THE QUESTION OF _HONOR_
“Well, honor is the subject of my story,” says Cassius to Brutus, in
his effort to persuade his friend to join the conspiracy against the
dictator. It was h-o-n-o-r however that he spoke of, not h-o-n-o-u-r.
So the word appeared in the folio of 1623, in which the play of _Julius
Cæsar_ was published for the first time. Unfortunately, the spelling
of Shakespeare has not escaped the tampering to which that of nearly
all our authors has been subjected by unscrupulous modern editors and
publishers. Take the following speech of Brutus, found shortly before
the line already quoted, as it is printed in the original edition:
Set Honor in one eye and Death i’ th’ other,
And I will looke on both indifferently;
For let the Gods so speed mee, as I loue
The name of Honor, more then I feare death.
In defiance of the authority of Shakespeare, so far as it is
represented by the folio of 1623, _honor_ in the passages cited above
appears in modern editions as _honour_. This spelling did not make its
appearance in them until comparatively late. In the second folio of
1632 the word was still _honor_. So it remained in the third folio of
1663-64. It was not till the edition of 1685, the last and poorest of
the folios, that the corrupt form _honour_ displaced in these passages
the original form _honor_. There it has since been generally, if not
universally, retained.
It is fair to say that in this method of spelling the word the usage
of Shakespeare was far from invariable. Either one of the two forms
just given seems to have been used by him indifferently, just as they
were by his contemporaries. In his writings _honor_, either as a verb
or noun, occurs very nearly seven hundred times. According to the
sufficient authority of the New Historical English Dictionary, the
spelling _honor_ in the folio of 1623 was “about twice as frequent
as _honour_.” This confirms my own impressions; but these were based
merely upon the examination of only about a hundred passages of the
seven hundred in which the word occurs. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s
practice varied widely in the use of individual words of this class, as
exemplified in the two poems he himself published. _Humor_ appears in
them twice. In both instances it is without the _u_--once in _Venus
and Adonis_,[27] once in _The Rape of Lucrece_.[28] Such also is the
spelling of the word the two times it is found in the _Sonnets_,[29]
but there this fact does not make certain the practice of the poet. On
the other hand, _labor_, either as a noun or verb appears seven times
in the two pieces just mentioned. Six times out of the seven it is
spelled _labour_.[30] _Color_ also appears invariably as _colour_ in
the ten times the word is found in these same poems.
The words with the terminations _or_ or _our_ number now several
hundred in our speech. Many of them go back to that early period when
the French element was first introduced into English. Many others have
been added at various periods since. In the case of those of earlier
introduction both terminations are found. Still, it is the impression
produced upon me by my comparatively little reading that there was
at first a distinct preference for the ending _our_. This, if true,
was due largely, if not mainly, to the fact that it reflected more
accurately the then prevailing pronunciation. The accent fell upon
the end of the word. It was not, as now, thrown back upon the penult
or antepenult, with the result of placing only the slightest of stress
upon the final syllable. However this may be, many words were once
often spelled with the termination _our_, which have now replaced it by
the termination _or_. The ryme-index to Chaucer’s poetry shows that he
uses about forty words with this ending at the close of a line. Some
are obsolete, but most are still in current use. Among these latter
so spelled are _ambassadour_, _confessour_, _emperour_, _governour_,
_mirrour_, _senatour_, _servitour_, _successour_, and _traitour_. These
in modern English have replaced the ending _our_ by _or_. Again other
words with this same terminations which he employs have now substituted
for it _er_. Such are _reportour_, _revelour_, and _riotour_. In truth,
each one of the words belonging to the class has a history of its own.
But _honor_ is in most respects typical of them all. Accordingly, while
there is no purpose to neglect the others, upon it the attention will
be mainly fixed.
It was in the fourteenth century that the wholesale irruption of the
French element into our vocabulary took place. But before the great
invasion in which words came into the speech by battalions, single
words had already entered, as if to prepare the way. One of these
earlier adventurers was the term under consideration. It made its
appearance in the language as early, at least, as the beginning of
the thirteenth century. Unlike most of its class, its first syllable
demands attention as well as its last. As a foreign word, it naturally
exhibited at its original introduction the forms that belonged to it
in the tongue from which it was derived. There was no prejudice in
those days in favor of a fixed orthography. Each author did what was
right in his own eyes; or perhaps it would be more correct to say,
what was right to his own ears. In the Romance tongues the hostility
to the aspirate, which has animated the hearts of so large a share of
the race, had caused it to be dropped in pronunciation. As a result,
writers being then phonetically inclined, discarded it from the
spelling. Hence, _honor_ presented itself in our language without the
initial _h_. Its first recorded appearance is in a work, the manuscript
of which is ascribed to the neighborhood of 1200 A.D. In that it was
written _onur_, just as _hour_ sometimes appeared as _ure_. It hardly
needs to be said that the vowel in these cases does not represent the
now common sound we call “short _u_.”
It is not always easy to discover the motives which influence men in
the choice of spellings. But it is no difficult matter to detect the
reason for the change which here took place. Before the minds of the
writers of this early period was always the Latin original. In that
tongue the word began with _h_. Derivation is always dear to the hearts
of the scholastically inclined. In those days it was only men of this
class who did any writing at all. Hence, both in Old French and in Old
English, it was not long before the letter _h_ came to be prefixed
regularly to the word. It was not sounded. But it was soon adopted
universally in the spelling, and, once established there, it never lost
its hold. In the case of several other words which have had essentially
the same history, the pronunciation of the aspirate has been resumed
under the influence of the printed page. But _honor_ is one of four
which up to this time have held out unflinchingly against any such
tendency.
