English Spelling Reform - History - 20th Century Onward

20th Century Onward

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the United States in 1906. The SSB's original 30 members consisted of authors, professors and dictionary editors. Andrew Carnegie, a founding member, supported the SSB with yearly bequests of more than US$300,000. In April 1906 it published a list of 300 words, which included 157 spellings that were already in common use in American English. In August 1906 the SSB word list was adopted by Theodore Roosevelt, who ordered the Government Printing Office to start using them immediately. However, in December 1906 the U.S. Congress passed a resolution and the old spellings were reintroduced. Nevertheless, some of the spellings survived and are commonly used in American English today, such as anaemia/anæmia→anemia and mould→mold. Others such as mixed→mixt and scythe→sithe did not survive. In 1920, the SSB published its Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which set forth over 25 spelling reform rules. The handbook noted that every reformed spelling now in general use was originally the overt act of a lone writer, who was followed at first by a small minority. Thus, it encouraged people to "point the way" and "set the example" by using the reformed spellings whenever they can. However, with its main source of funds cut off, the SSB disbanded later that year.

In Britain, the cause of spelling reform was promoted from 1908 by the Simplified Spelling Society and attracted a number of prominent supporters. One of these was George Bernard Shaw (author of Pygmalion) and much of his considerable will was left to the cause. Among members of the society the conditions of his will gave rise to major disagreements which hindered the development of a single new system.

Between 1934 and 1975, the Chicago Tribune, then Chicago's biggest newspaper, used a number of reformed spellings. Over a two-month spell in 1934, it introduced 80 re-spelt words, including tho, thru, thoro, agast, burocrat, frate, harth, herse, iland, rime, staf and telegraf. A March 1934 editorial reported that two-thirds of readers preferred the reformed spellings. Another claimed that "prejudice and competition" was preventing dictionary makers from listing such spellings. Over the next 40 years, however, the newspaper gradually phased-out the re-spelt words. Until the 1950s, "Funk & Wagnalls" dictionaries listed many reformed spellings, including the SSB's 300, alongside the conventional spellings.

In 1949, a Labour MP, Dr Mont Follick, introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons, which failed at the second reading. However in 1953 he again had the opportunity and this time it passed the second reading by 65 votes to 53. Because of anticipated opposition from the House of Lords, the bill was withdrawn after assurances from the Minister of Education that research would be made into improving spelling education. This led in 1961 to James Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet, introduced into many British schools in an attempt to improve child literacy. Although it succeeded in its own terms, the advantages were lost when children transferred to conventional spelling and after several decades the experiment was discontinued.

In 1969 Harry Lindgren proposed Spelling Reform 1 (SR1), which calls for the short /ɛ/ sound (as in bet) to always be spelt with (for example friend→frend, head→hed). For a short time, this proposal was popular in Australia and was adopted by the Australian Government. In Geoffrey Sampson's book Writing Systems (1985) he wrote that SR1 "has been adopted widely by Australians. Many general interest paperbacks and the like are printed in SR1; under Gough Whitlam's Labor Government the Australian Ministry of Helth was officially so spelled (though, when Whitlam was replaced by a liberal administration, it reintroduced orthographic conservatism)".

A prominent spelling reformer in the 2000s is Masha Bell, who has published two books on the subject, written many published letters and articles, and appeared on radio and television.