CHAPTER IVTHE QUESTION OFHONOR
“Well, honor is the subject of my story,” says Cassius to Brutus, in his effort to persuade his friend to join the conspiracy against the dictator. It was h-o-n-o-r however that he spoke of, not h-o-n-o-u-r. So the word appeared in the folio of 1623, in which the play ofJulius Cæsarwas published for the first time. Unfortunately, the spelling of Shakespeare has not escaped the tampering to which that of nearly all our authors has been subjected by unscrupulous modern editors and publishers. Take the following speech of Brutus, found shortly before the line already quoted, as it is printed in the original edition:
Set Honor in one eye and Death i’ th’ other,And I will looke on both indifferently;For let the Gods so speed mee, as I loueThe name of Honor, more then I feare death.
In defiance of the authority of Shakespeare, so far as it is represented by the folio of 1623,honorin the passages cited above appears in modern editions ashonour. This spelling did not make its appearance in them until comparatively late. In the second folio of 1632 the word was stillhonor. So it remained in the third folio of 1663-64. It was not till the edition of 1685, the last and poorest of the folios, that the corrupt formhonourdisplaced in these passages the original formhonor. There it has since been generally, if not universally, retained.
It is fair to say that in this method of spelling the word the usage of Shakespeare was far from invariable. Either one of the two forms just given seems to have been used by him indifferently, just as they were by his contemporaries. In his writingshonor, either as a verb or noun, occurs very nearly seven hundred times. According to the sufficient authority of the New Historical English Dictionary, the spellinghonorin the folio of 1623 was “about twice as frequent ashonour.” This confirms my own impressions; but these were based merely upon the examination of only about a hundred passages of the seven hundred in which the word occurs. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s practice varied widely in the use of individual words of this class, as exemplified in the two poems he himself published.Humorappears in themtwice. In both instances it is without theu—once inVenus and Adonis,[27]once inThe Rape of Lucrece.[28]Such also is the spelling of the word the two times it is found in theSonnets,[29]but there this fact does not make certain the practice of the poet. On the other hand,labor, either as a noun or verb appears seven times in the two pieces just mentioned. Six times out of the seven it is spelledlabour.[30]Coloralso appears invariably ascolourin the ten times the word is found in these same poems.
The words with the terminationsororournumber now several hundred in our speech. Many of them go back to that early period when the French element was first introduced into English. Many others have been added at various periods since. In the case of those of earlier introduction both terminations are found. Still, it is the impression produced upon me by my comparatively little reading that there was at first a distinct preference for the endingour. This, if true, was due largely, if not mainly, to the fact that it reflected more accurately the then prevailing pronunciation. The accent fell uponthe end of the word. It was not, as now, thrown back upon the penult or antepenult, with the result of placing only the slightest of stress upon the final syllable. However this may be, many words were once often spelled with the terminationour, which have now replaced it by the terminationor. The ryme-index to Chaucer’s poetry shows that he uses about forty words with this ending at the close of a line. Some are obsolete, but most are still in current use. Among these latter so spelled areambassadour,confessour,emperour,governour,mirrour,senatour,servitour,successour, andtraitour. These in modern English have replaced the endingourbyor. Again other words with this same terminations which he employs have now substituted for iter. Such arereportour,revelour, andriotour. In truth, each one of the words belonging to the class has a history of its own. Buthonoris in most respects typical of them all. Accordingly, while there is no purpose to neglect the others, upon it the attention will be mainly fixed.
It was in the fourteenth century that the wholesale irruption of the French element into our vocabulary took place. But before the great invasion in which words came into the speech by battalions, single words had already entered,as if to prepare the way. One of these earlier adventurers was the term under consideration. It made its appearance in the language as early, at least, as the beginning of the thirteenth century. Unlike most of its class, its first syllable demands attention as well as its last. As a foreign word, it naturally exhibited at its original introduction the forms that belonged to it in the tongue from which it was derived. There was no prejudice in those days in favor of a fixed orthography. Each author did what was right in his own eyes; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, what was right to his own ears. In the Romance tongues the hostility to the aspirate, which has animated the hearts of so large a share of the race, had caused it to be dropped in pronunciation. As a result, writers being then phonetically inclined, discarded it from the spelling. Hence,honorpresented itself in our language without the initialh. Its first recorded appearance is in a work, the manuscript of which is ascribed to the neighborhood of 1200A.D.In that it was writtenonur, just ashoursometimes appeared asure. It hardly needs to be said that the vowel in these cases does not represent the now common sound we call “shortu.”
It is not always easy to discover the motiveswhich influence men in the choice of spellings. But it is no difficult matter to detect the reason for the change which here took place. Before the minds of the writers of this early period was always the Latin original. In that tongue the word began withh. Derivation is always dear to the hearts of the scholastically inclined. In those days it was only men of this class who did any writing at all. Hence, both in Old French and in Old English, it was not long before the letterhcame to be prefixed regularly to the word. It was not sounded. But it was soon adopted universally in the spelling, and, once established there, it never lost its hold. In the case of several other words which have had essentially the same history, the pronunciation of the aspirate has been resumed under the influence of the printed page. Buthonoris one of four which up to this time have held out unflinchingly against any such tendency.
