42 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



like honor, thus making the spelling more in keeping with the Latin 

 derivation. We can at least lay claim to simplicity and consistency. 

 If we are provincial, we can not be charged with arbitrariness in onr 

 spelling. 



As for the writing of center, meter, meager and words of this kind, 

 the American method has as much history and logic in its favor as the 

 British spelling has. Analogy, too, if that may be cited as an argu- 

 ment, supports our spelling, for we all write perimeter, diameter, never 

 otherwise, whether we be American or English. The word center, ac- 

 cording to Lowell, who was no mean authority on matters pertaining to 

 our speech, 'is no Americanism; it entered the language in that shape 

 and kept it at least as late as Defoe.' "In the sixteenth and in the 

 first half of the seventeenth century," declares Professor Lounsbury, 

 in reference to the spelling of center and similar words, "while both 

 ways of writing these words existed side by side, the termination er is 

 far more common than re. The first complete edition of Shakespeare's 

 plays was published in 1624. In that work sepulcher occurs thirteen 

 times; it is spelled eleven times with er. Scepter occurs thirty-seven 

 times ; it is not once spelled with re, but always with er. Center occurs 

 twelve times, and in nine instances out of the twelve it ends in er." 

 John Bellows, in the preface to his excellent French-English and 

 English-French pocket dictionary, states that "the Act of Parliament 

 legalizing the use of the metric system in this country [England] gives 

 the words meter, liter, gram, etc., spelt on the American plan. " It is 

 evident, then, that our way of writing these words is quite as logical 

 and as much warranted by the history of our tongue as the British 

 spelling. 



The American orthography is clearly in advance of the British in 

 the word almanac. This word is not rightly entitled to the final Tc, 

 as the English spell it. This superfluous letter is a mere survival 

 from a former way of writing, no longer in vogue. It has been re- 

 jected in music, public, optic and similar words which are written alike 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. In Johnson's dictionary and also in 

 our King James's version of the Scriptures the old spelling generally 

 occurs. Indeed, Johnson appended the excrescent h to well-nigh all 

 words of this class. Strange to say, there is one word of this class 

 which preserves the Tc even in American English, and that is hammock. 

 This is but an exception which goes to prove that even American Eng- 

 lish with its revised orthography is still far from being phonetic. 



In regard to words ending in ize, usage in Great Britain has estab- 

 lished the writing ise, as in civilise. However, new formations even 

 there are usually made to terminate in ize, which is generally adopted 

 in America. Yet American spelling sometimes exhibits ise, after the 

 English fashion. The British writing is derived from the French, 

 whereas the American harks back to the original Greek suffix. The 



