Simplify! #socs

Stream of Consciousness Saturday 1 Minute
Image by 41330 from Pixabay

Colonel McCormick, who published the Chicago Tribune in the early 20th century, was a proponent of simplified spelling. He thought that it was silly to spell through when thru worked just as well. Likewise, spell thorough as thoro, although as altho, rough as ruf, judge as juj, debt as det, doubt as dout, and so on. I mean, if we’re not using all those letters, why have them in there?

It would certainly simplify matters if to, too, and two were all spelled the same, say as tu. We could spell its and it’s the same way and be done with it. Likewise, way and weigh could both be spelled way. Night, bright, light, fight , and flight could be nite, brite, lite, fite, and flite, or better nyt, bryt, lyt, fyt, and flyt. Screw all those silent letters!

Linda runs Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Now a word from Ballantine Gold ale. Brewed with brewer’s gold!

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

24 thoughts on “Simplify! #socs”

  1. I had no idea this man existed and asked why it’s spelt in these ways. Blame it on the historical English which is Germanic. It used to be that everything was pronounced but that disappeared over the ages. I’m still a stickler for the proper English and will eve spell Donought in this manner.

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    1. Isn’t it “doughnut”? English is a bit of a mutt: it has words from the Vikings, the Normans, the Saxons, the Romans (Latin) and Greeks (Greek), and words borrowed from Arabic, Russian, probably Sanskrit and Hindi, Swahili…

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  3. Absolutely spot on John a great post on the daftness of written English!
    The Colonel or is that Kernal, had a great idea but it never caught on over here! 💜

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    1. I think Speedwriting, which they used to advertise in magazines as an alternative to shorthand, was like that. I was never good at taking notes in class: I always wanted to write full sentences and spell everything correctly. I could be rather anal about spelling, punctuation, and grammar…

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  5. Our daughter Bridget’s married last name is Ingebrigtsen. What’s that “g” doing in there anyway?

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  9. I didn’t know any of this. My high school English teachers would NOT have approved of such spellings. Don’t suppose the Colonel would have cared, tho.

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    1. Some of the simplified spellings are a little off the wall, but some have made it into the language, such as “tho” (which you used in your comment), “thru,” “lite,” “nite” etc.

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