So much for the initial letter. As regards the termination, the word made its appearance in several forms. Only three of them need be mentioned here, for they were the ones much the most common. These werehonor,honour,honur. The last was the first to go. It left the field to the other two forms, which have flourished side by side from that day to this.Were I to trust to the impressions produced by my own reading, I should say that from the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth the form inourwas much the more common. But, in the New Historical English Dictionary, Dr. Murray asserts distinctly that “honorandhonourcontinued to be equally frequent down to the seventeenth century.” One accordingly must defer to the authority of a generalization which is based upon a much fuller array of facts than it is in the power of an individual to get together.
By the time we reach the sixteenth century, and especially the Elizabethan age, it is pretty plain that something of the orthographic controversy which has been raging ever since had already begun to make itself heard. The little we know about it we learn from brief remarks in books, or chance allusions in plays. The discussion, such as it was, seems to have had little regard to orthoepy, but was based almost entirely upon considerations of etymology. It was in the sixteenth century more particularly that derivation began to work havoc with the spelling. Sometimes it simplified it; full as frequently, if not more frequently, it perverted what little phonetic character words had possessed originally or had been enabled to retain.For the classical influence was then at its height. Consequently, a disposition was apt to manifest itself to go back to the Latin form and insert letters which had been dropped from the spelling because they had been dropped from the pronunciation.
It seems inevitable that the etymological bias so prevalent in the sixteenth century should have exerted some influence, and perhaps a good deal of influence, in causing a preference to be given by many to the forms inor. Old French had been forgotten by the community generally, and met the eyes of lawyers only. Modern French had not then so much vogue as Italian. But Latin was familiar to every educated man. It was accordingly natural that the spelling of the words of the class under consideration should show a tendency to go back to the forms employed in that tongue. This inference may seem to be borne out by the few specific data which have been collected. In the case of Shakespeare the existence of a concordance to his writings enables us to furnish certain positive statements with comparative ease. Mention has been made of the fact that in the folio of 1623 the spellinghonoroccurs twice as often ashonour. Of course, in a work printed so long after his death, this is no positiveevidence as to the dramatist’s own usage. But whatever preference he felt, it seems right to infer, was indicated in the two poems published in his lifetime. Of these the proofs must have passed under his own eye. InThe Rape of Lucrece, which came out in 1594, the word occurs just twenty times: in seventeen instances it is spelledhonor; in three,honour. InVenus and Adonisit is found but twice. In both instanceshonoris the spelling employed.
A generalization, however, based upon isolated facts is always liable to be misleading. Whatever value attaches to those just given is due mainly to the eminence of the author. No statement of universal, or even of common usage can be safely based upon them.[31]The examination of other books would in all likelihood show divergence in many instances from the practice here indicated. Furthermore, we must not forget that English orthography is not due to scholars or men of letters, but to typesetters. The spellings found in any book of the Elizabethan period are as likely to bethose of the printing-house as of the author. This, in fact, is not unfrequently true of our own age. It is likewise clear that these same printing-houses exhibited a fine impartiality in the use of these terminations. Volume after volume can be taken up, on different pages of which we can findhonorandhonour,humor, andhumour,laborandlabour, and so on through the list. In truth, the book would be an exception where absolute uniformity prevailed.
An interesting example of this variableness of usage may be observed in the dozen lines in which Shakespeare dedicated, in 1593, his poem ofVenus and Adonisto the Earl of Southampton. The inscription is to the “Right Honorable Henrie Wriothesley”; the address itself begins with “Right Honourable.” Throughout these few lines the phrase “your honor” occurs just three times. Twice it is spelledhonor, oncehonour. Modern editions entirely ignore this variation of usage. In every instance they insert theuin the word, thus giving, as usual, to the modern reader an entirely false impression of Shakespeare’s practice.
In this matter the only incontrovertible fact to be found is that in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries bothhonorandhonourexist side by side. Which form occursmore frequently in the period could not be told without an exhaustive investigation of its whole literature. As a result of my own necessarily incomplete observation, I should say that from the middle of the seventeenth century there was a growing sentiment in favor of the endingourin the majority of dissyllabic words. This tendency became distinctly stronger after the Restoration. On the other hand, the disposition to use the form inorbecame increasingly prevalent in words of more than two syllables. To both these statements there are exceptions, perhaps numerous exceptions, especially in the case of the latter. Individual preferences, too counted for a great deal in an age when the idolatrous devotion to our present orthography had not begun to manifest itself. But the statements just given may be taken as a near approach to the truth, if not the precise truth itself.
Assuredly the tendency to use the forms inourincreased in the latter half of the seventeenth century. This was true in particular of dissyllabic words. In the years which followed the Restoration it seems to have become dominant. Such a conclusion is apparently supported by the dictionaries of the time. Let us go back for evidence to our title-word. The spellinghonouris the only one authorized in the dictionaries of Phillips, Kersey, Coles, Fenning, and Martin, which appeared during the latter part of the seventeenth century or the earlier part of the eighteenth. It has already been mentioned that before the publication of Doctor Johnson’s, the two leading authorities were Bailey’s and Dyche and Pardon’s. Of the two, the latter was probably the less widely used. Bailey gave to these now disputed words the ending inour. He did not even recognize the existence of that inor. On the other hand, Dyche, in the case of certain of them, authorized both forms. He put down, for example,honorandhonour,erroranderrour,humorandhumour. Furthermore, in each of these instances he gave the preference to the first. Of course, he was not thorough-going in his practice. He would have been unfaithful to the national spirit had he been consistent. Accordingly, in other words of this class, such asfavorandlabor, he recognized only the spelling inour.