So much for the initial letter. As regards the termination, the word
made its appearance in several forms. Only three of them need be
mentioned here, for they were the ones much the most common. These
were _honor_, _honour_, _honur_. The last was the first to go. It left
the field to the other two forms, which have flourished side by side
from that day to this. Were I to trust to the impressions produced by
my own reading, I should say that from the middle of the fourteenth
century to the middle of the sixteenth the form in _our_ was much the
more common. But, in the New Historical English Dictionary, Dr. Murray
asserts distinctly that “_honor_ and _honour_ continued to be equally
frequent down to the seventeenth century.” One accordingly must defer
to the authority of a generalization which is based upon a much fuller
array of facts than it is in the power of an individual to get together.
By the time we reach the sixteenth century, and especially the
Elizabethan age, it is pretty plain that something of the orthographic
controversy which has been raging ever since had already begun to make
itself heard. The little we know about it we learn from brief remarks
in books, or chance allusions in plays. The discussion, such as it
was, seems to have had little regard to orthoepy, but was based almost
entirely upon considerations of etymology. It was in the sixteenth
century more particularly that derivation began to work havoc with
the spelling. Sometimes it simplified it; full as frequently, if not
more frequently, it perverted what little phonetic character words had
possessed originally or had been enabled to retain. For the classical
influence was then at its height. Consequently, a disposition was apt
to manifest itself to go back to the Latin form and insert letters
which had been dropped from the spelling because they had been dropped
from the pronunciation.
It seems inevitable that the etymological bias so prevalent in the
sixteenth century should have exerted some influence, and perhaps a
good deal of influence, in causing a preference to be given by many
to the forms in _or_. Old French had been forgotten by the community
generally, and met the eyes of lawyers only. Modern French had not then
so much vogue as Italian. But Latin was familiar to every educated man.
It was accordingly natural that the spelling of the words of the class
under consideration should show a tendency to go back to the forms
employed in that tongue. This inference may seem to be borne out by the
few specific data which have been collected. In the case of Shakespeare
the existence of a concordance to his writings enables us to furnish
certain positive statements with comparative ease. Mention has been
made of the fact that in the folio of 1623 the spelling _honor_ occurs
twice as often as _honour_. Of course, in a work printed so long after
his death, this is no positive evidence as to the dramatist’s own
usage. But whatever preference he felt, it seems right to infer, was
indicated in the two poems published in his lifetime. Of these the
proofs must have passed under his own eye. In _The Rape of Lucrece_,
which came out in 1594, the word occurs just twenty times: in seventeen
instances it is spelled _honor_; in three, _honour_. In _Venus and
Adonis_ it is found but twice. In both instances _honor_ is the
spelling employed.
A generalization, however, based upon isolated facts is always liable
to be misleading. Whatever value attaches to those just given is due
mainly to the eminence of the author. No statement of universal,
or even of common usage can be safely based upon them.[31] The
examination of other books would in all likelihood show divergence in
many instances from the practice here indicated. Furthermore, we must
not forget that English orthography is not due to scholars or men of
letters, but to typesetters. The spellings found in any book of the
Elizabethan period are as likely to be those of the printing-house
as of the author. This, in fact, is not unfrequently true of our own
age. It is likewise clear that these same printing-houses exhibited
a fine impartiality in the use of these terminations. Volume after
volume can be taken up, on different pages of which we can find _honor_
and _honour_, _humor_, and _humour_, _labor_ and _labour_, and so
on through the list. In truth, the book would be an exception where
absolute uniformity prevailed.
An interesting example of this variableness of usage may be observed
in the dozen lines in which Shakespeare dedicated, in 1593, his poem
of _Venus and Adonis_ to the Earl of Southampton. The inscription is
to the “Right Honorable Henrie Wriothesley”; the address itself begins
with “Right Honourable.” Throughout these few lines the phrase “your
honor” occurs just three times. Twice it is spelled _honor_, once
_honour_. Modern editions entirely ignore this variation of usage. In
every instance they insert the _u_ in the word, thus giving, as usual,
to the modern reader an entirely false impression of Shakespeare’s
practice.
In this matter the only incontrovertible fact to be found is that in
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries both _honor_ and
_honour_ exist side by side. Which form occurs more frequently in
the period could not be told without an exhaustive investigation of
its whole literature. As a result of my own necessarily incomplete
observation, I should say that from the middle of the seventeenth
century there was a growing sentiment in favor of the ending _our_ in
the majority of dissyllabic words. This tendency became distinctly
stronger after the Restoration. On the other hand, the disposition to
use the form in _or_ became increasingly prevalent in words of more
than two syllables. To both these statements there are exceptions,
perhaps numerous exceptions, especially in the case of the latter.
Individual preferences, too counted for a great deal in an age when
the idolatrous devotion to our present orthography had not begun to
manifest itself. But the statements just given may be taken as a near
approach to the truth, if not the precise truth itself.
Assuredly the tendency to use the forms in _our_ increased in the
latter half of the seventeenth century. This was true in particular
of dissyllabic words. In the years which followed the Restoration
it seems to have become dominant. Such a conclusion is apparently
supported by the dictionaries of the time. Let us go back for evidence
to our title-word. The spelling _honour_ is the only one authorized
in the dictionaries of Phillips, Kersey, Coles, Fenning, and Martin,
which appeared during the latter part of the seventeenth century or
the earlier part of the eighteenth. It has already been mentioned that
before the publication of Doctor Johnson’s, the two leading authorities
were Bailey’s and Dyche and Pardon’s. Of the two, the latter was
probably the less widely used. Bailey gave to these now disputed words
the ending in _our_. He did not even recognize the existence of that
in _or_. On the other hand, Dyche, in the case of certain of them,
authorized both forms. He put down, for example, _honor_ and _honour_,
_error_ and _errour_, _humor_ and _humour_. Furthermore, in each of
these instances he gave the preference to the first. Of course, he was
not thorough-going in his practice. He would have been unfaithful to
the national spirit had he been consistent. Accordingly, in other words
of this class, such as _favor_ and _labor_, he recognized only the
spelling in _our_.
