METHODS OF RELIEF
He who has taken the pains to master the details given in the chapter
on English sounds and the signs which are intended to represent them,
will have received some conception of the nature of the orthographic
slough in which we are wallowing, and also of the difficulty which
exists of getting out of it. He will recognize that the obstacles which
stand in the way of the reform of English spelling are not merely
greater in number but are harder to overcome than those which beset any
other cultivated tongue of modern Europe. Incomplete as is the survey,
it is a melancholy picture which it presents. To him who has not become
so accustomed to disorder that he has learned to love it for its own
sake, the view is distinctly disheartening. The present orthography
fulfills neither its legitimate office of denoting pronunciation nor
its illegitimate one of disclosing derivation. It is consistent only
in inconsistency. It is not necessary for us to consider here how
this state of things came about. It is enough to know that it exists.
A thorough-going reform of English orthography would therefore be one
of the most gigantic of enterprises, even if men were fully informed
about it and their hearts were set upon it. But a distinct majority of
the educated class, though not educated on this subject, are opposed to
it. Naturally the profounder their ignorance, the more intense is their
hostility. It is no wonder, therefore, that many, in contemplating this
dead-weight of prejudice that must be unloaded, have come to despair of
the language ever being relieved in the slightest of the burden.
Let it be assumed, however, for the sake of the argument, that a
general agreement exists that a reform of some kind is regarded not
merely as desirable, but as practicable. At once arises the question:
What shall be its nature? How far shall it be carried? Two courses
are clearly open. One is to make a thorough-going reform of English
orthography in order to have it accord with a genuine phonetic ideal,
so that when a man sees a word he will know how to pronounce it, and
when he hears a word he will know how to spell it. Then harmony between
orthography and orthoepy will be complete. Now there is certainly
nothing either irrational or of itself offensive in the idea, whatever
opinion we may hold as to the practicability or desirability of its
attainment. Were we starting out to create a brand-new language, it is
not likely that any one would be found wrong-headed or muddle-headed
enough to look upon such an aim as improper or unwise. But conceding
this ideal to be incapable of realization in the present state of
public opinion, there is presented to our consideration the other
course. This is to reduce the existing anomalies in our spelling,
serving no use and displaying no sense, to the lowest possible number;
to discard from words their unneeded and misleading letters; to bring
all the words of the same general class under the operation of phonetic
law, so as to produce uniformity where an unintelligible diversity now
prevails. These are distinct objects. They constitute two separate
movements which may be characterized by a slight difference in the
wording. One is reform _of_ English orthography; the other is reform
_in_ English orthography.
There have been in the past, and are likely to be in the future, many
attempts at solving the perplexing problems involved in the furtherance
of the first of these two movements. Some of them have been logical
and consistent throughout. But one difficulty there is which has
stood in the way of their acceptance. It will for a long time to come
stand in the way. They must necessarily be addressed to generations
which have not even an elementary conception of what the sounds of
the language are, what are their real values, and what is the proper
way of representing these values. As language is now learned full as
much by the eye as by the ear, if not, indeed, more so, the form of
the word as it is spelled, not as it is pronounced, becomes what is
associated in the common mind with the word itself. In modern times
this has begot an unreasoning devotion. Accordingly, as difference in
a hitherto unheard method of pronunciation has always affected men by
the mere sound of it, so does now a new spelling affect them by the
sight of it. It arrests the attention of all. Of some it excites the
resentment; to others it almost causes convulsions of agony. Hence,
those who advocate a pure phonetic spelling--in itself the only
strictly rational method--are holding forth a counsel of perfection
to a body of persons who are so steeped in orthographic iniquity that
they have come to think it the natural condition of the race. This is a
situation which has to be recognized. Therefore, in the present state
of public opinion, largely unintelligent and hostile in proportion
to its lack of intelligence, it seems to me that reform _of_ English
orthography--using the distinction just made--is not practicable. We
must content ourselves with reform _in_ English orthography, imperfect
and unsatisfactory in many particulars as it necessarily must be.
Still, the middling possible is better than the ideally unattainable.
In a certain sense the latter course is, or ought to be, included in
the former. Any reform _in_ English orthography which conflicts with
the ideal of reform _of_ English orthography is not really a reform
at all. It is nothing more than a temporary makeshift which puts an
obstacle in the way of proper future effort. A piecemeal restoration
of anything which is not in full conformity with the just restoration
of the whole will do more than leave something to be desired. It will
introduce much to be deprecated. Any process of simplification in
a language whose spelling is so inherently vicious as ours is sure
to be attended with inconsistencies. In any partial reform there
will always arise exceptions which can never be swept away until
that thorough-going reform is made for which the public mind is not
prepared. These exceptions will be seized upon and triumphantly
paraded by the opponents of change as proof that as the reform proposed
cannot be made perfect at once, it ought not to be begun at all. There
would be truth in the last contention if the alterations recommended
were not, as far as they go, in full conformity with that phonetic
ideal which, though we shall never reach, we ought always to keep in
view. The one essential thing to be insisted upon in the reform _in_
English orthography is that it shall follow the path of reform _of_
English orthography, no matter how far it may lag behind it. There
should be no resort to temporary expedients which result in bringing
out about a mere external uniformity at the cost of sacrificing the
principle that the spelling should represent the sound. Furthermore,
it must not bow down to the false god of derivation when such a course
brings the form of the word into conflict with its pronunciation.
