The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of what were considered to be its inconsistencies. The board operated until 1920, the year after the death of its founding benefactor, who had come to criticize the progress and approach of the organization.
The Simplified Spelling Board was announced on March 11, 1906, with Andrew Carnegie funding the organization, to be headquartered in New York City. The New York Times noted that Carnegie was convinced that "English might be made the world language of the future" and an influence leading to universal peace, but that this role was obstructed by its "contradictory and difficult spelling".[1] Carnegie committed $15,000 per year for five years to initiate the organization. Then he provided $25,000 a year and recruited advocates.[2]
Charles E. Sprague of the Union Dime Savings Institution, the board's first treasurer, noted that the group was careful to keep the word "reform" out of its name and gave the word "believe" as an example of a word that would benefit from elimination of its unneeded "i", stating that "If believe were spelled 'beleve', I think it would be a good change."[3]
On March 13, 1906, The New York Times editorialized in support of the Simplified Spelling Board's efforts, noting that 90% of English words are "fairly well spelled", but that "a vast improvement could be effected by reducing to some sort of regularity the much-used tenth that makes most of the trouble".[4] An editorial in the following day's edition noted that opponents of the board's efforts had suggested that the language be kept as is, only taught better, but that the members of the board would respect the language's history in its improvement efforts without hiding or distorting it.[5]Brander Matthews, the board's chairman, emphasized that the board's primary mission in simplifying the language was to eliminate unneeded letters, noting that "[s]implification by omission – this is its platform; this is its motto".[6] Isaac Funk wrote to The Times on March 20, 1906, emphasizing that the board's first aim was "a conservatively progressive evolution, aiming chiefly at the dropping of silent letters", accelerating a process that had been going on for centuries. This would be followed by the use of a phonetic alphabet developed by the American Philological Association and including the 40 basic sounds used in English. Phonetics would be taught to children in nursery school or kindergarten.[7]
First 300 words
The board's initial list of 300 words was published on April 1, 1906. Much of the list included words ending with -ed changed to end -t ("addressed", "caressed", "missed", "possessed" and "wished", becoming "addresst", "carest", "mist", "possest" and "wisht", respectively). Other changes included removal of silent letters ("catalogue" to "catalog"), changing -re endings to -er ("calibre" and "sabre" to "caliber" and "saber"), changing "ough" to "o" to represent the long vowel sound in the new words altho, tho and thoro, and changes to represent the "z" sound with that letter, where "s" had been used ("brasen" and "surprise" becoming "brazen" and "surprize"). Digraphs would also be eliminated, with the board promoting such spellings as "anemia", "anesthesia", "archeology", "encyclopedia" and "orthopedic".[8]
The board noted that the majority of the words in their list were already preferred by three current dictionaries: Webster's (more than half), the Century (60%) and the Standard (two-thirds). In June 1906, the board prepared a list of the 300 words designed for teachers, lecturers and writers, which was sent out upon request.[9]
In June 1906, the New York City Board of Education received a report from the Board of Superintendents recommending adoption of the 300-word list, and would pass on the recommendation to the Committee on Studies and Textbooks for approval.[10]
In August 1906, President of the United StatesTheodore Roosevelt had supported the plan, signing an executive order at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, mandating the use of reformed spelling in his official communications and messages to Congress.[11] Prof. Matthews stated that he had received no advance notice of the President's order and had been taken by surprise when it was issued.[12]
Roosevelt tried to force the federal government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public federal documents. The order was obeyed; among the many documents printed using the system was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal.[13]
The New York Times noted that the New York State Commissioner of Education thought the state would not support the board's proposal as "he did not believe that the State educational department should tell the people how they must spell". By August 1906, the board reported that over 5,000 individuals had pledged to use the words on the initial list, with another 500 to 600 agreeing to use some of the words, but objecting to others.[2]
The press on both sides of the Atlantic had a field day with the "reform spelling crusade", and editorials and cartoons abounded. The Louisville Courier-Journal published an article which stated: "Nuthing escapes Mr. Rucevelt. No subject is tu hi fr him to takl, nor tu lo for him to notis. He makes tretis without the consent of the Senit." The Baltimore Sun joked: "How will he spell his own name? Will he make it 'Rusevelt' or will he get down to the fact and spell it 'Butt-in-sky'?" One editorial summed it up this way: "This is 2 mutch."[14] Overseas, while the London press viciously mocked the executive order, the board received a significant spike in interest in the word list following Roosevelt's edict.[15]
The Supreme Court entered the fray and directed that its opinions should be printed in the old style.
