11 Sep
2015
11 Sep
'15
2:43 p.m.
On 09/11/2015 12:03 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
However, it was far earlier than the Victorians. Noah
Webster
(1758-1843) only overlaps the Victorian era by 6 years; he was
reacting against the aristocratic spelling norms of the 17th and 18th
centuries, when Latin and Greek were held to be more important than
English in the learning of the latter language. His spelling book
was originally published in 1783.
It should be noted that neither Webster, nor Col. McCormick (he of the
Chicago Tribune simplified spelling) got all of what they wanted.
Webster wanted spellings of "ake", "soop", "cloke",
"wimmen"...
The NEA in the 1890s accounted for "catalog", "prolog",
"program"...
Then there was the Simplified Spelling Board of 1906, advocated by
Andrew Carnegie and Theodore Roosevelt. Congress didn't much care for
the 300-word list, but some spellings made it into modern usage.
"Meter", "maneuver", "orthopedic", "omelet",
"sulfate", "wagon" are
among those.
Thus, US spelling has been a work in progress.
To their credit, even the English have adopted some of these. How many
British write "aera" for "era" nowadays?
--Chuck