Much, indeed, of the discredit and ill success which have attended
previous efforts in behalf of spelling reform have been due to the
imperfect knowledge and erroneous action of those who have undertaken
them. They saw that there was an evil; they did not see what the nature
of the evil was. Hence, they adopted wrong methods of relief. They did
not propose their half-measures as preparations for something better.
They looked upon them as final in themselves. It need hardly be said
that reform of this particular kind could never be pressed consciously
as reform until after uniformity of spelling had practically been
established. Consequently, changes _in_ orthography, as distinguished
from change _of_ orthography, can hardly be said to go back to an
early period. Nearly all noteworthy attempts of the sort took place in
the latter half of the eighteenth century or the former half of the
nineteenth. Johnson’s method of spelling was felt, especially in the
earlier of these two periods, more than it was later, as a tyranny.
It was still so new that all had not become used to it, and none had
learned to love it with the gushing affection of our time. Many there
were who still remembered the former state of freedom. A few were
found who sought to set up rival thrones of their own. The crotchets,
moreover, in which individual writers indulged have been numberless. In
the vast majority of cases the changes proposed by them have been based
upon no scientific principles. Still less have they been the product of
any thoroughly worked-out theory. Accordingly, they have served little
other purpose than to arrest momentarily the attention of the curious,
and have had absolutely no influence whatever upon the orthography
generally received.
In truth, many of these attempts at reform have been worse than
partial. They have been merely in the direction of a mechanical
uniformity which was not based in the slightest upon the nature of
things. One illustration of this effort to bring about change which was
not improvement can be found in the alterations proposed at the end of
the eighteenth century by Joseph Ritson. To scholars Ritson is well
known as the fiercest of antiquaries, who loved accuracy with the same
passion with which other men love persons, and who hated a mistake,
whether arising from ignorance or inadvertence, as a saint might hate
a deliberate lie. He is equally well known for his devotion to a
vegetable diet, and also for the manifestation, noticeable in others
so addicted, of a bloodthirstiness of disposition in his criticism
which the most savage of carnivorous feeders might have contemplated
with envy. The alterations he proposed and carried out in his
published works tended in certain ways toward formal regularity; but
they also tended to make the divergence between the spelling and the
pronunciation still wider. For instance, the so-called regular verb
in our tongue adds ed to form the preterite. Ritson made the general
rule universal. He appended the termination also to verbs ending in
_e_. Accordingly the past tense, for illustration, of _love_, _oblige_,
and _surprise_ appeared as _loveed_, _obligeed_, and _surpriseed_. As
nobody pronounces the one _e_ which already exists in these preterites,
the insertion of another unnecessary letter could have only the effect
of adding an extra weight to the burden which these unfortunate words
were carrying as it was.
There were other changes proposed by Ritson. None were so bad as this,
but they were all valueless. He himself, however, was too thoroughly
honest a man to pretend that he had arrived at any knowledge of the
principles which underlie the reconstruction of our orthography. He
appears at last to have lost all confidence in his own alterations.
Under his influence his nephew had also been affected with the fever of
reform, and spelled many words in a way different from that commonly
followed. In a letter written in 1795, Ritson informed his kinsman
that he--the latter--was entirely ignorant of the principles both of
orthography and of punctuation, and rather wished to be singular than
studied to be right. “For my part,” he added, “I am as little fitted
for a master as you are for a scholar.”
Such changes as those of Ritson provoked amusement rather than
opposition. The knowledge of them, indeed, hardly came to the ears of
those devoted but never very well-informed idolaters of the existing
orthography who feel that the future of the English language and
literature depends upon its present spelling, and that the preservation
of that spelling in its purity, or, rather, in its impurity, rests
largely upon them. They did not attack Ritson’s views, because they
never heard of them. The changes, again, were too unscientific in their
nature to be worthy of serious consideration by him who had the least
comprehension of the real difficulties under which our orthography
labors. Ritson himself lived long enough not only to doubt the value
of his own efforts, but to see that these efforts had been attended
by positive pecuniary disadvantage to himself. The worship of the
orthographical fetish was then well under way. In a letter to Walter
Scott, written in 1803, Ritson told him that his publishers, the
Longmans, thought that the orthography made use of in his _Life of
King Arthur_ had been unfavorable to its sale. Yet this was a work
addressed to a class of persons who might be presumed to be peculiarly
free from prejudices which affect so powerfully the semi-educated.
Such a fact speaks stronger than volumes of dissertations as to the
opposition which reform of spelling must overcome before it can meet
with any sort of consideration at the hands of many.
But of these partial reforms, it is the one proposed by Webster that
is most familiar to Americans, and perhaps to all English-speaking
readers; for the storm which it raised was violent enough at one time
to be felt in every land where our tongue was employed. Nor, indeed,
has it so completely subsided that occasional mutterings of it are
not even yet heard. The Websterian orthography, it is to be remarked,
is found only in its primitive, unadulterated purity in the edition
of 1828. All the dictionaries bearing other dates than that must be
neglected by him who seeks to penetrate to the very well-head of this
movement; for the author himself, or his revisers for him, bent before
the orthographic gale, and silently struck out in later editions every
method of spelling which the popular palate could not be brought to
endure or inserted everything which it earnestly craved. No more than
those who preceded him did Webster go to work upon correct principles,
even when looked at from the point of view of a partial reform. One
main defect pervading his plan was that it was an effort to alter
the orthography partly according to analogy and partly according to
derivation. He could not well do both, for they often conflicted.