But as in every period there are found those who cherish with peculiar
affection whatever is anomalous or incongruous or irrational, and cling
to it through good report and evil report, so there always spring up
a pestilent crowd of men who have an abiding hostility to whatever
displays these characteristics. The attention of certain restless
beings of this sort began to be directed toward this very class of
words. By the middle of the eighteenth century their influence was
making itself felt. A perceptible disposition was manifested to do
away with the irregularities that had come to prevail. It does not
seem to have been based upon any phonetic grounds. It apparently owed
little or nothing to the desire to conform to the Latin original. The
aim seems simply to have been to simplify orthography by reducing
all the words of this class to a uniform termination. At this time
polysyllables belonging to it--the trisyllables being included under
that term--had largely come to drop the _u_. So had a respectable
number of dissyllables. Why not make the rule universal? Why add to the
difficulty inherent in English orthography the further difficulty of
an arbitrary distinction which serves no useful purpose? No particular
reason seemed to exist why _author_ and _error_ should be spelled
without _u_, and _honor_ and _favor_ and _color_ with it. So they
argued. The movement for dropping the vowel made distinct headway;
it actually accomplished a good deal, and might have accomplished
everything had it not met the powerful opposition of Doctor Johnson.
In 1755 came out his dictionary. It did not drive out of circulation
other works of the same kind, but it largely deprived them of authority
with the educated. It practically gained the position of a court of
final appeal.
Johnson knew very little about orthoepy and its relation to
orthography; but on account of the deference paid to him, not only by
his contemporaries, who knew nothing whatever about either, but also by
later lexicographers, especially the two most prominent, Sheridan and
Walker, his work is of very great importance for the influence it has
had upon English spelling. Toward most of what he recommended a sort
of religious respect was soon exhibited by many. This attitude may be
said to have characterized for a long time the English people. He set
himself against the processes of simplification that were going on. He
laid down the dictum that the true orthography must always be regarded
as dependent upon the derivation. It must, therefore, be determined by
its immediate original. He did not conform to his own theory; he could
not conform to it. But men accepted his assertions without paying any
special heed to his practice. In consequence, his authority exerted a
distinct influence toward retaining many spellings which in his time
were tending to go out of use.
Especially was this true of the words of the class under consideration.
At the time Johnson was engaged in the preparation of his dictionary
the forms in _or_ had come to be in a distinct majority. Usage was
variable, it is true, depending as it did on individual likes or
dislikes. But on the whole a preference was beginning to manifest
itself for the termination _or_, at least outside of certain words.
Still, it would have been then possible to bring about uniformity by
the adoption of either ending to the exclusion of the other. From the
orthographical point of view of that period, no serious objection
would have been offered by the large majority of men to that course of
action. But such a proceeding would, in the eyes of many, have been
attended with one fatal defect. It would have made the termination of
all the words of this class uniform, and therefore easy to understand
and to master. This would have brought the result into conflict with
the cherished though unavowed ideal we hold, which is to make the
spelling as difficult of acquisition as possible. In this feeling
Johnson himself unconsciously shared. He had to the full that love of
the illogical and anomalous and unreasonable, with the contributing
fondness for half-measures, which is so characteristic of our race
as contrasted with the French. This attitude was reflected in his
treatment of this particular class of words. He compromised the
controversy between the two endings in the case of about a hundred of
the most common of them by impartially spelling about half with _or_
and the other half with _our_.
Furthermore, in regard to the particular class of words under
discussion, both Johnson’s theory and practice must be taken into
consideration. Between these there was wide divergence, and oftentimes
contradiction. In theory he set himself resolutely against the efforts
of those who were seeking to bring about uniformity. He pointed out
that “_our_ is frequently used in the last syllable of words which
in Latin end in _or_, and are made English as _honour_, _labour_,
_favour_, for _honor_, _labor_, _favor_.” He then set out to give
the reasons for his own choice of the form he had adopted. “Some
late innovators,” he wrote, “have ejected the _u_, not considering
that the last syllable gives the sound neither of _o_ nor _u_, but a
sound between them, if not compounded of both.” The just observation
contained in one part of this sentence is rendered nugatory by the
unfounded assertion at the end and the extraordinary conclusion
drawn. Johnson’s argument really amounts to this: Neither _o_ nor _u_
represents the actual vowel sound heard in the last syllable. In each
case there would be only an approach to it. Therefore, let us not think
of employing either one of the vowels which represent the sound only
imperfectly, but a vowel combination which does not represent it at all.
His cautiously guarded utterance shows that Johnson was vaguely
conscious of the weakness of the position he had taken if not of its
absurdity. Hence, he felt the need of furnishing it additional support.
So he abandoned phonetics and resorted to derivation. He proceeded to
suggest a reason which since his day has played the most important of
parts in all the attempts which have been made to explain the cause
of the retention of _our_ in the spelling of these words. “Besides
that,” he continued, “they are probably derived from the French nouns
in _eur_, as _honeur_ (_sic_), _faveur_.” Johnson had not that courage
of his ignorance which distinguishes the assertions of later men who
employ his argument. He spoke hesitatingly of the derivation as a
probability. As it was erroneous, this course was wise. His followers,
however, from that day to this, have invariably stated it as a fact.