But as in every period there are found those who cherish with peculiar affection whatever is anomalous or incongruous or irrational, and cling to it through good report and evil report, so there always spring up a pestilent crowd ofmen who have an abiding hostility to whatever displays these characteristics. The attention of certain restless beings of this sort began to be directed toward this very class of words. By the middle of the eighteenth century their influence was making itself felt. A perceptible disposition was manifested to do away with the irregularities that had come to prevail. It does not seem to have been based upon any phonetic grounds. It apparently owed little or nothing to the desire to conform to the Latin original. The aim seems simply to have been to simplify orthography by reducing all the words of this class to a uniform termination. At this time polysyllables belonging to it—the trisyllables being included under that term—had largely come to drop theu. So had a respectable number of dissyllables. Why not make the rule universal? Why add to the difficulty inherent in English orthography the further difficulty of an arbitrary distinction which serves no useful purpose? No particular reason seemed to exist whyauthoranderrorshould be spelled withoutu, andhonorandfavorandcolorwith it. So they argued. The movement for dropping the vowel made distinct headway; it actually accomplished a good deal, and might have accomplished everything had it notmet the powerful opposition of Doctor Johnson. In 1755 came out his dictionary. It did not drive out of circulation other works of the same kind, but it largely deprived them of authority with the educated. It practically gained the position of a court of final appeal.
Johnson knew very little about orthoepy and its relation to orthography; but on account of the deference paid to him, not only by his contemporaries, who knew nothing whatever about either, but also by later lexicographers, especially the two most prominent, Sheridan and Walker, his work is of very great importance for the influence it has had upon English spelling. Toward most of what he recommended a sort of religious respect was soon exhibited by many. This attitude may be said to have characterized for a long time the English people. He set himself against the processes of simplification that were going on. He laid down the dictum that the true orthography must always be regarded as dependent upon the derivation. It must, therefore, be determined by its immediate original. He did not conform to his own theory; he could not conform to it. But men accepted his assertions without paying any special heed to his practice. In consequence, his authority exerted a distinct influence toward retainingmany spellings which in his time were tending to go out of use.
Especially was this true of the words of the class under consideration. At the time Johnson was engaged in the preparation of his dictionary the forms inorhad come to be in a distinct majority. Usage was variable, it is true, depending as it did on individual likes or dislikes. But on the whole a preference was beginning to manifest itself for the terminationor, at least outside of certain words. Still, it would have been then possible to bring about uniformity by the adoption of either ending to the exclusion of the other. From the orthographical point of view of that period, no serious objection would have been offered by the large majority of men to that course of action. But such a proceeding would, in the eyes of many, have been attended with one fatal defect. It would have made the termination of all the words of this class uniform, and therefore easy to understand and to master. This would have brought the result into conflict with the cherished though unavowed ideal we hold, which is to make the spelling as difficult of acquisition as possible. In this feeling Johnson himself unconsciously shared. He had to the full that love of the illogical and anomalous and unreasonable,with the contributing fondness for half-measures, which is so characteristic of our race as contrasted with the French. This attitude was reflected in his treatment of this particular class of words. He compromised the controversy between the two endings in the case of about a hundred of the most common of them by impartially spelling about half withorand the other half withour.
Furthermore, in regard to the particular class of words under discussion, both Johnson’s theory and practice must be taken into consideration. Between these there was wide divergence, and oftentimes contradiction. In theory he set himself resolutely against the efforts of those who were seeking to bring about uniformity. He pointed out that “ouris frequently used in the last syllable of words which in Latin end inor, and are made English ashonour,labour,favour, forhonor,labor,favor.” He then set out to give the reasons for his own choice of the form he had adopted. “Some late innovators,” he wrote, “have ejected theu, not considering that the last syllable gives the sound neither ofonoru, but a sound between them, if not compounded of both.” The just observation contained in one part of this sentence is rendered nugatory by the unfounded assertion at the end and theextraordinary conclusion drawn. Johnson’s argument really amounts to this: Neitheronorurepresents the actual vowel sound heard in the last syllable. In each case there would be only an approach to it. Therefore, let us not think of employing either one of the vowels which represent the sound only imperfectly, but a vowel combination which does not represent it at all.