Furthermore, he was often not consistent in the one and very often not
correct in the other.
As far back as 1806 Webster had published an octavo dictionary of
the English language. From that time for the next twenty years his
attention was mainly directed to the compilation of such a work on a
large scale. He soon found it necessary, he tells us, to discard the
etymological investigations of his predecessors as being insufficient
and untrustworthy. This they largely were, without doubt; but by way
of remedying the defect, Webster devoted years to getting up a series
of derivations which were more insufficient and untrustworthy still.
In the process of doing this he made a study of some twenty languages,
and formed a synopsis of the principal words in these, arranged in
classes under their primary elements or letters. The results of this
study were embodied in the dictionary of 1828, and the orthography was
occasionally made to conform to it. Webster took a serene satisfaction
in these new spellings; but it was upon his etymology that he prided
himself. In his view, it furnished a revelation of the hidden mysteries
of language and a solution of the problem of its origin. With his
eyes intently fixed upon the tower of Babel, he probably never felt
so happy as when he fancied that he had come upon the trace of some
English word found in the tongues made use of in the courts of Nimrod
or Chedorlaomer.
It is a hard thing to say of a work which has taken up no small part
of the lifetime of an earnest student that it is of little value;
but there is not the slightest doubt that nearly all of Webster’s
supposed philological discoveries were the merest rubbish. Necessarily,
inferences based upon them in regard to the proper method of spelling
are utterly unworthy of respect. The derivation, indeed, had at last
to follow the fate which had overtaken certain portions of the new
orthography. Its retention was a little too much for later revisers of
the dictionary. These, in the edition of 1864, swept away at one fell
swoop into the limbo of forgettable and forgotten things the fruits of
twenty years of etymological study. Those conclusions, which in the
eyes of the author had given him the key to unlock the hidden secrets
of language, are no longer allowed to appear on the pages of the very
work which perpetuates his name.
The changes of another sort, based upon analogy, which Webster
introduced with the idea of making the spelling of words uniform,
were liable to little positive objection. Some of them, in spite of
violent opposition, have in this country more than held their own.
The consequence is that in the case of a number of words in common
use we have two methods of spelling flourishing side by side. This
is a state of things which, it seems to me, every one who has the
reform of our orthography at heart must contemplate with unqualified
satisfaction. Not that Webster’s proposed changes, even had they been
universally adopted, would have gone to the real root of the evil. Far
from it. At best they merely touch the surface and then only in a few
places. But one effect they have produced. They have in some measure
prevented us, and do still prevent us, from falling to the dead level
of an unreasoning uniformity. By bringing before us two methods of
spelling, they keep open the legitimacy of each. They expose to every
unprejudiced investigator the utter shallowness of the arguments that
are directed against change.
But slight as Webster’s alterations were, they met with the bitterest
hostility at the time of their introduction. The love of little things
is deeply implanted in the human mind. It is, therefore, perhaps
not unnatural that the minor changes in spelling which he proposed
should have met with attack far more violent than that directed
against his tremendous etymological speculations. This culminated on
the publication of Worcester’s Dictionary, which in the matter of
orthography followed a more conservative course. A wordy war arose,
which lasted for years. Combatants from every quarter leaped at once
into the arena. They were easily equipped for the contest, inasmuch as
virulence was the main thing required. Intellect was not essential to
the discussion, and knowledge would have been a death-blow to it. The
war of the dictionaries, as it was called, is therefore of interest to
us at this point of time, not for any principle involved in it, but as
an illustration, pertinent at the present moment, of how earnestly,
and even furiously, men can be got to fight for a cause they do not
understand.
There is no doubt, indeed, that Webster laid himself open to attack.
Perfect consistency is not to be looked for in this world; but the man
who sets out to make a reform _in_ English orthography as contrasted
with a reform _of_ English orthography cannot help being inconsistent.
He will feel obliged to retain objectionable spellings. He will even
feel obliged to authorize some that are inconsistent with his own
principles, for the same reason that Moses tolerated divorce. It is the
hardness of men’s hearts, clinging to ancient abuses and unwilling to
break up old associations, which will force the reformer to accept what
he does not approve. Inadvertence, too, will add failures of its own to
the contradictions involved in the very incompleteness of the scheme
which has been adopted.
Both in respect to analogy and derivation, Webster did not carry out
the principles he avowed. There were whole classes of words which
he hesitated to change; at least, he did not change them. Of these
half-measures, whether due to oversight or to doubt, one illustration
will suffice. No man who seeks to make orthography etymologically
uniform can have failed to notice the difference of spelling in the
case of words derived from the compounds of the Latin _cedo_. Three
end in _eed_, six in _ede_. As the digraph _ee_ has practically the
same sound always, the former termination seems to me preferable. But
laying aside personal opinions in the matter, what sensible reason
can be given for writing _succeed_ with _ceed_ and _secede_ with
_cede_? Here was a glaring anomaly which could hardly have failed to
escape Webster’s attention. If the principle of analogy met with any
consideration, this demanded to be removed, if anything did. But he was
unequal to the occasion. In the edition of 1828 he spelled _exceed_
with _ceed_ and _accede_ with _cede_, which every one does, to be sure,
but which he personally had no business to do. In conformity with his
avowed views, he was bound to make uniform the orthography of all the
words which come from the Latin _cedo_. As he failed to do this, he
subjected himself to the reproach of not having acted in accordance
with his own principles.
