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In America, draft has many times supplanted draught. 'Draught beer' seems to still be common in the U.S. Are there others? Do verb forms retain the old spelling more than noun forms?
Locally, when a firetruck must pull the water from a creek or pond (i.e. any non-pressurized source), it is called 'drafting' ('draughting'); I have never seen it spelled. I might prefer the latter. (Although this editor's spell checker does not like 'draughting' and that may be a hint, it does not like firetruck either.)
I see both spellings here in Arizona. My take is that "draft" is slowly replacing "draught" (which my spell-check flags) purely on the basis of simplicity. Way too many silent letters in "draught." And maybe also because "drought" (which we've had here in AZ for close to 10 years) gets confused with "draught" by young kids and ESLers.
Still see draught rarely in reference to leaky doors and windows. never in reference to involuntary servitude, as well as infrequently for beer on tap.
It always stops me in my tracks to read of an old draughty house, but I kinda like draught better than draft. It's a parallel to drought as "unfavorable conditions."
The controversial 1943 book by Edward Faulkner was published initially as "Plowman's Folly" and as "Ploughman's Folly" in later editions, which strikes me as counter-intuitive; I'd have thought it would be the other way around.
FWIW, Faulkner's farm (such as it was) was located in NW Ohio. I remember talking to people in the 1970s who told me in no uncertain terms that Faulkner was both a fool and lazy, either of which is the kiss of death for a farmer, and that his farm was a shameful mess. Despite that hostile reception to Faulkner's thesis, no-till and conservation-till farming were being promoted by the SWCD starting in the 1980s.
Dick said
Do you know when it was that Faulkner lived in Ohio? I'm trying to find that part of his life in a biography.
According to Ancestry.com, "Born in Kentucky, USA on 31 Jul 1886 to John W Faulkner and Rhoanna Snyder. Edward H married Roxy Caddell and had 2 children. Edward H married Nettie E Faulkner."
According to a search at Mocavo. in the 1920 census, he was living near Gallipolis, Ohio with his wife Roxy C Faulkner. Both of them were born in Kentucky, he in 1887, she in 1885, and they had a daughter, Josephine, born in Ohio in 1919.
I can't find him in the 1910 census.
In the 1930 census, he's living in Elyria. Ohio with Josephine (born 1919), Nettie E (born 1890), John E (born 1921), and Biddie F (born 1894). Biddie was his sister. John his son, and Nettie his wife. I suspect Roxy died in the early 1920s, his sister came to help raise the two kids, and remained part of the household after he married Nettie.
I can't find him in the 1940 census, either.
He was living in Elyria. Ohio in 1943 when his book was published. Island Press says he " worked as an agricultural agent in the upper Ohio and Erie basins."
Zachary Michael Jack (great-grandson of Walter Jack, who wreote "The Furrow and Us" rebutting Faulkner in 1946) describes Faulkner as "a county extension agent in Kentucky and Ohio" amd "an Elyria insurance agent." According to Louis Bromfield of Readers Digest, "He had been a county agent and had resigned because some of his ideas were too revolutionary for his superiors to swallow." Faulkner went to school at Williamsburg Baptist Institute (now known as Cumberland College) and the University of Kentucky.
County agents are paid by the state's land-grant college, which would be UK in Kentucky and Ohio State University in Ohio. If he started working at age 22 as an extension agent in Kentucky, that would be 1908. Presumably, he was working for OSU in Gallia County when Josephine was born in 1919. Jack says he spent the first 25 of his working years as a county agent, that would have taken him to 1933.
He died in 1964
Hope this helps!
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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