His cautiously guarded utterance shows that Johnson was vaguely conscious of the weakness of the position he had taken if not of its absurdity. Hence, he felt the need of furnishing it additional support. So he abandoned phonetics and resorted to derivation. He proceeded to suggest a reason which since his day has played the most important of parts in all the attempts which have been made to explain the cause of the retention ofourin the spelling of these words. “Besides that,” he continued, “they are probably derived from the French nouns ineur, ashoneur(sic),faveur.” Johnson had not that courage of his ignorance which distinguishes the assertions of later men who employ his argument. He spoke hesitatingly of the derivation as a probability. As it was erroneous, this course was wise. His followers, however, from that day to this, have invariably stated it as a fact. Herepeated, nevertheless, his general view in the grammar with which he prefaced the dictionary. “Some ingenious men,” he remarked, sarcastically, “have endeavored to deserve well of their country by writinghonorandlaborforhonourandlabour.”
Such was Johnson’s attitude in theory; his action was distinctly different. Like the rest of us, he was governed entirely by sentiment working independently of knowledge or reason. He preferred the spelling, as do we all, which he himself was wont to use. He judged it to be the proper spelling because he was familiar with it. The utter lack of any intelligent or even intelligible principle he was actuated by in his choice can be illustrated by two or three examples.Anteriorwas spelled by him with the endingour;posteriorwith the endingor. The termination ofinteriorwasour; that ofexteriorwasor. This is not the reign of law, but of lawlessness. The only explanation I have been able to devise of the motives, outside of association, which may have unconsciously led him to adopt the ending he did in any particular case, was a possible feeling on his part that when the word denoted the agent it should have the terminationor; butourwhen it denoted state or condition. This is not a satisfactoryreason for making a difference; but it has a glimmering of sense. Yet while in general this course is true of Johnson’s practice, it is, unfortunately, not universally true.Stuporandtorporappeared, for illustration, in his dictionary without theu; while on the other hand with it are foundambassadour,emperour,governour, andwarriour.
It is certain that Johnson himself, in the spellings he authorized, never conformed to the principle of derivation, which he held out to us as the all-sufficient guide. Several of the words which appear in his dictionary with the intruding vowel had come to us directly from the Latin. Accordingly, the form he gave them was in direct defiance of the principles which he had laid down. Of thesecandoris so striking an example that it is worth while to give some account of it in detail. The word came into our language in the fourteenth century, but as a pure Latin word. When used in the black-letter period, after the invention of printing, it appeared in Roman type, to indicate that it was still a foreigner, just as we now indicate a borrowed term by italics. In the early seventeenth century it had become naturalized. Accordingly, it was at first spelled like its original. About the middle of the seventeenthcenturyuwas occasionally inserted. This way of spelling it increased after the Restoration. Necessarily, such a usage not only defied but disguised the real original. For a long time the correct and incorrect forms flourished side by side. It was Johnson’s adoption of the endingourfor the word which fixed this erroneous spelling upon the English people. Men now tell you with all the intense earnestness of ignorance thatcandorshould be spelled with aubecause it came from a foreign word which has no direct connection with it whatever. Yet the very same men who insist upon retaining auinhonor, because, as they fancy, it was derived from the Frenchhonneur, cling just as tenaciously to the formcandour, and will cling to it after they have learned to know that it was derived directly from the Latincandor.
Not only, indeed, in his preaching, but in his personal practice, Johnson may be said to have been inconsistent in his inconsistency. Of this there is a most singular illustration. In the dictionary itselfauthorwas given as here spelled. Not even a hint was conveyed of the existence of another form. But in the preface to the dictionary this same word was employed by him just fourteen times. In every instance it was spelledauthour. Nor could this have been thefault of the type-setter. So far was it from exciting remonstrance or reprehension on his part that the form is not only found in the first edition of 1755, but also in the fourth edition of 1773, the last which appeared in his lifetime, and which underwent some slight revision at his hands. Had Johnson chanced to adopt in the body of the work the spelling of this word as it appeared in his preface to it, the form withuwould in all probability have continued to maintain itself. Men would be found at this day to insist that the very safety of the language depended upon its permanent retention. There would, indeed, be authors who would fail to recognize themselves as authors unless this unnecessaryuwas inserted into the word denoting their profession.
But though the weight of Johnson’s authority was impaired by his practice, there is no question that his words did more to prevent the universal adoption of the endingorthan any other single agency. For that purpose they were timely. There had then begun to be something of an effort to correct certain of the most striking errors and inconsistencies of English orthography. With this, Hume, for one, sympathized. That this assumed enemy of the faith should be favorably inclined to any movement ofthe sort, and to some extent should conform to it, was enough of itself to set Doctor Johnson against it. That author, in the first edition of his History, had followed what was then sometimes called the new method of spelling. As regards the particular class of words here under consideration, he used several such forms asardor,flavor,labor,vigor, andsplendor. But Hume had no vital interest in the matter. His reason told him what was proper and analogical; but he was little disposed to fight convention on this point. Therefore, he wavered at intervals between spellings which he recognized as sensible and those which had the approval of the printing-house and consequently that of the general public. “I had once an intention of changing the orthography in some particulars,” he wrote, in 1758, to Strahan, on the occasion of bringing out a new edition of his History, “but on reflection I find that this new method of spelling (which is certainly the best and most conformable to analogy) has been followed in the quarto volume of my philosophical writings lately published; and, therefore, I think it will be better for you to continue the spelling as it is.”[32]
In truth, the moment that Doctor Johnson had set the example of attacking the pestilent disturbers of orthographic peace, a host of imitators were sure to follow in his footsteps. One of these was the physician John Armstrong, who dabbled also, to some extent, in literature. Among other things, he produced one of those ponderous poems in which the eighteenth century abounded, and with which the extremely conscientious student of English literature feels himself under obligation to struggle. He also tried his hand at a volume of shortSketches and Essays, as they were called, which came out anonymously. Among them was one on theModern Art of Spelling. In it he attacked with vigor the so-called reformers who were employing the formshonor,favor,labor. Indeed, he apprised us—what otherwise we should hardly have known—that there were then misguided beings who threw out one of the vowels in the termination of words not belonging strictly to the class we are discussing, and wroteneighbor,behavior, andendeavur. Armstrong’s little work appeared in 1757; it might have been written yesterday. It displays the same misunderstanding and misconception of the whole subject which characterizes the men of our day, who have the advantageof being heirs to the accumulated ignorance of the past. In places, too, he was as amusing as they. Nothing, he told us, did so much to distinguish his own “as anunmanlyage”—the italics are his—“as this very aversion to the honest vowelu.”