The truth is that analogical spelling occupied a very subordinate
position in Webster’s mind. His work is mainly deserving of notice
because, unaided, he chanced in some cases to secure success in spite
of virulent opposition. Its chief value, indeed, lies in the fact that
it has kept alive a feeling of hostility to the existing orthography
of the English tongue; that it has saved many from paying a silly
and slavish deference to the opinions of a not very well-informed
lexicographer of the eighteenth century and his successors; that in the
matter of spelling it has inculcated the belief that there is a test
of reason and scholarship to be applied, and not a mere prescription
based upon ignorance; and that by these means it has given to some a
hope, to others a fear, to all a warning, that however long Philistia
may cling to her idols, they will be broken at last.
It would be a great mistake, however, to assume that the feeling about
the wretched condition of English orthography has been confined to
professional reformers. From almost the very beginning the users of
written speech have been conscious of the burden they were carrying.
It has certainly lain heavily upon the hearts of many thinking men in
the past, and unconsciously, perhaps, on the hearts of all. But this
feeling has never been translated into successful action. In truth,
men believed themselves hopelessly entangled in a network of anomalies
and absurdities which hampered all intelligent proceeding. Out of
it they saw no way of escape. This despairing attitude is plainly
apparent in the comments of the dramatist Ben Jonson on what he terms
our pseudography. In speaking of the digraph _ck_ in certain words, he
remarked that it “were better written without the _c_, if that which we
have received for orthography would yet be contented to be altered.
But that is an emendation rather to be wished than hoped for, after so
long a reign of ill custom amongst us.”
Consent to be altered, the language never did voluntarily. There
is nothing more absolutely false than the assertion sometimes made
that it has been and still is slowly but steadily reforming the
spelling of its own initiative. Of the usage of the past it requires
peculiar ignorance--though of that the supply is unlimited--to
make an assertion of this sort. Everything of the little which has
been accomplished in the way of reform has been gained only after
a bitter contest. Undoubtedly there has been a steady tendency to
give exclusive recognition to one out of several spellings of a
word and thereby produce absolute uniformity. But there has been no
disposition to make the spelling better. Not infrequently the worst
form has been selected. Any one who takes the trouble to compare the
orthography of the seventeenth century with that now prevailing will
have frequent occasion to observe how slight has been the tendency
toward simplification; that when a choice has lain between different
spellings, it is not unusual to have the more unsuitable one preferred;
and that, as a consequence, the divergence between orthography and
orthoepy has increased instead of diminishing.
In truth, in this matter we have often gone back not merely from the
practice of the seventeenth century, but from the more rigid practice
of the eighteenth. In the second half of the latter period Johnson’s
Dictionary settled the standard. The changes which have taken place
since his time have all been haphazard. They have been sometimes
for the better; they have as frequently been for the worse. Take,
for illustration, _catcall_, _downfall_, _downhill_, _bethrall_,
_miscall_, _overfall_, _unroll_, _forestall_. In Johnson’s Dictionary
these appear as _catcal_, _downfal_, _downhil_, _bethral_, _miscal_,
_overfal_, _unrol_, and _forestal_. As might be expected, there was no
consistency in his treatment of the terminations found in these words.
While he spelled _downhil_ with a single _l_, he spelled _uphill_ with
two. While he spelled _install_ with two _l’s_, he spelled _reinstal_
with but one. Contradictory usages of this sort are liable to turn
up anywhere in his work. _Reconcilable_, for instance, appears in
it with an _e_ after the _il_; _irreconcilable_ without this vowel.
Naturally, arbitrariness of spelling of such a sort tended much more to
the complication of orthography than to its simplification. There was
sufficient love of uniformity in our nature to reduce many of these
variations to one form; but as a general rule the form selected has
been the one which carried the largest number of unnecessary letters.
Take, for instance, the word _fulness_, so spelled by Johnson. It
is now often written _fullness_, after the analogy of _illness_ and
_smallness_. But there is no consistency even in this practice. No one,
for illustration, now spells _forgetfulness_ with two _l’s_, though
that method was once not uncommon.
In fact, on no side has any rational principle been at work, or if
it has shown itself, it has never been allowed to carry out fully
the results at which it has arrived. Against the agencies which have
tended to widen the gulf between orthography and orthoepy counteracting
influences, indeed, have at times manifested themselves. Two measures,
in particular, the language has unconsciously taken to lighten the load
under which it has been staggering. One of them is a natural action on
the part of the users of speech; the other, though a growth, partakes
of the nature of an artificial device. Both, however, have exerted an
appreciable influence in making the spelling indicate the sound. The
first to be considered is very limited in its operations. In ancient
days, when pronunciation was changed the spelling was changed in order
to denote it. With the petrifaction of the orthography this in time
became generally impossible. Since, therefore, the spelling could not
be altered to accord with the pronunciation, there sprang up a tendency
to alter the pronunciation to accord with the spelling. Letters once
unsounded came to be heard. Syllables previously crushed out of all
recognition were restored to their full rights. These agencies never
have exerted and never can exert influence on any large scale. Still,
they have been operative in some degree and continue to be active.
Accordingly, when the disposition manifests itself to bring about in
such ways consonance between orthography and orthoepy, it is not worth
while to make now any change in the spelling. A few examples will make
this point perfectly clear.