He repeated, nevertheless, his general view in the grammar with
which he prefaced the dictionary. “Some ingenious men,” he remarked,
sarcastically, “have endeavored to deserve well of their country by
writing _honor_ and _labor_ for _honour_ and _labour_.”
Such was Johnson’s attitude in theory; his action was distinctly
different. Like the rest of us, he was governed entirely by sentiment
working independently of knowledge or reason. He preferred the
spelling, as do we all, which he himself was wont to use. He judged
it to be the proper spelling because he was familiar with it. The
utter lack of any intelligent or even intelligible principle he
was actuated by in his choice can be illustrated by two or three
examples. _Anterior_ was spelled by him with the ending _our_;
_posterior_ with the ending _or_. The termination of _interior_ was
_our_; that of _exterior_ was _or_. This is not the reign of law,
but of lawlessness. The only explanation I have been able to devise
of the motives, outside of association, which may have unconsciously
led him to adopt the ending he did in any particular case, was a
possible feeling on his part that when the word denoted the agent it
should have the termination _or_; but _our_ when it denoted state or
condition. This is not a satisfactory reason for making a difference;
but it has a glimmering of sense. Yet while in general this course
is true of Johnson’s practice, it is, unfortunately, not universally
true. _Stupor_ and _torpor_ appeared, for illustration, in his
dictionary without the _u_; while on the other hand with it are found
_ambassadour_, _emperour_, _governour_, and _warriour_.
It is certain that Johnson himself, in the spellings he authorized,
never conformed to the principle of derivation, which he held out to
us as the all-sufficient guide. Several of the words which appear in
his dictionary with the intruding vowel had come to us directly from
the Latin. Accordingly, the form he gave them was in direct defiance
of the principles which he had laid down. Of these _candor_ is so
striking an example that it is worth while to give some account of it
in detail. The word came into our language in the fourteenth century,
but as a pure Latin word. When used in the black-letter period, after
the invention of printing, it appeared in Roman type, to indicate that
it was still a foreigner, just as we now indicate a borrowed term by
italics. In the early seventeenth century it had become naturalized.
Accordingly, it was at first spelled like its original. About the
middle of the seventeenth century _u_ was occasionally inserted. This
way of spelling it increased after the Restoration. Necessarily, such
a usage not only defied but disguised the real original. For a long
time the correct and incorrect forms flourished side by side. It was
Johnson’s adoption of the ending _our_ for the word which fixed this
erroneous spelling upon the English people. Men now tell you with all
the intense earnestness of ignorance that _candor_ should be spelled
with a _u_ because it came from a foreign word which has no direct
connection with it whatever. Yet the very same men who insist upon
retaining a _u_ in _honor_, because, as they fancy, it was derived from
the French _honneur_, cling just as tenaciously to the form _candour_,
and will cling to it after they have learned to know that it was
derived directly from the Latin _candor_.
Not only, indeed, in his preaching, but in his personal practice,
Johnson may be said to have been inconsistent in his inconsistency. Of
this there is a most singular illustration. In the dictionary itself
_author_ was given as here spelled. Not even a hint was conveyed of
the existence of another form. But in the preface to the dictionary
this same word was employed by him just fourteen times. In every
instance it was spelled _authour_. Nor could this have been the
fault of the type-setter. So far was it from exciting remonstrance or
reprehension on his part that the form is not only found in the first
edition of 1755, but also in the fourth edition of 1773, the last which
appeared in his lifetime, and which underwent some slight revision at
his hands. Had Johnson chanced to adopt in the body of the work the
spelling of this word as it appeared in his preface to it, the form
with _u_ would in all probability have continued to maintain itself.
Men would be found at this day to insist that the very safety of the
language depended upon its permanent retention. There would, indeed, be
authors who would fail to recognize themselves as authors unless this
unnecessary _u_ was inserted into the word denoting their profession.
But though the weight of Johnson’s authority was impaired by his
practice, there is no question that his words did more to prevent
the universal adoption of the ending _or_ than any other single
agency. For that purpose they were timely. There had then begun to be
something of an effort to correct certain of the most striking errors
and inconsistencies of English orthography. With this, Hume, for one,
sympathized. That this assumed enemy of the faith should be favorably
inclined to any movement of the sort, and to some extent should
conform to it, was enough of itself to set Doctor Johnson against it.
That author, in the first edition of his History, had followed what
was then sometimes called the new method of spelling. As regards the
particular class of words here under consideration, he used several
such forms as _ardor_, _flavor_, _labor_, _vigor_, and _splendor_. But
Hume had no vital interest in the matter. His reason told him what was
proper and analogical; but he was little disposed to fight convention
on this point. Therefore, he wavered at intervals between spellings
which he recognized as sensible and those which had the approval of
the printing-house and consequently that of the general public. “I had
once an intention of changing the orthography in some particulars,”
he wrote, in 1758, to Strahan, on the occasion of bringing out a new
edition of his History, “but on reflection I find that this new method
of spelling (which is certainly the best and most conformable to
analogy) has been followed in the quarto volume of my philosophical
writings lately published; and, therefore, I think it will be better
for you to continue the spelling as it is.”[32]
In truth, the moment that Doctor Johnson had set the example of
attacking the pestilent disturbers of orthographic peace, a host of
imitators were sure to follow in his footsteps. One of these was
the physician John Armstrong, who dabbled also, to some extent, in
literature. Among other things, he produced one of those ponderous
poems in which the eighteenth century abounded, and with which the
extremely conscientious student of English literature feels himself
under obligation to struggle. He also tried his hand at a volume of
short _Sketches and Essays_, as they were called, which came out
anonymously. Among them was one on the _Modern Art of Spelling_. In
it he attacked with vigor the so-called reformers who were employing
the forms _honor_, _favor_, _labor_. Indeed, he apprised us--what
otherwise we should hardly have known--that there were then misguided
beings who threw out one of the vowels in the termination of words
not belonging strictly to the class we are discussing, and wrote
_neighbor_, _behavior_, and _endeavur_. Armstrong’s little work
appeared in 1757; it might have been written yesterday. It displays
the same misunderstanding and misconception of the whole subject which
characterizes the men of our day, who have the advantage of being
heirs to the accumulated ignorance of the past. In places, too, he was
as amusing as they. Nothing, he told us, did so much to distinguish his
own “as an _unmanly_ age”--the italics are his--“as this very aversion
to the honest vowel _u_.”
