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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life 2 0 Browse Search
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 9: the new spelling-book (search)
innovation. The delightful English Roman Catholic author Digby wrote, fifty years ago, that the moderns had found out a new way to spell honor, but no new mode of practising it; and this furnishes a date for this particular reform, although it really dates back much earlier, being mentioned with approval in Pegge's Anecdotes, first published in 1803. In the books of a hundred years ago one might find, without question or misgiving, authour, errour, inferiour, humour, and honour. The last two still hold their own in English books, but not in American; the others have given way in England also. The only word of the kind still retaining the u in most American books is the word Saviour, and this is obviously from a feeling of reverence, like that which leads many excellent persons to pronounce God Gawd, just as Kipling's soldiers pronounce it. In time we shall perhaps learn that true feeling and reverence are not impaired by a simple pronunciation or by a consistent spelling. 1896