The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (5 page)

For example, let us take the words
scribbled
and
measurable,
which in the amended spelling appear as
scribld
and
mezurabl
. It is clear that this is the way they are pronounced and the loss of a few superfluous letters should make little difference. But they seem strange and clumsy. We are prejudiced in favor of the older, more illogical spelling. Noah Webster was correct when he wrote, “No great changes should be made at once ... but gradual change.”

In their enthusiasm, the reformers attempted to eliminate all the illogicalities once and for all, as in the following examples.

Many words end in a silent
e
that performs no useful function. It does not modify the vowel that precedes it, nor is it sounded.

Unfortunately, this correction clashes with several spelling rules. Few, if any, commonly used English words end in a plain
v
, and when the
l
follows a consonant, it too is rarely alone. Usually it is
le, el,
or
al
.

Occasionally the
ed
of the past tense sounds like a
t
. The reformers spelled a great number of these words with a simple
t
and dropped the
e
from most of the others.

Here again the improvements clash with the spelling rules. The past tense of English verbs is usually
ed
. The exceptions are actually very few. The
t
sound only occurs after certain letters and is quite rare. When the reader sees that final
ed,
it is instantly recognized as the past tense and complete understanding of the concept is instantaneous. In its place, the reformers gave us a confusing mixture of past tenses.

Double consonants are a major problem in English. Because few other languages are so cluttered with double consonants as English, the reformers removed as many as possible.

Again, the spelling rule is quite clear as to when, and when not, to double the consonant, and the reformers ignored the fact that a double consonant usually indicates a short vowel. It appears that the reformers were torn between following the spelling rules while purging superfluous consonants on the one hand and simply abandoning all the spelling rules on the other. As a result, there are quite a few anomalies scattered throughout their list of amended spellings.

A major source of irritation in English spelling is the
ough, augh, igh
anachronism. This ancient spelling should have faded away centuries ago. The reformers purged it completely.

Here, we can only praise the reformers and wish they had modernized every single word in this group.

That Greek nuisance, the
ph,
was also eliminated. The reformers reasoned that because the Greeks used only one letter for that particular sound, we should do the same.

For this, we can again praise the reformers.

There are times when
g
must be followed by a
u
in order to achieve the correct hard sound, but there are also numerous cases where the
u
is superfluous and the reformers removed it.

Today, at least four of the examples given above are often spelled in the reformed manner.

French spellings, particularly suffixes, can be a hazard in English spelling and these also were eliminated wherever possible.

There were not many of these because Webster had eliminated most of them a century earlier.

Needless to say, there were numerous other changes made, including the removal of silent letters. They removed the silent
t
in
etch
and
crutch
. They did the same with the silent
b
in
debt
and
doubt
. The useless
h
in
ghost
and
ghastly
was exorcized, and even the
s
in
island
went its lonely way. There were, of course, vowel changes too numerous to list.

Some of the changes were quite strange. The word
school
was changed to
scool
, retaining the
c
where a
k
would have been more logical, yet the word
sceptic
was correctly respelled
skeptic
. Today this is the preferred spelling. Another logical spelling that was accepted almost immediately was
saltpeter
instead of
saltpetre
. Strangely enough, the committee made no change to
sceptre
except to transpose the
e
and the
r
, though they left the silent
c
in place. However, the word
scimitar
was changed to
cimitar
instead of the more logical
simitar
.

If we look at the work of the reformers from a purely logical point of view, we must agree that they did an excellent job. However, a language is more than just symbols on paper. It is much more personal. It is too deep a part of the culture of those who use it and who have spent a great deal of time and effort perfecting their use of it. Any tampering with something so important is bound to meet stiff resistance.

F
OUR
G
UIDELINES FOR
S
PELLING
R
EFORM

There are four basic points that should always be borne in mind when considering spelling changes. Perhaps if we look at the work of the reformers from this point of view, we may be able to see more clearly why their efforts were largely ignored.

F
OUR
G
UIDELINES FOR
S
PELLING
R
EFORM