Hume’s attitude of indifference is manifested in his comments on this volume. He evidently considered himself as one of the men aimed at in its animadversions upon the reformers. In June, 1758, he spoke about the work in a letter to his publisher, Andrew Millar. “I have read,” he wrote, “a small pamphlet calledSketches, which, from the style, I take to be Doctor Armstrong’s, though the public voice gives it to Allan Ramsay. I find the ingenious author, whoever he be, ridicules the new method of spelling, as he calls it; but that method of spellinghonor, instead ofhonour, was Lord Bolingbroke’s, Doctor Middleton’s, and Mr. Pope’s, besides many other eminent writers. However, to tell truth, I hate to be in any way particular in a trifle; and, therefore, if Mr. Strahan has not printed off above ten or twelve sheets, I should not be displeased if you told him to follow the usual—that is, his own—way of spelling throughout; we shall make the other volumes conformable to it: if he be advancedfarther, there is no great matter.”[33]This is by no means a solitary instance of the way in which authors have submitted their own convictions to the practices of printing-houses and thereby caused this creation of type-setters we call English orthography, to be an object of reverent worship to thousands, who contribute large sums to convert those bowing down to gods of wood and stone.
Great, however, as was Johnson’s authority, there was not paid to it at the time unquestioning assent. The glaring inconsistency between his principles and his practice made many indisposed to accept him as an infallible guide. Dissent came from two quarters. There were those who accepted fully his views as to the propriety of following the form of the assumed immediate original. These not unreasonably looked with disfavor upon his dereliction in the case of many words. Among the recalcitrants was his devoted disciple Boswell. In 1768 this author brought out the journal of his tour in Corsica. In the preface to it he expressed the feelings of many in his comments upon his master’s course in this matter. “It may be necessary,” hewrote, “to say something in defense of my orthography. Of late it has become the fashion to render our language more neat and trim by leaving outkafterc, anduin the last syllable of words which used to end inour. The illustrious Mr. Samuel Johnson, who has alone executed in England what was the task of whole academies in other countries, has been careful in his dictionary to preserve thekas a mark of the Saxon original. He has for the most part, too, been careful to preserve theu, but he has also omitted it in several words. I have retained thek, and have taken upon me to follow a general rule with regard to words ending inour. Wherever a word originally Latin has been transmitted to us through the medium of the French, I have written it with the characteristicu. An attention to this may appear trivial. But I own I am one of those who are curious in the formation of language in its various modes, and therefore wish that the affinity of English with other tongues may not be forgotten.”
Boswell resembled most of the ardent partisans of the endingourin the fact that his curiosity in the formation of language had never been rewarded by any intelligent knowledge of it. Thekwas, in his eyes, a mark of the Saxonoriginal. The only comment that it is necessary to make upon this assertion is that the letterkwas not in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet any more than it was in the Roman, from which the former was derived. Hence, as has been already pointed out, monosyllabic words likeback,sack,sick,thick, in the earliest form of our speech, ended withc; and if we were really so devoted to derivation as we pretend, we should have to discard thekfrom the end of monosyllables, just as we have from the end of polysyllables. Boswell, however, carried out his views to their logical conclusion. Johnson might exhibit the weakness of deferring in particular instances to general custom; not so his follower and admirer. So we find him running counter to his master’s teachings by using the spellingsauthour,doctour,rectour,taylour, and others among the dissyllables; and among the polysyllables there were the formsprofessour,spectatour,conspiratour,preceptour,innovatour,legislatour, and a large number that need not be given here.
It is evident from Boswell’s protest that the disposition to drop theuhad become so prevalent that there was danger of its prevailing. The aversion was increasing to the use of this very honest letter, as Armstrong had called it. Johnson’s authority retarded the progress of thistendency, but outside of a certain limited number of cases did not check it effectually. It was not long before the vowel was pretty regularly dropped in polysyllabic words. In them it has remained dropped ever since. Few, indeed, are the persons who can now be found writingambassadour,emperour,governour,oratour,possessour, and no small number of others which the great lexicographer insisted upon as the proper way. Even some of his dissyllabic words have gone over to the form inor, notably those which hadrrbefore the suffix, such aserror,horror, andterror.
