How do you spell "change"?

Sandra Parshall

I think Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster would approve of Twitterese and online language in general. Both were enthusiastic proponents of a flexible language and believed that words, when written, should look the way they sound. I doubt that either man would be moaning about internet-fostered illiteracy and young people who prefer phonetics (ur) to standard words (your).

The greatest strength of the English language, especially the variety spoken in the U.S., has always been its elasticity. English readily absorbs useful foreign words, sometimes changing the pronunciation and spelling. Old words acquire new meanings, and every year we create and rapidly begin to use words that never existed before. At the same time, English is a hodgepodge of archaic spellings, some with more than one definition and a different pronunciation for each definition.

When a language contains such spellings and pronunciations as borough, cough, tough, slough, through, and dough, it’s amazing that any child learns to speak, read, and write it fluently, and even more astounding that anyone can learn it as a second language. We have words with different spellings and meanings but identical pronunciations, such as borough and burrow, through and threw. We have words like ghost and aghast, with inexplicable silent letters. And can you tell me the difference between learned and learned? You can speak English all your life and still trip up when writing it.

Benjamin Franklin recognized the problem as early as 1768, when he published “A Scheme for a New Alphabet and Reformed Mode of Spelling.” He proposed several new vowels and wanted to abolish some troublesome consonants. His views didn’t have much impact on practices, though.

Noah Webster shared Franklin’s views, and he was in an ideal position to take direct action: he

That wild and crazy guy, Noah Webster

compiled the English-speaking world’s most widely used spelling guides and dictionary, and if he thought a spelling should be changed, he changed it. He created American versions of such words as centre, theatre, honour, colour and programme. His ideas about the language scandalized social conservatives, who called him radical and mad. But you will notice that center, theater, honor, color and program are today’s standard spellings in American usage.

Standardized spelling, however, is an obstacle to innovation. Since the printing press was invented in the 1440s, language conservatives have been trying to make us toe the line and ignore the allure of simplification and clarity in spelling. Even as we continually add new words to the language, many of them spawned by the technology industry and communications media, publishers demand standardized spelling and adherence to “house style” and writers run spell-check and comb through their manuscripts for slip-ups. Nothing, we’re told, will make a worse impression on an editor or agent than a misspelled word. Use “threw” when you should have used “through” and you’re toast.

But the people are the ones who shape their language, and in this time of rapid change English can't remain static. In the current issue of Wired magazine, writer and Oberlin College associate professor Anne Trubek states, “Consistent spelling was a great way to ensure clarity in the print era. But with new technologies, the way that we write and read (and search and data-mine) is changing, and so must spelling.” Note that she uses past tense in referring to the print era.

I’m all for letting the language evolve on the street and the internet, in everyday use. Why should we let scholars who are heavily invested in the past and staid tradition restrict the flexibility that has always been the hallmark, the inherent value, and the greatest charm of English?

What do you think?

The Flexibility of the English Language

Elizabeth Zelvin

Earlier this week, Poe’s Deadly Daughters celebrated the 199th birthday of the father of the detective story and the first anniversary of the blog itself. We particularly encouraged regular readers to post comments, and to our great pleasure, they complied. One topic that sprang up in the ensuing conversation was the use of verb forms of ordinary nouns, newly coined nouns, and brand names. Several people, both Daughters and our readers, expressed their distaste for such locutions as “to party,” “to blog,” “to Swiffer,” “to Netflix,” and “to Fandango.” I would assume they feel the same about “to google.” And there must be some folks out there, those who still say, “It is I,” perhaps, who have not relinquished their objection to “to contact.” I’m pretty sure that Nero Wolfe had something caustic to say about that one fifty years ago. What a tribute to the memorability of a mystery-fictional voice! But that’s perhaps a topic for another day.

To return to the issue of coining verbs: I dissent. Brand names are a separate issue: if you say that we “Fandango,” as my husband and I did last Saturday night when we selected a movie online and printed up our ticket from the computer before leaving home, you are merely demonstrating the success of a rather clever and charming advertising campaign. But when I blog or google, I am taking advantage of the great glory of the English language: its flexibility.

The French language is regulated by the Académie Française, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635. Its first dictionary was published in 1694 and the most recent complete edition in 1935. (Yes, I googled it.) Instead of making this dictionary available to the public, the French make laws about complying with its dicta. Not surprisingly, these laws are increasingly unenforceable in a world that is changing so rapidly in our times that new vocabulary is constantly needed. Even back in the 1960s, when I spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in French-speaking West Africa, I remember being exasperated by French people’s invariable response to creative attempts to make an adjective out of a verb, a verb out of a noun, or a non-sexist replacement for a noun that applied to both genders (dentiste or poète, for example) carrying a male article. Ça n’existe pas! they would insist.

Well, if French wouldn’t do it, English would. As a result, English has replaced French as the global lingua franca, to the great chagrin of the French. The greatest task of the Académie Française these days is trying to stem the tide of Anglicisms in today’s French: le weekend, le businessman, l’email. In 2003, they chose the Québécois word le courriel as the official term for email. According to Laura K. Lawless, About.com’s expert on the French language, the French Ministry of Culture formally “banned the word e-mail in any government-related documents.” I haven’t seen any French governmental communiqués, but I keep in touch with French-speaking friends all over the world (including Quebec) by email, and I have yet to encounter the word le courriel.

It’s not merely about language, in my opinion, but about creativity and individual freedom. Any writer abhors censorship. Grammar and punctuation are a different matter. I still believe they clarify meaning, as amply demonstrated in Lynn Truss’s delightful Eats, Shoots & Leaves. But words themselves belong to us. So I not only will continue to blog and to google, but if I perceive an unmet need, I claim the right to coin a term of my own. Most recent example? The bane of my existence, cellphonistas, those narcissists who quack and gabble, mobile phone glued to ear, in crowded buses and on endless lines at the post office. So when the term "cellphonista" passes into general usage, remember you heard it here first.