Recently my husband's coworker cleaned out his attic in preparation for his family's move. Among the accumulated detritus, he found a quirky little handbook that he passed along to me. A 1909 printing, the handbook was not the least familiar to me. But I got a chuckle out of it as none other than a bonafide word-nerd could.
Spelling Simpified (which also bears the unfortunate and cumbersome subtitle, "A Work Containing a List of Words in Common Use, spelled phonetically with diacritical marks and definitions") presents fifty lessons of fifty words each. There is no common thread to any of the lessons or word lists, except that they are all deemed by the author everyday words that can be tricky to spell.
As I perused the very first lesson, I was instantly reminded how constantly our language changes. Included among 1909's common words are
The second lesson brings two more etymological jewels:
Tricky spellings? No argument on any of them. But everyday words? How things have changed! When was the last time you used any of these words? But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. One hundred years is hardly a rapid change for our chameleon tongue. Only a decade of changing use can wreak alterations we could never have predicted: how many of us, in 1998, could have anticipated that a term like "online social networking" would exist, let alone be so common today?
Some of the entries in the lessons seem to indicate the unnamed author was British. I do wonder whether the common/uncommon nature of the words is partly influenced not by era but by dialect. So I began researching the book's origins. Finding this information has proven a challenge. If I discover more, I'll let you know about it here in a follow-up article.
© 2008 by AnnaLisa Michalski