Page:The American Language.djvu/277

Rh ings and in his substitution of s for c in words of the defense class. The Worcester Dictionary is the sole exponent of Eng- lish spelling in general circulation in the United States. It re- mains faithful to most of the -re endings, and to manoeuvre, gramme, plough, sceptic, woollen, axe and many other English forms. But even Worcester favors such characteristic Amer- ican spellings as behoove, brier, caliber, checkered, dryly, jail and wagon.

§5

Simplified Spelling—The current movement toward a general reform of English- American spelling is of American origin, and its chief supporters are Americans today. Its actual father was Webster, for it was the long controversy over his simplified spell- ings that brought the dons of the American Philological Asso- ciation to a serious investigation of the subject. In 1875 they appointed a committee to inquire into the possibility of reform, and in 1876 this committee reported favorably. During the same year there was an International Convention for the Amend- ment of English Orthography at Philadelphia, with several delegates from England present, and out of it grew the Spelling Reform Association. In 1878 a committee of American philol- ogists began preparing a list of proposed new spellings, and two years later the Philological Society of England joined in the work. In 1883 a joint manifesto was issued, recommending various general simplifications. In 1886 the American Phil- ological Association issued independently a list of recommenda- tions affecting about 3,500 words, and falling under ten head- ings. Practically all of the changes proposed had been put forward 80 years before by Webster, and some of them had entered into unquestioned American usage in the meantime, e. g., the deletion of the u from the -our words, the substitution of