Hume’s attitude of indifference is manifested in his comments on this
volume. He evidently considered himself as one of the men aimed at
in its animadversions upon the reformers. In June, 1758, he spoke
about the work in a letter to his publisher, Andrew Millar. “I have
read,” he wrote, “a small pamphlet called _Sketches_, which, from
the style, I take to be Doctor Armstrong’s, though the public voice
gives it to Allan Ramsay. I find the ingenious author, whoever he be,
ridicules the new method of spelling, as he calls it; but that method
of spelling _honor_, instead of _honour_, was Lord Bolingbroke’s,
Doctor Middleton’s, and Mr. Pope’s, besides many other eminent writers.
However, to tell truth, I hate to be in any way particular in a
trifle; and, therefore, if Mr. Strahan has not printed off above ten
or twelve sheets, I should not be displeased if you told him to follow
the usual--that is, his own--way of spelling throughout; we shall
make the other volumes conformable to it: if he be advanced farther,
there is no great matter.”[33] This is by no means a solitary instance
of the way in which authors have submitted their own convictions to
the practices of printing-houses and thereby caused this creation of
type-setters we call English orthography, to be an object of reverent
worship to thousands, who contribute large sums to convert those bowing
down to gods of wood and stone.
Great, however, as was Johnson’s authority, there was not paid to it
at the time unquestioning assent. The glaring inconsistency between
his principles and his practice made many indisposed to accept him as
an infallible guide. Dissent came from two quarters. There were those
who accepted fully his views as to the propriety of following the form
of the assumed immediate original. These not unreasonably looked with
disfavor upon his dereliction in the case of many words. Among the
recalcitrants was his devoted disciple Boswell. In 1768 this author
brought out the journal of his tour in Corsica. In the preface to it he
expressed the feelings of many in his comments upon his master’s course
in this matter. “It may be necessary,” he wrote, “to say something
in defense of my orthography. Of late it has become the fashion to
render our language more neat and trim by leaving out _k_ after _c_,
and _u_ in the last syllable of words which used to end in _our_. The
illustrious Mr. Samuel Johnson, who has alone executed in England what
was the task of whole academies in other countries, has been careful
in his dictionary to preserve the _k_ as a mark of the Saxon original.
He has for the most part, too, been careful to preserve the _u_, but
he has also omitted it in several words. I have retained the _k_,
and have taken upon me to follow a general rule with regard to words
ending in _our_. Wherever a word originally Latin has been transmitted
to us through the medium of the French, I have written it with the
characteristic _u_. An attention to this may appear trivial. But I own
I am one of those who are curious in the formation of language in its
various modes, and therefore wish that the affinity of English with
other tongues may not be forgotten.”
Boswell resembled most of the ardent partisans of the ending _our_ in
the fact that his curiosity in the formation of language had never
been rewarded by any intelligent knowledge of it. The _k_ was, in
his eyes, a mark of the Saxon original. The only comment that it
is necessary to make upon this assertion is that the letter _k_ was
not in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet any more than it was in the Roman,
from which the former was derived. Hence, as has been already pointed
out, monosyllabic words like _back_, _sack_, _sick_, _thick_, in the
earliest form of our speech, ended with _c_; and if we were really
so devoted to derivation as we pretend, we should have to discard
the _k_ from the end of monosyllables, just as we have from the end
of polysyllables. Boswell, however, carried out his views to their
logical conclusion. Johnson might exhibit the weakness of deferring
in particular instances to general custom; not so his follower and
admirer. So we find him running counter to his master’s teachings by
using the spellings _authour_, _doctour_, _rectour_, _taylour_, and
others among the dissyllables; and among the polysyllables there were
the forms _professour_, _spectatour_, _conspiratour_, _preceptour_,
_innovatour_, _legislatour_, and a large number that need not be given
here.
It is evident from Boswell’s protest that the disposition to drop the
_u_ had become so prevalent that there was danger of its prevailing.
The aversion was increasing to the use of this very honest letter, as
Armstrong had called it. Johnson’s authority retarded the progress
of this tendency, but outside of a certain limited number of cases
did not check it effectually. It was not long before the vowel
was pretty regularly dropped in polysyllabic words. In them it
has remained dropped ever since. Few, indeed, are the persons who
can now be found writing _ambassadour_, _emperour_, _governour_,
_oratour_, _possessour_, and no small number of others which the
great lexicographer insisted upon as the proper way. Even some of his
dissyllabic words have gone over to the form in _or_, notably those
which had _rr_ before the suffix, such as _error_, _horror_, and
_terror_.
No idea of the strength of the movement towards uniformity can be
gathered from the dictionaries of the time. These, as a general rule,
followed Johnson even when the rest of the world was going the other
way. Both Sheridan and Walker stuck to the final _k_ long after
nearly everybody else had given it up. The latter, indeed, deplored
the custom of omitting it because it had introduced into the language
the novelty of ending a word with an unusual letter. This, on the
face of it, he said, was a blemish. Still less did the lexicographers
represent the general attitude of the time towards the class of words
here considered, especially the attitude of aristocratic society.
