor , and he became a great advocated of copyright protection in big part because of it . He drafted America ’s first copyright law and was quick to incriminate competitors of plagiarization ( a bit ironical since he had borrowed a swell flock from Dilworth ’s school text ) .
Webster was n’t a fan of Benjamin Franklin ’s new alphabet scheme , but he did eventually fond to the estimate of spelling reform . He spell essays advocating for a more streamlined orthography , one that would manoeuvre American English in a new focusing . He suppose that , one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. American would be as distinct from British English “ as the modern Dutch , Danish , and Swedish are from the German , or from one another . ” And his 1806 A summary Dictionary of the English Language propose such an orthography . Some of the spellings in that lexicon are familiar to forward-looking readers—”jail ” for “ jailhouse , ” “ plowed ” for “ ploughed , ” “ humour ” for “ liquid body substance . ” Others seem a bit rum today , like “ speek ” for “ speak , ” “ determin ” for “ determine , ” “ bred ” for “ cabbage , ” “ bilt ” for “ built , ” and “ groop ” for “ group . ” The dictionary was a financial and critical failure , and Webster was thoroughly rib for what many observer saw as prescriptivism drop dead mad .
It would be another 27 years before Webster put out another dictionary , his far more comprehensive An American Dictionary of the English Language . Although by this peak , the older ( and perhaps wiser ) Webster had abandon some his more extreme spellings , this volume control many of the spelling we associate with forward-looking American English . Words like “ theatre ” and “ gist ” became “ theater ” and “ center . ” “ Masque ” became “ mask ” and “ offence ” was now “ offense . ” And word like “ color , ” “ favourite , ” and “ mould ” each turn a loss their “ atomic number 92 ” ( in part because Webster was staunchly anti - Gallic ) .
And , as David Wolfman points out in his book Righting the Mother Tongue , America was a different position when Webster published this new volume . For one thing , many of Webster ’s critic were dead , and the social environs was more accepting of Webster ’s populist views on spelling — namely , that English words should be easy to spell . And Johnson ’s dictionary , now 70 class old , was no longer the linguistic juggernaut it once had been . Although the $ 20 , two - volume tome was prohibitively expensive for most households ( $ 364 in today ’s dollars ) , it did find its way onto the shelves of prominent scholars and President Andrew Jackson . Because the tome contained 70,000 entranceway and admit distinctly American words ( include Webster ’s sole coinage , “ demoralize ” ) , it became an invaluable study of American linguistic scholarship , though Webster ’s crook spelling was still not without its critics .
Webster ’s sword of spelling worked its way into American homes thanks to George and Charles Merriam . After Webster ’s death , the Merriams obtained the rightfield to Webster ’s American Dictionary as well as his spellers . They hired a team of scholar to retool Webster ’s book and weed out some of his more suspect etymology . Instead of a $ 20 two - volume work , the Merriams publish the Merriam - Webster dictionary as a unmarried $ 6 volume . It was still pricey , but now affordable to middle - grade Americans . The Merriams also happened to be master marketers , getting thousands of copies of their new dictionary into American public schoolhouse .
British spelling in America did not go out quietly , however . In 1856 , the United States Democratic Review ran a serial of pieces in which both supporters and critic of the former Noah Webster debated proper American writing system . Questions of -re vs. -er and -our vs. -or raged through the pages . Interestingly , Joseph Worcester , author of a rival dictionary , indicate for Webster ’s usage simply because it was the predominate usage in the United States . He conceded that Webster ’s spelling had won out .
President Roosevelt’s (Doomed) Spelling Reform
Members of the SSB included folks like Mark Twain , Melvil Dewey ( of the Dewey Decimal system of rules ) , dictionary editor , publishing power Henry Holt , and Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer , but that line of descent was not enough to protect the 300 - word list from ridicule . critic had a champaign Clarence Shepard Day Jr. with the lean , concoct young and progressively eccentric spellings so as to mock Roosevelt and the lean . ( And , naturally , a set of sport was had with the spelling Roosevelt ’s own name . ) The president end up retract the purchase order , and the printer yield to conventional American spelling . It ’s proof that , while it can and does bechance , spelling reform can be and extremely hard thing to attain .
source :
Marsha E. Ackermann , How Do You import Ruzevelt ? : A account of Spelling in America Today and Yesterday
Joshua Kendall , The Forgotten Founding Father : Noah Webster ’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture
David Wolman , Righting the Mother Tongue : From Olde English to Email , the Tangled Story of English Spelling
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