Finally, Congress had the last word when Representative Charles B. Landis of Indiana, Chairman of the House Committee on Printing, introduced a resolution on December 13, 1906: "Resolved, That it is the sense of the House that hereafter in the printing of House documents or other publications used by law or ordered by Congress, or either branch thereof, or emanating from any executive department or bureau of the Government, the House printer should observe and adhere to the standard of orthography prescribed in generally accepted dictionaries of the English language." The motion passed unanimously. The President let the Public Printer and the Nation know that the old style was reinstated.[16]
Roosevelt ultimately decided to rescind the order. Brander Matthews, a friend of Roosevelt and one of the chief advocates of the reform as chairman of the Simplified Spelling Board, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16, 1906: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong – thru – was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a press boat marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.[13][17]
Carnegie's dissatisfaction
Carnegie, the founding and major benefactor of the board, disagreed with its chosen approach of prescribing recommended changes. Rather, he believed that the board would be more productive by encouraging grass-roots changes. His beliefs are contained in a statement given to an editor of The Times: "Amended spellings can only be submitted for general acceptance. It is the people who decide what is to be adopted or rejected."[18] For their part, some members of the board believed that Carnegie was too meddlesome in its business.
Signs of a break with the board were apparent as early as January 1915. Carnegie received a letter from Matthews, which included a list of daily newspapers that had adopted the reformed spellings. Carnegie was not impressed. In reply, Carnegie wrote, "Please note, not one Eastern paper. I see no change in New York and I am getting very tired indeed, of sinking twenty-five thousand dollars a year for nothing here in the East."[19] Carnegie was further irritated to learn that his own trusts' annual financial reports were seen to be taking "a step backwards in reference to spelling."
One month later, in February 1915, Carnegie penned a letter to Holt, the president of the board. In this letter, he wrote that "A more useless body of men never came into association, judging from the effects they produce. [...] Instead of taking twelve words and urging their adoption, they undertook radical changes from the start and these they can never make...." Using spelling that demonstrated his own continuing attachment to certain reforms, Carnegie added, "I think I hav been patient long enuf... I hav much better use for twenty thousand dollars a year."[19]
Dissolution
It was always a condition that Carnegie's dollars had to be matched by results, and at his death in August 1919, his will contained no provision for the Simplified Spelling Board. Without that source of funds (a total of $283,000 over the 14 years), the board's operations ceased in 1920, in which year it had published its Handbook of Simplified Spelling.
Handbook of Simplified Spelling
In 1920, the SSB published a Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.[20]
Part 1 is a brief outline of the history of English spelling and the attempts to reform it up until 1920. Part 2 presents the arguments in favor of reform and replies to the objections that are commonly made. Part 3 contains the SSB's proposed rules for simplified spelling and a list of the words that would be changed by them.
The handbook repeated and explained the SSB's plan of "gradual" rather than "sudden" reform. It noted that previous spelling changes had come into use gradually—"so gradually, in fact, that at all times (as today) ther hav been, and ar, many words speld in more than one way on equal authority of good usage". It also noted that most reformed spellings that had come into general use were originally the overt act of a lone writer, who was followed at first by a small minority. Thus, it encouraged people to "point the way" and "set the example" by using the reformed spellings whenever they can. The handbook used and set forth the following rules:
use –D, reduce any foregoing doubled consonant to a single letter
answered→anserd, called→cald, carried→carrid, preferred→preferd, wronged→wrongd. Do not make this change if the spelling suggests an incorrect pronunciation: bribed not bribd; used not usd, a.s.f.
–ED pronounced /t/
use –T, reduce any foregoing doubled consonant to a single letter, change CED/SCED to ST
asked→askt, advanced→advanst. Do not make this change if the spelling suggests an incorrect pronunciation: baked not bakt; hoped not hopt, a.s.f.
EI pronounced /iː/
use IE
conceit→conciet, deceive→deciev
–EY pronounced /iː/
use –Y
chimney→chimny, money→mony
GH pronounced /f/
use F, drop the silent letter in the foregoing digraph
cough→cof, laugh→laf, enough→enuf
GH pronounced /ɡ/
use G
aghast→agast, ghost→gost
–GM pronounced /m/
use M
apothegm→apothem, paradigm→paradim
–GUE after a consonant, a short vowel or a digraph representing a long vowel or diphthong
drop silent –UE
catalogue→catalog, league→leag, prologue→prolog tongue→tung But not in rogue, vague, a.s.f.
