Chapter IX: Miscellanea, 301 (11)

/The Influence of Webster/--At the time of the first settlement of America the rules of English orthography were beautifully vague, and so we find the early documents full of spellings that would give an English lexicographer much pain today. Now and then a curious foreshadowing of later American usage is encountered. On July 4, 1631, for example, John Winthrop wrote in his journal that "the governour built a /bark/ at Mistick, which was launched this day." But during the eighteenth century, and especially after the publication of Johnson's dictionary, there was a general movement in England toward a more inflexible orthography, and many hard and fast rules, still surviving, were then laid down. It was Johnson himself who [Pg248] established the position of the /u/ in the /our/ words. Bailey, Dyche and the other lexicographers before him were divided and uncertain; Johnson declared for the /u/, and though his reasons were very shaky[4] and he often neglected his own precept, his authority was sufficient to set up a usage which still defies attack in England. Even in America this usage was not often brought into question until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. True enough, /honor/ appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson's original draft it is spelled /honour/. So early as 1768 Benjamin Franklin had published his "Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Remarks and Examples Concerning the Same, and an Enquiry Into its Uses" and induced a Philadelphia typefounder to cut type for it, but this scheme was too extravagant to be adopted anywhere, or to have any appreciable influence upon spelling.[5]

It was Noah Webster who finally achieved the divorce between English example and American practise. He struck the first blow in his "Grammatical Institute of the English Language," published at Hartford in 1783. Attached to this work was an appendix bearing the formidable title of "An Essay on the Necessity, Advantages and Practicability of Reforming the Mode of Spelling, and of Rendering the Orthography of Words Correspondent to the Pronunciation," and during the same year, at Boston, he set forth his ideas a second time in the first edition of his "American Spelling Book." The influence of this spelling book was immediate and profound. It took the place in the schools of Dilworth's "Aby-sel-pha," the favorite of the generation preceding, and maintained its authority for fully a century. Until Lyman Cobb entered the lists with his "New Spelling Book," in 1842, its innumerable editions scarcely had [Pg249] any rivalry, and even then it held its own. I have a New York edition, dated 1848, which contains an advertisement stating that the annual sale at that time was more than a million copies, and that more than 30,000,000 copies had been sold since 1783. In the late 40's the publishers, George F. Cooledge & Bro., devoted the whole capacity of the fastest steam press in the United States to the printing of it. This press turned out 525 copies an hour, or 5,250 a day. It was "constructed expressly for printing Webster's Elementary Spelling Book [the name had been changed in 1829] at an expense of $5,000." Down to 1889, 62,000,000 copies of the book had been sold.

The appearance of Webster's first dictionary, in 1806, greatly strengthened his influence. The best dictionary available to Americans before this was Johnson's in its various incarnations, but against Johnson's stood a good deal of animosity to its compiler, whose implacable hatred of all things American was well known to the citizens of the new republic. John Walker's dictionary, issued in London in 1791, was also in use, but not extensively. A home-made school dictionary, issued at New Haven in 1798 or 1799 by one Samuel Johnson, Jr.--apparently no relative of the great Sam--and a larger work published a year later by Johnson and the Rev. John Elliott, pastor in East Guilford, Conn., seem to have made no impression, despite the fact that the latter was commended by Simeon Baldwin, Chauncey Goodrich and other magnificoes of the time and place, and even by Webster himself. The field was thus open to the laborious and truculent Noah. He was already the acknowledged magister of lexicography in America, and there was an active public demand for a dictionary that should be wholly American. The appearance of his first duodecimo, according to Williams,[6] thereby took on something of the character of a national event. It was received, not critically, but patriotically, and its imperfections were swallowed as eagerly as its merits. Later on Webster had to meet formidable critics, at home as well as abroad, but for nearly a quarter of a century he reigned almost unchallenged. Edition after edition of his dictionary was published, [Pg250] each new one showing additions and improvements. Finally, in 1828, he printed his great "/American/ Dictionary of the English Language," in two large octavo volumes. It held the field for half a century, not only against Worcester and the other American lexicographers who followed him, but also against the best dictionaries produced in England. Until very lately, indeed, America remained ahead of England in practical dictionary making.