No idea of the strength of the movement towards uniformity can be gathered from the dictionaries of the time. These, as a general rule, followed Johnson even when the rest of the world was going the other way. Both Sheridan and Walker stuck to the finalklong after nearly everybody else had given it up. The latter, indeed, deplored the custom of omitting it because it had introduced into the language the novelty of ending a word with an unusual letter. This, on the face of it, he said, was a blemish. Still less did the lexicographers represent the general attitude of the time towards the class of words here considered, especially the attitude of aristocratic society. The fortunes of two of these words, in particular, on account of the frequencyof their appearance on cards of invitation, reached at this period the highest social elevation. These werehonorandfavor. To spell them with aubecame and remained for a long while a distinctive mark of rusticity and ill-breeding—not, as now, an evidence of imperfect acquaintance with their history.
On this point we have plenty of unimpeachable testimony. The dictionary of Walker, the leading lexicographer of his own generation and of the generation following, came out towards the end of the eighteenth century. In it he gave utterance to his grief on this very subject. His remarks occur under the word of which, in defiance of general custom, he continued to authorize the formhonour. “This word,” he said, “and its companionfavour, the two servile attendants upon cards and notes of fashion, have so generally dropped theuthat to spell these words with that letter is looked upon asgaucheand rustick in the extreme. In vain did Dr. Johnson enter his protest against the innovation; in vain did he tell us that the sound of the word required the use ofu, as well as its derivation from the Latin through the French: the sentence seems to have been passed, and we now hardly even find these words with this vowel but in dictionaries.”
But Walker, though he followed, as in duty bound, his great leader, was subject to qualms of common sense. These, when they occur, always make sad work with orthographic prejudices. When he looked at the matter dispassionately he had to confess that Johnson’s arguments in behalf of the spellings which he had authorized did not impress him altogether favorably; in fact, he manifested a sneaking inclination for the forms withoutu. “Though,” he said, “I am a declared enemy to all needless innovation, I see no inconvenience in spelling these words in the fashionable manner: there is no reason for preserving theuinhonourandfavourthat does not hold good for the preservation of the same letter inerrour,authour, and a hundred others; and with respect to the pronunciation of these words withoutu, while we have so many words where theosoundsu, even when the accent is on it, ashoney,money, etc., we need not be in much pain for the sound ofu, in words of this termination, where the finalrbrings all the accented vowels to the same level; that is, the short sound ofu.”
The fashionable method of spelling these words prevailed for a long time. The behavior of high society in so doing stirred profoundly the deep-seated conservatism of the middleclass. The great founder of Methodism warned his followers against this vanity. “Avoid,” wrote Wesley, in 1791, “the fashionable impropriety of leaving out theuin many words, ashonor,vigor, etc. This is mere childish affectation.” Remarks of this sort availed nothing—at least, they did not affect the right persons. The aristocratic world cared little for the woes of lexicographers or the denunciations of religious leaders. As is its wont, it went on in its usual heartless way, paying no heed whatever to the remonstrances directed against its conduct in this matter.
The practice seems to have continued during the first third, at least, of the nineteenth century. As late as 1832 Archdeacon Hare denounced it in the Philological Museum. Hare was, in his way, a spelling-reformer, and drew upon himself much obloquy for the orthographical peculiarities he adopted. He furnished us himself with some specimens of the sort of objections which were raised to his efforts. As might be expected, they were made up of the same old combination of virulence and ignorance with which we are all familiar. In the eyes of one, change of spelling was a piece of impudent presumption. In the eyes of another, it was a piece of silly affectation. Or, again, it was amistaking of singularity for originality, a waste upon trifles of attention which ought to be reserved for matters of real importance. What surprises us now is that so much excitement should have been provoked by alterations so petty; for all of any importance that Hare proposed was spelling the participial endingedastwhen it had the sound oft. Thus, we find in his writingsreacht,vanquisht,pickt,supprest,rusht,publisht, and no small number of similar forms. These he defended, as it was easy to do, by the usage of Spenser and Milton and their contemporaries—even, indeed, from the practice of the comic dramatists who followed the Restoration period, such as Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. That petty changes of this nature should have been regarded by educated men as serious innovations shows how all-extensive had become with them the ignorance of the history of their own tongue.
Hare’s countrymen ought, indeed, to have been reassured by his other spellings that there was no danger of immediate ruin to the language by any innovations he might be supposed to favor. The truth is that he knew almost as little of the real principles governing orthography and talked of them nearly as much as did his friend and fellow-reformer, Walter SavageLandor. But however perverse were his vagaries in other matters, upon the class of words ending inororourhe was, unlike Landor, eminently sound. Indeed, he was more than sound. He reintroduced theuinto some words of this class where it had at one time often appeared but had then become generally discarded. He trotted out, as was in those days almost inevitable, the old bugaboo of derivation, as unconscious of its erroneousness, scholar as he was, as are now the most unscholarly who persist in obtruding it upon a generation which knows better. “If,” he wrote, “honour,favour, and other similar words had come to us directly from the Latin, it might be better to spell them without au; but since we got them through the French, so that they brought theuwith them when they landed on our shores, it will be well to leave such affectations ashonorandfavorto the great vulgar for their cards of invitation.”