The fortunes of two of these words, in particular, on account of
the frequency of their appearance on cards of invitation, reached
at this period the highest social elevation. These were _honor_ and
_favor_. To spell them with a _u_ became and remained for a long while
a distinctive mark of rusticity and ill-breeding--not, as now, an
evidence of imperfect acquaintance with their history.
On this point we have plenty of unimpeachable testimony. The dictionary
of Walker, the leading lexicographer of his own generation and of
the generation following, came out towards the end of the eighteenth
century. In it he gave utterance to his grief on this very subject. His
remarks occur under the word of which, in defiance of general custom,
he continued to authorize the form _honour_. “This word,” he said, “and
its companion _favour_, the two servile attendants upon cards and notes
of fashion, have so generally dropped the _u_ that to spell these words
with that letter is looked upon as _gauche_ and rustick in the extreme.
In vain did Dr. Johnson enter his protest against the innovation; in
vain did he tell us that the sound of the word required the use of
_u_, as well as its derivation from the Latin through the French: the
sentence seems to have been passed, and we now hardly even find these
words with this vowel but in dictionaries.”
But Walker, though he followed, as in duty bound, his great leader,
was subject to qualms of common sense. These, when they occur, always
make sad work with orthographic prejudices. When he looked at the
matter dispassionately he had to confess that Johnson’s arguments in
behalf of the spellings which he had authorized did not impress him
altogether favorably; in fact, he manifested a sneaking inclination for
the forms without _u_. “Though,” he said, “I am a declared enemy to all
needless innovation, I see no inconvenience in spelling these words in
the fashionable manner: there is no reason for preserving the _u_ in
_honour_ and _favour_ that does not hold good for the preservation of
the same letter in _errour_, _authour_, and a hundred others; and with
respect to the pronunciation of these words without _u_, while we have
so many words where the _o_ sounds _u_, even when the accent is on it,
as _honey_, _money_, etc., we need not be in much pain for the sound of
_u_, in words of this termination, where the final _r_ brings all the
accented vowels to the same level; that is, the short sound of _u_.”
The fashionable method of spelling these words prevailed for a long
time. The behavior of high society in so doing stirred profoundly the
deep-seated conservatism of the middle class. The great founder of
Methodism warned his followers against this vanity. “Avoid,” wrote
Wesley, in 1791, “the fashionable impropriety of leaving out the
_u_ in many words, as _honor_, _vigor_, etc. This is mere childish
affectation.” Remarks of this sort availed nothing--at least, they did
not affect the right persons. The aristocratic world cared little for
the woes of lexicographers or the denunciations of religious leaders.
As is its wont, it went on in its usual heartless way, paying no heed
whatever to the remonstrances directed against its conduct in this
matter.
The practice seems to have continued during the first third, at least,
of the nineteenth century. As late as 1832 Archdeacon Hare denounced it
in the Philological Museum. Hare was, in his way, a spelling-reformer,
and drew upon himself much obloquy for the orthographical peculiarities
he adopted. He furnished us himself with some specimens of the sort of
objections which were raised to his efforts. As might be expected, they
were made up of the same old combination of virulence and ignorance
with which we are all familiar. In the eyes of one, change of spelling
was a piece of impudent presumption. In the eyes of another, it was
a piece of silly affectation. Or, again, it was a mistaking of
singularity for originality, a waste upon trifles of attention which
ought to be reserved for matters of real importance. What surprises us
now is that so much excitement should have been provoked by alterations
so petty; for all of any importance that Hare proposed was spelling
the participial ending _ed_ as _t_ when it had the sound of _t_. Thus,
we find in his writings _reacht_, _vanquisht_, _pickt_, _supprest_,
_rusht_, _publisht_, and no small number of similar forms. These he
defended, as it was easy to do, by the usage of Spenser and Milton and
their contemporaries--even, indeed, from the practice of the comic
dramatists who followed the Restoration period, such as Congreve,
Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. That petty changes of this nature should
have been regarded by educated men as serious innovations shows how
all-extensive had become with them the ignorance of the history of
their own tongue.
Hare’s countrymen ought, indeed, to have been reassured by his other
spellings that there was no danger of immediate ruin to the language
by any innovations he might be supposed to favor. The truth is that he
knew almost as little of the real principles governing orthography and
talked of them nearly as much as did his friend and fellow-reformer,
Walter Savage Landor. But however perverse were his vagaries in
other matters, upon the class of words ending in _or_ or _our_ he
was, unlike Landor, eminently sound. Indeed, he was more than sound.
He reintroduced the _u_ into some words of this class where it had at
one time often appeared but had then become generally discarded. He
trotted out, as was in those days almost inevitable, the old bugaboo
of derivation, as unconscious of its erroneousness, scholar as he was,
as are now the most unscholarly who persist in obtruding it upon a
generation which knows better. “If,” he wrote, “_honour_, _favour_, and
other similar words had come to us directly from the Latin, it might
be better to spell them without a _u_; but since we got them through
the French, so that they brought the _u_ with them when they landed on
our shores, it will be well to leave such affectations as _honor_ and
_favor_ to the great vulgar for their cards of invitation.”