Webster had declared boldly for simpler spellings in his early spelling books; in his dictionary of 1806 he made an assault at all arms upon some of the dearest prejudices of English lexicographers. Grounding his wholesale reforms upon a saying by Franklin, that "those people spell best who do not know how to spell"--/i. e./, who spell phonetically and logically--he made an almost complete sweep of whole classes of silent letters--the /u/ in the /-our/ words, the final /e/ in /determine/ and /requisite/, the silent /a/ in /thread/, /feather/ and /steady/, the silent /b/ in /thumb/, the /s/ in /island/, the /o/ in /leopard/, and the redundant consonants in /traveler/, /wagon/, /jeweler/, etc. (English: /traveller/, /waggon/, /jeweller/). More, he lopped the final /k/ from /frolick/, /physick/ and their analogues. Yet more, he transposed the /e/ and the /r/ in all words ending in /re/, such as /theatre/, /lustre/, /centre/ and /calibre/. Yet more, he changed the /c/ in all words of the /defence/ class to /s/. Yet more, he changed /ph/ to /f/ in words of the /phantom/ class, /ou/ to /oo/ in words of the /group/ class, /ow/ to /ou/ in /crowd/, /porpoise/ to /porpess/, /acre/ to /aker/, /sew/ to /soe/, /woe/ to /wo/, /soot/ to /sut/, /gaol/ to /jail/, and /plough/ to /plow/. Finally, he antedated the simplified spellers by inventing a long list of boldly phonetic spellings, ranging from /tung/ for /tongue/ to /wimmen/ for /women/, and from /hainous/ for /heinous/ to /cag/ for /keg/.

A good many of these new spellings, of course, were not actually Webster's inventions. For example, the change from /-our/ to /-or/ in words of the /honor/ class was a mere echo of an earlier English usage, or, more accurately, of an earlier English uncertainty. In the first three folios of Shakespeare, 1623, 1632 and 1663-6, /honor/ and /honour/ were used indiscriminately and in almost equal proportions; English spelling was still fluid, and [Pg251] the /-our/-form was not consistently adopted until the fourth folio of 1685. Moreover, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is authority for the statement that the /-or/-form was "a fashionable impropriety" in England in 1791. But the great authority of Johnson stood against it, and Webster was surely not one to imitate fashionable improprieties. He deleted the /u/ for purely etymological reasons, going back to the Latin /honor/, /favor/ and /odor/ without taking account of the intermediate French /honneur/, /faveur/ and /odeur/. And where no etymological reasons presented themselves, he made his changes by analogy and for the sake of uniformity, or for euphony or simplicity, or because it pleased him, one guesses, to stir up the academic animals. Webster, in fact, delighted in controversy, and was anything but free from the national yearning to make a sensation.

A great many of his innovations, of course, failed to take root, and in the course of time he abandoned some of them himself. In his early "Essay on the Necessity, Advantage and Practicability of Reforming the Mode of Spelling" he advocated reforms which were already discarded by the time he published the first edition of his dictionary. Among them were the dropping of the silent letter in such words as /head/, /give/, /built/ and /realm/, making them /hed/, /giv/, /bilt/ and /relm/; the substitution of doubled vowels for decayed diphthongs in such words as /mean/, /zeal/ and /near/, making them /meen/, /zeel/ and /neer/; and the substitution of /sh/ for /ch/ in such French loan-words as /machine/ and /chevalier/, making them /masheen/ and /shevaleer/. He also declared for /stile/ in place of /style/, and for many other such changes, and then quietly abandoned them. The successive editions of his dictionary show still further concessions. /Croud/, /fether/, /groop/, /gillotin/, /iland/, /insted/, /leperd/, /soe/, /sut/, /steddy/, /thret/, /thred/, /thum/ and /wimmen/ appear only in the 1806 edition. In 1828 he went back to /crowd/, /feather/, /group/, /island/, /instead/, /leopard/, /sew/, /soot/, /steady/, /thread/, /threat/, /thumb/ and /women/, and changed /gillotin/ to /guillotin/. In addition, he restored the final /e/ in /determine/, /discipline/, /requisite/, /imagine/, etc. In 1838, revising his dictionary, he abandoned a good many spellings that had appeared in either the 1806 or the 1828 edition, notably /maiz/ for /maize/, [Pg252] /suveran/ for /sovereign/ and /guillotin/ for /guillotine/. But he stuck manfully to a number that were quite as revolutionary--for example, /aker/ for /acre/, /cag/ for /keg/, /grotesk/ for /grotesque/, /hainous/ for /heinous/, /porpess/ for /porpoise/ and /tung/ for /tongue/--and they did not begin to disappear until the edition of 1854, issued by other hands and eleven years after his death. Three of his favorites, /chimist/ for /chemist/, /neger/ for /negro/ and /zeber/ for /zebra/, are incidentally interesting as showing changes in American pronunciation. He abandoned /zeber/ in 1828, but remained faithful to /chimist/ and /neger/ to the last.