Any one who compares the pronunciation given in the dictionaries at the
beginning of the nineteenth century with that now sanctioned by similar
authorities, will be struck by a number of instances in which a given
word was once not pronounced in accordance with its spelling, but is
so at the present time. Take, for illustration, _housewife_. A century
and more ago its regularly authorized pronunciation was _huzzif_. This
continues still. Much more commonly, however, each syllable which
enters into the compound is heard exactly as it would be were it used
separately. The older pronunciation has mainly died out in consequence
of men learning the language more through the eye than the ear; though
in this particular case the degradation of the word to _huzzy_ has
probably contributed its aid to produce the result.
_Chart_ will supply us with another illustration. A century ago it
was frequently pronounced _cart_. _Cognizance_ and _recognizance_,
too, have now taken up generally the sound of _g_, though in legal
circles this letter still frequently remains suppressed. Take, again,
the case of some words in which _qu_ had once the sound of _k_ as it
is still heard in _etiquette_ and _coquette_. Walker informs us that
in his day _harlequin_ and _quadrille_ were pronounced _har-le-kin_
and _ka-drill_. In both these instances, under the influence of the
printed word, the _qu_ has generally abandoned the sound of _k_ for the
regular sound which we ordinarily associate with this digraph. The same
thing is going on in the case of _masquerade_. The dictionaries, which
rarely record such changes till they have been fully accomplished, give
us no intimation of this fact. This last observation applies also to
_pretty_, in which _e_ has regularly the sound of short _i_. But the
disposition to give the vowel here its strictly proper sound is showing
itself in the case of this word. If left to run its natural course, it
is likely in time to become predominant.
As a general rule, however, words subject to influences of this sort
are not likely to be those commonly heard in conversation. They belong
to the class which are more usually met in books. There he who sees
them for the first time is disposed to make the pronunciation accord
as near as possible to the spelling. To this rule there are occasional
notable exceptions. I have heard even educated men--at least, men who
were generally so regarded--pronounce the words _English_ and _England_
just as they are spelled--that is, the initial syllable was sounded as
_ĕng_ and not as _ĭng_. No such pronunciation is ever likely to become
common enough to bring itself into notice; but that it should exist at
all is proof of how wide-reaching is the tendency just mentioned.
These words themselves, it may be added, are interesting illustrations
of one of the various agencies which have done so much with us to
bring about divergence between orthography and orthoepy. In our
earlier speech there were two ways of denoting this initial syllable,
corresponding, without doubt, to the two ways in which it was
pronounced. In one case it was spelled _eng_, as it is now, in close
accordance with its derivation. In the other case it was spelled _ing_,
giving us, with the usual orthographic variations, the forms _Ingland_
and _Inglish_. Here a genuine difference in sound conveyed to the ear
was represented to the eye by a difference of orthography. The modern
speech has made one of its usual compromises. It has retained the
spelling of the one form and the pronunciation of the other. A similar
story can be told of _colonel_, which had once as an allied form
_coronel_. It is likewise true of _lieutenant_. In the case of this
word, what is regular in the United States is exceptional in England,
and vice versa. With us the pronunciation of the first syllable is
almost universally in accordance with that of the simple word _lieu_,
which is its original. In England it is not allowed to be contaminated
by any sound which might indicate its derivation. From a by-gone
spelling, _lef_, comes the pronunciation there prevalent. This has
survived the form that created it.
But the most striking illustration of a change, mainly effected by the
agency of the written word, is seen in the past participle _been_.
There is little question--there is, indeed, no question--that at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, and even much later, the
digraph _ee_ in this word had in cultivated speech the sound of short
_i_. It is not meant that the other pronunciation which rymed it with
_seen_ was not sometimes heard; but merely that it was then so limited
in use that orthoepists hardly thought it worth while to recognize
its existence. Walker admitted no pronunciation of _been_ save that
which made it ryme with _sin_. He had heard of the other, but he had
only heard of it. So said Sheridan, his contemporary and rival. So
said Smart, his reviser and successor, writing in the middle of the
nineteenth century.[35] Yet, with no support from the most prominent
lexical authorities, the pronunciation of _been_ to ryme with _seen_
instead of _sin_, steadily gained ground in England during the last
century. There it seems to have become finally the prevalent one. To
it the New Historical English Dictionary, while sanctioning both ways
of pronouncing the word, gives the preference--at least, the apparent
preference.
The growth of this practice has, without question, been largely
and perhaps mainly due to the fact that the digraph _ee_ has been
practically confined to the representation of a single sound. It
has become to us a phonetic symbol, denoting almost invariably the
so-called “long _e_.” Having this sound in nearly every case, there is
unconsciously developed the feeling that it ought to have it always.
For the sake of conforming to it, _been_ has in consequence steadily
tended to abandon its once more common pronunciation. This single
example is of special interest, because of the proof it furnishes of
the unifying tendency that would be exerted over language were phonetic
symbols with fixed values employed to represent one sound and but one
sound. It does more than that. It indicates the only way in which
permanence can be given to pronunciation.
Even now, so marked is the influence of the training of the eye
as compared with that of the ear, that efforts consciously or
unconsciously go on to modify the sound of the word as we have been
accustomed to hear it to the form of it which we are accustomed to see.