The concluding sentence of this quotation shows conclusively that
with people of high position--“the great vulgar,” as Hare calls
them--fashion at the close of the first third of the last century still
dictated the use of the spellings _honor_ and _favor_. Herein Hare was
opposed to his fellow-reformer Landor. “We differ,” says the latter,
“on the spelling of _honour_, _favour_, etc. You would retain the _u_;
I would eject it for the sake of consistency.”[34] If Landor can be
trusted to have given a faithful picture of contemporary practice, this
method of spelling must have continued for at least a score of years
after the date already given. In 1846 came out the third edition of
his _Imaginary Conversations_. To the dialogue on language which is
represented as having taken place between Doctor Johnson and John Horne
Tooke, he added then a number of passages. Among them was the following:
_Tooke._ Would there be any impropriety or inconvenience in writing
_endevor_ and _demeanor_, as we write _tenor_, without the _u_?
_Johnson._ Then you would imitate cards of invitation, where we find
_favor_ and _honor_.
_Tooke._ We find _ancestor_ and _author_ and _editor_ and _inventor_
in the works of Dr. Johnson, who certainly bears no resemblance to a
card of invitation. Why can we not place all these words on the same
bench?
But fashion comes and goes, while the dictionaries are ever present.
As a rule, lexicographers are a timid race of men. They have little
disposition to deviate from the paths marked out by their predecessors.
Even the revision of Dyche’s work, which appeared toward the end of
the eighteenth century, discarded his alternative use of _honor_, to
which it had once given the first place, though at the time itself
this usage had become fashionable. So far as I have observed, the
only eighteenth-century lexicographer after Johnson who fell in with
the current tendency was Ash, whose dictionary first appeared in
1775. He entered separately the two forms of these words, giving, for
illustration, _honor_, _color_, and _labor_ as “the modern and correct
spelling,” and _honour_, _colour_, and _labour_ as “the old and usual
spelling.” But his action availed little against the agreement of the
others; for apparently, with this exception, the dictionaries stood
their ground manfully. Their combined authority had necessarily a good
deal of effect upon the general practice, especially with that numerous
class of men who did not feel themselves familiar enough with the
subject to act independently.
At a still later period international prejudice came in to strengthen
the disposition in England to stand by the letter _u_ in the
comparatively few cases in which it had continued to survive. In
America, Webster had thrown out the vowel in all words of this class.
In so doing he was followed, half apologetically, by Worcester.
Their agreement had the effect of making the practice of dispensing
with the _u_ almost universal in this country. One singular result
of it was that in time the termination in _or_ instead of _our_
came to be considered an American innovation. To this very day the
delusion prevails widely on both sides of the Atlantic that the form
of a word which entered the language more than two centuries before
America was discovered, which has been in more or less use in every
century since its introduction, owed its existence to an American
lexicographer. Naturally this was enough to condemn it in the eyes of
any self-respecting Englishman. The belief just mentioned has been a
very real though unacknowledged reason for retaining in that country
the termination in _our_. Have we not been told again and again in
countless English periodicals--quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies--that
Britons will never, never tolerate any such hideous monstrosity as the
American spelling, _honor_?
But whatever may have been the causes which brought about, or concurred
to bring about, the reaction in this matter which took place in Great
Britain, there is no question whatever as to the fact. The tendency,
once prevalent and steadily increasing, to drop the _u_ from all
the words of this class, as they had been dropped from most, was
effectually arrested. Even the lexicographers who could see no sense in
the maintenance of this inconsistency in the spelling accepted it while
they deplored it. After the passing of Walker, Smart’s remodelling
of his dictionary became, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
the leading orthographic authority in use in England. The reviser
recognized the absurdity of the disagreement which prevailed in the
spelling of this class of words. Still, he saw no way of remedying
it. In describing his method of dealing with them, he remarked that
he might have followed Webster’s course, and adopted throughout the
termination _or_. This clearly struck him as sensible, but he as
clearly felt that it would never do. “Such, however,” he wrote, “is
not the practice of the day, though some years ago there was a great
tendency towards it.” For in the meantime a peculiar regard for these
exceptions to the general rule had sprung up among the orthographically
uneducated, a class to which most educated men belong. These exceptions
were not very numerous. They were all dissyllabic words; for the
retention of the _u_ in the polysyllables was too much for even the
Anglo-Saxon love of the anomalous. Still, for the comparatively few
exceptions which had been saved from the general wreck which had
overtaken the _our_ forms, there had begun to display itself that
peculiar enthusiastic zeal which always prevails when devotion defies
reason. No one assuredly can maintain that the latter quality exists
in an orthography which insists upon inserting a _u_ into _honor_ and
withholding it from _horror_.
A few more than thirty words in common use have partially outlived the
revolution that has brought the vast majority to the termination in
_or_. They constitute, in consequence, a limited body of exceptions
to the general rule. As in every case the spelling of the particular
word must be learned by itself, they together contribute an additional
perplexity to the existing perplexities of English orthography. In
certain cases they are enabled to interpose a further obstacle in the
path of the learner. When he comes to the derivatives of several of
them which are spelled in _our_ he is called upon to master exceptions
to the exceptions. In order to save the language from ruin, he is
assured that he must be careful to insert a _u_ in _clamor_; but when
it comes to _clamorous_, he must be equally careful to leave the _u_
out. The same sort of statement can be made of several other words of
this same class. We can pardon _laborious_ from _labour_. But what
excuse can be offered for writing _humour_ and then _humorous_, _odour_
and then _odorous_, _rancour_ and then _rancorous_, _rigour_ and then
_rigorous_, _valour_ and then _valorous_, _vigour_ and then _vigorous_?
Yet this business of making a still more inextricable muddle out of
the already muddled condition of English spelling is held up to us as
something essential to the purity and perfection of English speech.