–ISE and –YSE pronounced /aɪz/
use –IZE
advertise→advertize, analyse→analize, rise→rize
–MB after a short vowel
use M
bomb→bom, crumb→crum But not after a long vowel as in comb, tomb, a.s.f.
although→altho, borough→boro, doughnut→donut, thorough→thoro, through→thru, hough→hock, hiccough→hiccup. though→tho For plough write plow, but not bow for bough.
–OUR pronounced /ər/
use –OR
colour→color, flavour→flavor
PH pronounced /f/
use F
alphabet→alfabet, telephone→telefone
–RE after any consonant except C
use –ER
centre→center, metre→meter. But retain –RE in lucre, mediocre.
The handbook also suggested the following spelling changes, which are not covered by the above rules: acre→aker, answer→anser, beleaguer→beleager, campaign→campain, counterfeit→counterfit, delight→delite, foreign→foren, forfeit→forfit, friend→frend, masquerade→maskerade, mortgage→morgage, receipt→receit, sieve→siv, sleight→slight, sovereign→sovren, sprightly→spritely, touch→tuch, yeoman→yoman.
English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Noah Webster Jr. was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His "Blue-backed Speller" books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read. Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
Svenska Akademiens ordlista, abbreviated SAOL, is a spelling dictionary published every few years by the Swedish Academy. It is a single volume that is considered the final arbiter of Swedish spelling. Traditionally it carries the motto of the Swedish Academy, Snille och Smak, on its blue cloth cover.
A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples are the German orthography reform of 1996 and the on-off Portuguese spelling reform of 1990, which is still being ratified.
Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element.
Merriam-Webster, Inc., is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It is generally considered by universities and the legal profession to be the authoritative source on Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics department of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. It is now published by Macquarie Dictionary Publishers, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd. In October 2007 it moved its editorial office from Macquarie University to the University of Sydney, and later to the Pan Macmillan offices in the Sydney central business district.
German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the case.
Charles Ezra Sprague was an American accountant, born in Nassau, Rensselaer County, New York. He was a proponent of the constructed language Volapük, for which he authored the first major textbook in English, Handbook of Volapük (1888), as well as an early organizer of the accounting profession.
Lyman Judson Gage was an American financier and Presidential Cabinet officer.
French orthography was already fixed and outdated when its lexicography developed in the late 17th century and the Académie française was mandated to establish an "official" prescriptive norm. Still, there was already much debate at the time opposing the tenets of a traditional, etymological orthography, and supporting those of a reformed, phonological transcription of the language.
William Torrey Harris was an American educator, philosopher, and lexicographer. He worked for nearly a quarter century in St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught school and served as Superintendent of Schools for twelve years. With Susan Blow, in 1873 he established the first permanent, public kindergarten in the country. He is also known for establishing high school as an integral part of public education.
For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the English language. It seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. Common motives for spelling reform include quicker learning, cheaper learning, and making English more useful as an international auxiliary language.
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British English / Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
A pronunciation respelling for English is a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words in the English language, which do not have a phonemic orthography.
How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee is a short story by Owen Wister that was published in book form in 1907. It is a satire about spelling reform efforts of the time, which also humorously and in a good-natured manner pokes fun at academia in general, and the folly of typical professors' endeavors.
SoundSpel is a regular and mostly phonemic English-language spelling reform proposal. It uses a 26-letter alphabet that is fully compatible with QWERTY keyboards. Though SoundSpel was originally based on American English, it can represent dialectal pronunciation, including British English. With roots extending as far back as 1910 but largely complete by 1986, SoundSpel was developed "in response to the widely held conviction that English spelling is more complex than it needs to be." The American Literacy Council has endorsed the reform because anglophones can easily read it. Additionally, according to its proponents, "[SoundSpel] is fully compatible with traditional spelling and can be mixed with it in any proportion desired."
SaypYu is an approximative phonetic alphabet of 24 alphabet letters to spell languages, including English. The spelling system was adopted by Jaber George Jabbour to write English more phonetically. The 24-letter alphabet includes 23 Roman alphabet letters and the addition of a 24th letter, the IPA letter "ɘ" to play the role of schwa. The letter represents the initial sound of "ago" or "about".
Swedish orthography is the set of rules and conventions used for writing Swedish. The primary authority on Swedish orthography is Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL), a spelling dictionary published annually by the Swedish Academy. The balance between describing the language and creating norms has changed with the years.
Zimmerman, Jonathan. "Simplified Spelling and the Cult of Efficiency in the 'Progressiv' Era." Journal of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era (2010) 9#3 pp. 365-394
Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt (1932; 2nd ed. 1956), full scholarly biography.
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