It is no unusual thing to hear persons painfully striving to pronounce
the final _n_ of _condemn_, _contemn_, and similar verbs, making
themselves very miserable when they fail, and others very miserable
when they succeed. But, after all, efforts to bring about in this way
accord between form and sound can affect only a very limited class
of words. The gap between orthography and orthoepy is, with us, too
wide and impassable for the latter ever to close up. The most we can
do is in process of time to revive the pronunciation of a few letters
that are now silent, or to substitute a few forms etymologically
correct for the corruptions by which they have been supplanted. When
either of these courses shows signs of immediate or even of ultimate
adoption, it is not worth while to disturb the coming of that result by
present attempts at alteration. But in its best estate the changes of
pronunciation to accord with the spelling cannot, as regards influence,
be compared with the much more ancient device now to be considered.
This consists in appending an unpronounced _e_ to the final syllable to
indicate that the preceding vowel is long. This method early evolved
itself out of the confusion in which our orthography was involved as a
sort of help to denote the pronunciation by the spelling.
There seems to be something peculiarly attractive to our race in the
letter _e_. Especially is this so when it serves no useful purpose.
Adding it at random to syllables, and especially to final syllables,
is supposed to give a peculiar old-time flavor to the spelling. For
this belief there is, to some extent, historic justification. The
letter still remains appended to scores of words in which it has lost
the pronunciation once belonging to it. Again, it has been added to
scores of others apparently to amplify their proportions. We have in
our speech a large number of monosyllables. As a sort of consolation to
their shrunken condition an _e_ has been appended to them, apparently
to make them present a more portly appearance. The fancy we all have
for this vowel not only recalls the wit but suggests the wisdom of
Charles Lamb’s exquisite pun upon Pope’s line that our race is largely
made up of “the mob of gentlemen who write with ease.” The belief, in
truth, seems to prevail that the final _e_ is somehow indicative of
aristocracy. In proper names, particularly, it is felt to impart a
certain distinction to the appellation, lifting it far above the grade
of low associations. It has the crowning merit of uselessness; and in
the eyes of many uselessness seems to be regarded as the distinguishing
mark of any noble class, either of things or persons. Still, I have so
much respect for the rights of property that it seems to me every man
ought to have the privilege of spelling and pronouncing his own name in
any way he pleases.
The prevalence of this letter at the end of words was largely due to
the fact that the vowels _a_, _o_, and _u_ of the original endings
were all weakened to it in the break-up of the language which followed
the Norman conquest. Hence, it became the common ending of the noun.
The further disappearance of the consonant _n_ from the original
termination of the infinitive extended this usage to the verb. The
Anglo-Saxon _tellan_ and _helpan_, for instance, after being weakened
to _tellen_ and _helpen_, became _telle_ and _helpe_. Words not of
native origin fell under the influence of this general tendency and
adopted an _e_ to which they were in nowise entitled. Even Anglo-Saxon
nouns which ended in a consonant--such, for instance, as _hors_ and
_mús_ and _stán_--are now represented by _horse_ and _mouse_ and
_stone_. The truth is, that when the memory of the earlier form of the
word had passed away an _e_ was liable to be appended, on any pretext,
to the end of it. The feeling still continues to affect us all. Our
eyes have become so accustomed to seeing a final _e_ which no one
thinks of pronouncing, that the word is felt by some to have a certain
sort of incompleteness if it be not found there. In no other way can
I account for Lord Macaulay’s spelling the comparatively modern verb
_edit_ as _edite_. This seems to be a distinction peculiar to himself.
How widely prevalent at one period became the use of this final _e_
can be brought out sharply by an examination of a few pages of a
single work. Take, for example, _The Schoolmaster_ of Roger Ascham.
This was published in 1570. In the admirable reprint of it, executed
by Professor Arber, the preface occupies eight pages. In this limited
space we find an _e_ appended to no small number of words from which
it is now dropped. It appears in the nouns _bargaine_, _beginninge_,
_booke_, _daye_, _deale_, _deede_, _eare_, _feare_, _fructe_ (fruit),
_gowne_, _greife_ (_sic_), _hinte_, _kinde_, _learninge_, _logike_,
_minde_, _realme_, _rhetorike_, _silke_, _sonne_, _spirite_, _sworde_,
_stuffe_, _taulke_, _wisdome_, _wonte_, and _worke_; in the verbs
_beare_, _gatte_ (preterite), _looke_, _passe_, _seeme_, _teache_,
_thanke_, _thinke_, _tooke_ (preterite), and _waulke_; in the
adjectives _certaine_, _fewe_, _fitte_, _fonde_, _lewde_ or _leude_,
_lothe_, _meane_, _olde_, _poore_, _shrewde_, and _sweete_; and in
the adverbs _againe_, _agoe_, _cheife_ (_sic_), and _doune_. On the
other hand, this final _e_ is absent from some words where it is now
regularly found. _Come_ and _become_, for example, appear as _cum_ and
_becum_, and _tongue_ as _tong_.
In the chaos which came over the spelling in consequence of the
uncertainty attached to the sound of the vowels, the final _e_ was
seized upon as a sort of help to indicate the pronunciation. Its
office in this respect was announced as early as the end of the
sixteenth century; at least, then it was announced that an unsounded
_e_ at the end of a word indicated that the preceding vowel was long.
