English spelling is a hot mess, even for native speakers. But as a new book shows, would-be spelling reformers, including Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, eventually just gave up. Also, what do you call your fellow parent in front of the...
English spelling is messy to say the least, and a delightful new book by Gabe Henry recounts the long history of attempts to simplify English spelling. It’s called Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell...
The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language (Bookshop|Amazon) reflects 450 years of English as it has been spoken and written in what is now the United States. Edited by Ilan Stavans, this anthology of original texts—essays, articles...
Inspired by Noah Webster’s spelling reform, Quiz Guy John Chaneski came up with a puzzle that involves removing the letter U from one word to form another. For example, what two words are clued by the following statement? “I used to live in a...
Noah Webster originally tried changing the spelling of hard ch words to begin with k, as in karacter, but the shift never caught on, as is usually the case with spelling reforms. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”Ch” Speling...
What Americans call a cold draft, the British call a cold draught. Noah Webster deserves most of the responsibility for changing the British spelling. Regardless of how they’re spelled, both words rhyme with “daft,” not “drought.” This is part of a...