The concluding sentence of this quotation shows conclusively that with people of high position—“the great vulgar,” as Hare calls them—fashion at the close of the first third of the last century still dictated the use of the spellingshonorandfavor. Herein Hare was opposed to his fellow-reformer Landor. “Wediffer,” says the latter, “on the spelling ofhonour,favour, etc. You would retain theu; I would eject it for the sake of consistency.”[34]If Landor can be trusted to have given a faithful picture of contemporary practice, this method of spelling must have continued for at least a score of years after the date already given. In 1846 came out the third edition of hisImaginary Conversations. To the dialogue on language which is represented as having taken place between Doctor Johnson and John Horne Tooke, he added then a number of passages. Among them was the following:
Tooke.Would there be any impropriety or inconvenience in writingendevoranddemeanor, as we writetenor, without theu?Johnson.Then you would imitate cards of invitation, where we findfavorandhonor.Tooke.We findancestorandauthorandeditorandinventorin the works of Dr. Johnson, who certainly bears no resemblance to a card of invitation. Why can we not place all these words on the same bench?
Tooke.Would there be any impropriety or inconvenience in writingendevoranddemeanor, as we writetenor, without theu?
Johnson.Then you would imitate cards of invitation, where we findfavorandhonor.
Tooke.We findancestorandauthorandeditorandinventorin the works of Dr. Johnson, who certainly bears no resemblance to a card of invitation. Why can we not place all these words on the same bench?
But fashion comes and goes, while the dictionaries are ever present. As a rule, lexicographers are a timid race of men. They have littledisposition to deviate from the paths marked out by their predecessors. Even the revision of Dyche’s work, which appeared toward the end of the eighteenth century, discarded his alternative use ofhonor, to which it had once given the first place, though at the time itself this usage had become fashionable. So far as I have observed, the only eighteenth-century lexicographer after Johnson who fell in with the current tendency was Ash, whose dictionary first appeared in 1775. He entered separately the two forms of these words, giving, for illustration,honor,color, andlaboras “the modern and correct spelling,” andhonour,colour, andlabouras “the old and usual spelling.” But his action availed little against the agreement of the others; for apparently, with this exception, the dictionaries stood their ground manfully. Their combined authority had necessarily a good deal of effect upon the general practice, especially with that numerous class of men who did not feel themselves familiar enough with the subject to act independently.
At a still later period international prejudice came in to strengthen the disposition in England to stand by the letteruin the comparatively few cases in which it had continued to survive. In America, Webster had thrown outthe vowel in all words of this class. In so doing he was followed, half apologetically, by Worcester. Their agreement had the effect of making the practice of dispensing with theualmost universal in this country. One singular result of it was that in time the termination inorinstead ofourcame to be considered an American innovation. To this very day the delusion prevails widely on both sides of the Atlantic that the form of a word which entered the language more than two centuries before America was discovered, which has been in more or less use in every century since its introduction, owed its existence to an American lexicographer. Naturally this was enough to condemn it in the eyes of any self-respecting Englishman. The belief just mentioned has been a very real though unacknowledged reason for retaining in that country the termination inour. Have we not been told again and again in countless English periodicals—quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies—that Britons will never, never tolerate any such hideous monstrosity as the American spelling,honor?
But whatever may have been the causes which brought about, or concurred to bring about, the reaction in this matter which took place in Great Britain, there is no question whatever asto the fact. The tendency, once prevalent and steadily increasing, to drop theufrom all the words of this class, as they had been dropped from most, was effectually arrested. Even the lexicographers who could see no sense in the maintenance of this inconsistency in the spelling accepted it while they deplored it. After the passing of Walker, Smart’s remodelling of his dictionary became, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the leading orthographic authority in use in England. The reviser recognized the absurdity of the disagreement which prevailed in the spelling of this class of words. Still, he saw no way of remedying it. In describing his method of dealing with them, he remarked that he might have followed Webster’s course, and adopted throughout the terminationor. This clearly struck him as sensible, but he as clearly felt that it would never do. “Such, however,” he wrote, “is not the practice of the day, though some years ago there was a great tendency towards it.” For in the meantime a peculiar regard for these exceptions to the general rule had sprung up among the orthographically uneducated, a class to which most educated men belong. These exceptions were not very numerous. They were all dissyllabic words; for the retention of theuinthe polysyllables was too much for even the Anglo-Saxon love of the anomalous. Still, for the comparatively few exceptions which had been saved from the general wreck which had overtaken theourforms, there had begun to display itself that peculiar enthusiastic zeal which always prevails when devotion defies reason. No one assuredly can maintain that the latter quality exists in an orthography which insists upon inserting auintohonorand withholding it fromhorror.