This, it hardly need be said, is a crude and unscientific method of
denoting pronunciation. It is a process purely empirical. It is far
removed from the ideal that no letter should exist in a word which is
not sounded. Yet, to some extent, this artificial makeshift has been
and still is a working principle. Were it carried out consistently
it might be regarded as, on the whole, serving a useful purpose. But
here, as well as elsewhere, the trail of the orthographic serpent
is discoverable. Here, as elsewhere, it renders impossible the full
enjoyment of even this slight section of an orthographic paradise.
Here, as elsewhere, manifests itself the besetting sin of our spelling,
that there is no consistency in the application of any principle. Some
of our most common verbs violate the rule (if rule it can be called),
such as _have_, _give_, _love_, _are_, _done_. In these the preceding
vowel is not long but short. There are further large classes of words
ending in _ile_, _ine_, _ite_, _ive_, where this final _e_ would serve
to mislead the inquirer as to the pronunciation had he no other source
of information than the spelling.
Still, in the case of some of these words the operation of this
principle has had, and is doubtless continuing to have, a certain
influence. Take, for instance, the word _hostile_. In the early
nineteenth century, if we can trust the most authoritative
dictionaries, this word was regularly pronounced in England as if
spelled _hos’-tĭl_. So it is to-day in America. But the influence of
the final _e_ has tended to prolong, in the former country, the sound
of the preceding _i_. Consequently, a usual, and probably the usual,
pronunciation there is _hos-tīle_. We can see a similar tendency
manifested in the case of several other adjectives. A disposition to
give many of them the long diphthongal sound of the _i_ is frequently
displayed in the pronunciation of such words as _agile_, _docile_,
_ductile_, _futile_, _infantile_. Save in the case of the last one of
this list, the dictionaries once gave the _ile_ nothing but the sound
of _il_; now they usually authorize both ways.
Were the principle here indicated fully carried out, pronunciations now
condemned as vulgarisms would displace those now considered correct. In
accordance with it, for instance, _engine_, as it is spelled, should
strictly have the _i_ long. One of the devices employed by Dickens
in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ to ridicule what he pretended was the American
speech was to have the characters pronounce _genuine_ as _gen-u-īne_,
_prejudice_ as _prej-u-dīce_, _active_ and _native_ as _ac-tȳve_ and
_na-tīve_. Doubtless he heard such pronunciations from some men. Yet,
in these instances, the speaker was carried along by the same tendency
which in cultivated English has succeeded in turning the pronunciation
_hos-tĭl_ into _hos-tīle_. Were there any binding force in the
application of the rule which imparts to the termination _e_ the power
of lengthening the preceding vowel, no one would have any business to
give to it in the final syllable of the words just specified any other
sound than that of “long _i_.” The pronunciations ridiculed by Dickens
would be the only pronunciations allowable. Accordingly, the way to
make the rule universally effective is to drop this final _e_ when
it does not produce such an effect. If _genuine_ is to be pronounced
_gen-u-ĭn_, so it ought to be spelled.
For a long period, indeed, in the early history of our speech, whenever
pronunciation changed, spelling was changed for the sake of denoting
it properly. If a letter then became silent, it had no rights which
any one felt bound to respect. It was incontinently dropped. No one
needs to be told that this has all been changed in modern times. With
us it has become both the belief and the practice that if a letter has
once got into the spelling of a word, no matter how unlawfully, it has
acquired the right of remaining there forever. In consequence, our
language is encumbered with a lot of alphabetic squatters which have
settled down upon the orthography without any regard to the opposing
claims of either derivation or pronunciation. The mental attitude which
at first tolerated and at last has learned to love these nuisances
sprang up after the invention of printing. The influence of this art
upon the spelling is something that cannot well be overestimated. Any
confusion which might before have existed in it became from this time
worse confounded. Upon the introduction of printing, indeed, English
orthography entered into the realm of chaos and old night, in which it
has ever since been floundering. Then it began to put on the shape it
at present bears, “if shape it may be called which shape has none.”
The evil effects wrought on the orthography by printing, as contrasted
with the previous method of manuscript reproduction, were largely
due to the difference of conditions under which the two arts were
carried on. The early type-setters, indeed, had to encounter the same
difficulties which beset the copyists of manuscripts. There were among
educated men the widest diversities of pronunciation. No established
literary, still less established orthoepic standard, to which all felt
obliged to conform, could possibly grow up during the long civil strife
of the fifteenth century. Disorder and confusion, which in many cases
had their origin as far back as the coming together in one tongue of
two conflicting phonetic systems, continued to prevail to a great
extent. But the copyists of manuscripts, compared with the type-setters
who succeeded them, were men of education. Some degree of cultivation
was essential to a profession which demanded as the first condition
of success the ability to gain a clear conception of an author’s
meaning. In accordance with the practice then universally prevailing,
they would give to the word the spelling which to them represented the
pronunciation. As educated men, this would be done in the majority of
cases with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Still, that the copyists of manuscripts were a long way from reaching
the highest ideal of excellence we know from incontestable authority.
The corruption of the text caused by their wilfulness or carelessness
was one of the few things that seem to have vexed the genial soul of
the first great singer of our literature. Chaucer in his address to
Adam, the scrivener, complains of the great trouble to which he is put
in revising his works by the latter’s negligence. A fervent prayer is
made that he may have a scalled head if he does not hereafter adhere
to the original writing more closely. Toward the end of _Troilus and
Cryseyde_ there is, as Mr. Ellis remarked, something almost pathetic in
his address to his “litel boke”
And for ther is so greet dyversitee
In Englissh and in writynge of our tonge,
So preye I God, that non myswrite thee,
Ne the mys-metere for defaut of tonge.