It is assumptions of this sort that are irritating. In an orthography
where so much is lawless, there is no need of becoming excited over
some particular one of its numerous vagaries. What is offensive in
the spelling of _honor_ as _honour_ is not the termination itself,
but the reasons paraded for its adoption. A man can cling to the
form with _u_ because he has been taught so to spell it, because by
constant association he has come to prefer it. To this there may be
no objection. But there is distinct objection to his implying, and
sometimes asserting, that in so spelling the word he is upholding
the purity of the speech. This is to give to his perhaps excusable
ignorance the quality of inexcusable impudence. His fancied linguistic
virtue is based upon fallacious assumptions which are themselves based
upon facts that are false.
Even were the facts true, they would not justify what is inferred from
them. The argument for insisting upon the ending _our_, drawn from
derivation, might seem to have been fully disposed of in the account
of the introduction of this word into English, and of the various
forms which it then assumed. But, in spite of the poet, it is error,
not truth, which crushed to earth rises again. Men, presumably of
intelligence, continue still to repeat the assertion that the word
should be spelled _honour_ because it came from the French _honneur_.
The proclaimers of this view seem honestly to think that the lives of
all of us would be irremediably saddened did not the presence of the
_u_ in this particular English word remind us of its assumed French
original; though the absence of the _u_ in no small number of words
with the same termination, and having essentially the same history,
does not seem to cause in any of us etymological depression of spirit.
But even in this instance deference to derivation manifestly does not
go far enough. If we are to write _honour_ because it came from the
French _honneur_, what excuse can be offered for omitting the _e_?
Even more, what excuse can be offered for omitting one of the two
_n’s_? Assuredly there is no sacredness belonging to the vowel which
does not attach also to the consonant. The happiness of the devotee
of derivation would be still further enhanced by spelling the word
_honnour_; in fact, in the sixteenth century this was occasionally done.
The real objection, however, to this particular argument for the
spelling _honour_ is that it has not a particle of truth in it. It is
based entirely upon complete ignorance of the facts. Neither _honor_
nor _honour_ was derived from _honneur_. It is doubtful if that French
form existed when _honor_ came into the English language. However that
may be, such was not the form in Anglo-French from which the English
word descended. In that it was sometimes spelled _honor_. From it
so spelled came our one modern form. In that again it was sometimes
spelled _honour_. From it so spelled came our other modern form. The
English word had, therefore, a history independent of the French.
Its development took place not on the same but on a parallel line.
Under these circumstances there is something peculiarly ridiculous in
the assertion so constantly made, that if the _u_ were dropped from
_honor_, the history of the word would be lost.
There still remains to be noticed an objection--the utmost strength of
the human imagination cannot well term it an argument--which has been
raised against the spelling in _or_ in such words as have succeeded
to a certain extent in retaining the _u_. It is that a change of this
sort is certain in some undefined way to ruin the nobler sentiments
of the soul. It is conceded that the _u_ contributes nothing to the
pronunciation of the word, but it conduces to the edification and
spiritual elevation of him who is particular to insert it. It is
intimated by such as take this view that it is not those who belong
to the cold, proud world who could share in this sentiment or rather
sentimentality. Still less would it weigh with those mechanical
utilitarians who think it enough to be guided in their spelling by
sense and reason. To them no ray of the divine rapture has been
imparted which transports the heart of him who finds his whole nature
expand at the presence of a _u_ in _honor_ and _favor_ and chilled
by its absence. Let no one fancy that this sort of objection is too
ridiculous to be advanced seriously. There has not been a discussion
of spelling reform in modern times in which it has not been brought
forward. In the case of those who have taken part in the latest
controversy, I have already expressed my unwillingness to employ that
severest form of personal attack which consists in citing their own
words. I shall accordingly confine myself here to some remarks of this
sort which were made more than a quarter of a century ago. In 1873 a
controversy was going on in England as to the proper way of spelling
the _or_, _our_ class of words. In the course of it a correspondent
sent to the periodical entitled _Notes and Queries_ a communication
which contained the following exalted sentiments:
“I think that _honour_ has a more noble and _favour_ a more obliging
look than _honor_ and _favor_. _Honor_ seems to me to do just his duty
and nothing more; _favor_ to qualify his kind deed with an air of
coldness. _Odor_, again, may be a fit term for a chemical distillation;
but a whole May garden comes before me in the word _odour_.”
The lover of the classics must always feel a sense of regret that
Cicero and Virgil and Horace were denied by the spelling prevailing in
their tongue the opportunity of enjoying this May garden, so cheaply
secured for this sentimental Englishman by spelling _odor_ with a _u_.
It is always unfortunate when the sense of largeness of soul can only
be developed at the expense of intellect. Fanciful notions like the one
just cited can never be dispelled by argument, as reason plays no part
in bringing them into being. As to association alone they owe their
creation, so to association alone will they owe their destruction.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Line 850.
[28] Line 1825.
[29] _Sonnets_ 91 and 92.
[30] _Venus and Adonis_, lines 969, 976; _The Rape of Lucrece_, 1099,
1290, 1380, 1506; in line 586 it is _labor_.
[31] In the original edition of _The Rape of Lucrece_, _honor_ is found
in lines 45, 142, 146, 156, 574, 579, 834, 841, 842, 1031, 1032, 1184,
1186, 1190, 1201, 1608, and 1705; _honour_ is found in lines 27, 145,
and 516. In _Venus and Adonis_ the word occurs in lines 558 and 994,
both times as _honor_.
[32] _Letters of David Hume to William Strahan_, Oxford, 1888, p. 27.
[33] Burton’s _Life and Correspondence of David Hume_, Edinburgh, 1846,
vol. ii, p. 43. Burton changed Hume’s spellings to conform to modern
orthography.
[34] _Imaginary Conversations._ Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.