A few more than thirty words in common use have partially outlived the revolution that has brought the vast majority to the termination inor. They constitute, in consequence, a limited body of exceptions to the general rule. As in every case the spelling of the particular word must be learned by itself, they together contribute an additional perplexity to the existing perplexities of English orthography. In certain cases they are enabled to interpose a further obstacle in the path of the learner. When he comes to the derivatives of several of them which are spelled inourhe is called upon to master exceptions to the exceptions. In order to save the language from ruin, he is assured that he must be careful to insert auinclamor; but when it comes toclamorous, he must beequally careful to leave theuout. The same sort of statement can be made of several other words of this same class. We can pardonlaboriousfromlabour. But what excuse can be offered for writinghumourand thenhumorous,odourand thenodorous,rancourand thenrancorous,rigourand thenrigorous,valourand thenvalorous,vigourand thenvigorous? Yet this business of making a still more inextricable muddle out of the already muddled condition of English spelling is held up to us as something essential to the purity and perfection of English speech.
It is assumptions of this sort that are irritating. In an orthography where so much is lawless, there is no need of becoming excited over some particular one of its numerous vagaries. What is offensive in the spelling ofhonorashonouris not the termination itself, but the reasons paraded for its adoption. A man can cling to the form withubecause he has been taught so to spell it, because by constant association he has come to prefer it. To this there may be no objection. But there is distinct objection to his implying, and sometimes asserting, that in so spelling the word he is upholding the purity of the speech. This is to give to his perhaps excusable ignorance the quality of inexcusableimpudence. His fancied linguistic virtue is based upon fallacious assumptions which are themselves based upon facts that are false.
Even were the facts true, they would not justify what is inferred from them. The argument for insisting upon the endingour, drawn from derivation, might seem to have been fully disposed of in the account of the introduction of this word into English, and of the various forms which it then assumed. But, in spite of the poet, it is error, not truth, which crushed to earth rises again. Men, presumably of intelligence, continue still to repeat the assertion that the word should be spelledhonourbecause it came from the Frenchhonneur. The proclaimers of this view seem honestly to think that the lives of all of us would be irremediably saddened did not the presence of theuin this particular English word remind us of its assumed French original; though the absence of theuin no small number of words with the same termination, and having essentially the same history, does not seem to cause in any of us etymological depression of spirit. But even in this instance deference to derivation manifestly does not go far enough. If we are to writehonourbecause it came from the Frenchhonneur,what excuse can be offered for omitting thee? Even more, what excuse can be offered for omitting one of the twon’s? Assuredly there is no sacredness belonging to the vowel which does not attach also to the consonant. The happiness of the devotee of derivation would be still further enhanced by spelling the wordhonnour; in fact, in the sixteenth century this was occasionally done.
The real objection, however, to this particular argument for the spellinghonouris that it has not a particle of truth in it. It is based entirely upon complete ignorance of the facts. Neitherhonornorhonourwas derived fromhonneur. It is doubtful if that French form existed whenhonorcame into the English language. However that may be, such was not the form in Anglo-French from which the English word descended. In that it was sometimes spelledhonor. From it so spelled came our one modern form. In that again it was sometimes spelledhonour. From it so spelled came our other modern form. The English word had, therefore, a history independent of the French. Its development took place not on the same but on a parallel line. Under these circumstances there is something peculiarly ridiculous in the assertion so constantly made, that if theuwere dropped fromhonor, the history of the word would be lost.
There still remains to be noticed an objection—the utmost strength of the human imagination cannot well term it an argument—which has been raised against the spelling inorin such words as have succeeded to a certain extent in retaining theu. It is that a change of this sort is certain in some undefined way to ruin the nobler sentiments of the soul. It is conceded that theucontributes nothing to the pronunciation of the word, but it conduces to the edification and spiritual elevation of him who is particular to insert it. It is intimated by such as take this view that it is not those who belong to the cold, proud world who could share in this sentiment or rather sentimentality. Still less would it weigh with those mechanical utilitarians who think it enough to be guided in their spelling by sense and reason. To them no ray of the divine rapture has been imparted which transports the heart of him who finds his whole nature expand at the presence of auinhonorandfavorand chilled by its absence. Let no one fancy that this sort of objection is too ridiculous to be advanced seriously. There has not been a discussion of spelling reform in modern times in which it hasnot been brought forward. In the case of those who have taken part in the latest controversy, I have already expressed my unwillingness to employ that severest form of personal attack which consists in citing their own words. I shall accordingly confine myself here to some remarks of this sort which were made more than a quarter of a century ago. In 1873 a controversy was going on in England as to the proper way of spelling theor,ourclass of words. In the course of it a correspondent sent to the periodical entitledNotes and Queriesa communication which contained the following exalted sentiments:
“I think thathonourhas a more noble andfavoura more obliging look thanhonorandfavor.Honorseems to me to do just his duty and nothing more;favorto qualify his kind deed with an air of coldness.Odor, again, may be a fit term for a chemical distillation; but a whole May garden comes before me in the wordodour.”
The lover of the classics must always feel a sense of regret that Cicero and Virgil and Horace were denied by the spelling prevailing in their tongue the opportunity of enjoying this May garden, so cheaply secured for this sentimental Englishman by spellingodorwith au. It is alwaysunfortunate when the sense of largeness of soul can only be developed at the expense of intellect. Fanciful notions like the one just cited can never be dispelled by argument, as reason plays no part in bringing them into being. As to association alone they owe their creation, so to association alone will they owe their destruction.