It is not likely that either imprecation or imploration had much
effect upon the scribes of that day, who were probably as perverse a
generation as the scribes of old. But one thing is to be said in their
behalf. The cardinal principle that the proper office of orthography is
to represent orthoepy they never lost sight of, however wofully they
may have failed in carrying it into effect. Had this been consistently
kept in view, the attainment of a reasonably complete correspondence
between spelling and pronunciation, while it might have been long
delayed, would have been sure to follow at last.
All this was checked and finally reversed by the introduction of
printing. Far higher requirements, as has been intimated, were needed
in the work of the copyist than in the mere mechanical labor of the
type-setter. The former had to understand his author to represent
correctly what he said. But there is no such necessity in the case of
the compositor. Whatever intellect he may have, he will not be called
upon to use it to any great extent in his special line of activity. His
duty is done if he faithfully follows copy, and he can perform his work
well in a language of which he does not comprehend a word. His labor
is and must always be mostly mechanical. The very fact that he is not
responsible for results will inevitably have a tendency to make him
careless in details. The blunders in spelling, and in greater matters
still, shown in modern printing-offices where the most scrupulous
care is exerted to attain correctness are familiar to all. These
evils would be immensely increased at a period when no such extensive
precautions against error were taken in any case, and when in some
cases it would seem as if no precautions were taken at all. The effects
of the carelessness and indifference that frequently prevailed would
not be and were not confined to the work in which they were directly
manifested. The orthography of printed matter necessarily reacts upon
the orthography of the men who are familiar with it. These, when they
come to write, will be apt to repeat the errors they have learned from
the books they read. With that peculiar ability in blundering shown
by all careless spellers, they will further contribute numberless
variations of their own. These in turn will be followed more or less
by the type-setter. Thus, new forms will be constantly added to the
prevailing disorder. In this manner a complete circle is formed in
which author and printer corrupt each other, and both together corrupt
the public.
Such was, in great measure, the situation of things in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Differences of spelling in the same book
and on the same page were found constantly. But necessarily it was a
situation which could not continue. To a printing-office, uniformity
of orthography, if not absolutely essential, is, to say the least,
highly desirable. Toward uniformity, therefore, the printing-offices
steadily bent their aim, since nobody and nothing else would. The
movement in that direction was powerfully helped forward by the
feeling, which had been steadily gaining strength after the revival of
classical learning, that the office, or at least one great office, of
orthography is to indicate derivation. Belief in this involved in its
very nature the notion of fixedness of spelling. It therefore gave the
sanction of a quasi-scholarship to the demand for an unvarying standard
which came from a mechanic art. Under the pressing needs of the
printing-office, the movement toward uniformity made steady progress
during the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth.
Wide variations continued to be found in works bearing the imprint of
different establishments. We must remember that there were then no
dictionaries that men were disposed to consider authoritative. It was
not until the eighteenth century that these began to exist on any scale
worth mentioning, or that much respect was paid to the spellings they
sanctioned. Each printing-office was largely a law unto itself.
But the desire for uniformity became more insistent as time went on. At
last it succeeded in reaching the end it had in view. But unfortunately
for us, the establishment of the orthography was in no way the work of
scholars, though this was largely a result of their own indolence and
indifference. It came into the hands of men who knew nothing about it
and cared still less. In consequence, it was a haphazard orthography
that was fixed upon us. In the selections made by compositors and
proofreaders from the variations of spelling which then prevailed,
it was the merest accident or the blindest caprice that dictated the
choice of the form to be permanently adopted. Authors themselves seem
rarely to have taken any interest in the matter. The uniformity, or
the approach to uniformity, we have now was accordingly the work of
printers and not of scholars. As might be expected, the result of it
is a mere conventional uniformity. In no sense of the word is it a
scientific one. In effecting it, propriety was disregarded, etymology
was perverted, and every principle of orthoepy defied. Men of culture
blindly followed in the wake of a movement which they had not the power
and probably not the knowledge to direct. Certainly they lacked the
disposition. To the orthography thus manufactured Johnson’s Dictionary,
which came out in 1755, gave authority, gave currency--gave, in fact,
universality. But it could not give consistency nor reason, for in it
they were not to be found.
As a consequence of the wide acceptance of this orthography, the
petrifaction of the written speech which had been steadily going on
for at least two centuries was now practically made complete. So far
as the forms of the words were concerned, it assumed more and more the
character of a dead language. But in the meanwhile the spoken tongue
remained full of vigor and life. As a necessary consequence, it was
constantly undergoing modification. While the spelling stood still,
changes in pronunciation were numerous and rapid. Whether they were
for the better or for the worse is not pertinent to this inquiry. But
the inevitable result was to widen steadily the gulf that had long
before begun to disclose itself as existing between the written and
the spoken word. That result is before us. No particular value having
been attached to any vowel or combination of vowels, there is nothing
to determine the exact value they should have when they appear in a
particular syllable. For the pronunciation we go not necessarily to the
word itself but to somewhere else. Every member of the English race
has to learn two languages, every member of the English race uses two
languages. The one he reads and writes; the other he speaks.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary, revised by B. H. Smart, 5th
edition, London, 1857, p. xxiii., sec. 119.