But though he was thus forced to give occasional ground, and in more than one case held out in vain, Webster lived to see the majority of his reforms adopted by his countrymen. He left the ending in /-or/ triumphant over the ending in /-our/, he shook the security of the ending in /-re/, he rid American spelling of a great many doubled consonants, he established the /s/ in words of the /defense/ group, and he gave currency to many characteristic American spellings, notably /jail/, /wagon/, /plow/, /mold/ and /ax/. These spellings still survive, and are practically universal in the United States today; their use constitutes one of the most obvious differences between written English and written American. Moreover, they have founded a general tendency, the effects of which reach far beyond the field actually traversed by Webster himself. New words, and particularly loan-words, are simplified, and hence naturalized in American much more quickly than in English. /Employé/ has long since become /employee/ in our newspapers, and /asphalte/ has lost its final /e/, and /manoeuvre/ has become /maneuver/, and /pyjamas/ has become /pajamas/. Even the terminology of science is simplified and Americanized. In medicine, for example, the highest American usage countenances many forms which would seem barbarisms to an English medical man if he encountered them in the /Lancet/. In derivatives of the Greek /haima/ it is the almost invariable American custom to spell the root syllable /hem/, but the more conservative English make it /haem/--/e. g./, in /haemorrhage/ and /haemiplegia/. In an exhaustive list of diseases issued by the United States Public Health [Pg253] Service[7] the /haem/-form does not appear once. In the same way American usage prefers /esophagus/, /diarrhea/ and /gonorrhea/ to the English /oesophagus/, /diarrhoea/ and /gonorrhoea/. In the style-book of the /Journal/ of the American Medical Association[8] I find many other spellings that would shock an English medical author, among them /curet/ for /curette/, /cocain/ for /cocaine/, /gage/ for /gauge/, /intern/ for /interne/, /lacrimal/ for /lachrymal/, and a whole group of words ending in /-er/ instead of in /-re/.

Webster's reforms, it goes without saying, have not passed unchallenged by the guardians of tradition. A glance at the literature of the first years of the nineteenth century shows that most of the serious authors of the time ignored his new spellings, though they were quickly adopted by the newspapers. Bancroft's "Life of Washington" contains /-our/ endings in all such words as /honor/, /ardor/ and /favor/. Washington Irving also threw his influence against the /-or/ ending, and so did Bryant and most of the other literary big-wigs of that day. After the appearance of "An American Dictionary of the English Language," in 1828, a formal battle was joined, with Lyman Cobb and Joseph E. Worcester as the chief opponents of the reformer. Cobb and Worcester, in the end, accepted the /-or/ ending and so surrendered on the main issue, but various other champions arose to carry on the war. Edward S. Gould, in a once famous essay,[9] denounced the whole Websterian orthography with the utmost fury, and Bryant, reprinting this philippic in the /Evening Post/, said that on account of Webster "the English language has been undergoing a process of corruption for the last quarter of a century," and offered to contribute to a fund to have Gould's denunciation "read twice a year in every school-house in the United States, until every trace of Websterian spelling disappears from the land." But Bryant was forced to admit that, even in 1856, the chief novelties of the Connecticut school-master "who taught millions to read but not one to sin" were [Pg254] "adopted and propagated by the largest publishing house, through the columns of the most widely circulated monthly magazine, and through one of the ablest and most widely circulated newspapers in the United States"--which is to say, the /Tribune/ under Greeley. The last academic attack was delivered by Bishop Coxe in 1886, and he contented himself with the resigned statement that "Webster has corrupted our spelling sadly." Lounsbury, with his active interest in spelling reform, ranged himself on the side of Webster, and effectively disposed of the controversy by showing that the great majority of his spellings were supported by precedents quite as respectable as those behind the fashionable English spellings. In Lounsbury's opinion, a good deal of the opposition to them was no more than a symptom of antipathy to all things American among certain Englishmen and of subservience to all things English among certain Americans.[10]

Webster's inconsistency gave his opponents a formidable weapon for use against him--until it began to be noticed that the orthodox English spelling was quite as inconsistent. He sought to change /acre/ to /aker/, but left /lucre/ unchanged. He removed the final /f/ from /bailiff/, /mastiff/, /plaintiff/ and /pontiff/, but left it in /distaff/. He changed /c/ to /s/ in words of the /offense/ class, but left the /c/ in /fence/. He changed the /ck/ in /frolick/, /physick/, etc., into a simple /c/, but restored it in such derivatives as /frolicksome/. He deleted the silent /u/ in /mould/, but left it in /court/. These slips were made the most of by Cobb in a pamphlet printed in 1831.[11] He also detected Webster in the frequent /faux pas/ of using spellings in his definitions and explanations that conflicted with the spellings he advocated. Various other purists joined in the attack, and it was renewed with great fury after the appearance of Worcester's dictionary, in 1846. Worcester, who had begun his lexicographical labors by editing Johnson's dictionary, was a good deal more conservative than Webster, and so the partisans of conformity rallied around him, and for [Pg255] a while the controversy took on all the rancor of a personal quarrel. Even the editions of Webster printed after his death, though they gave way on many points, were violently arraigned. Gould, in 1867, belabored the editions of 1854 and 1866,[12] and complained that "for the past twenty-five years the Websterian replies have uniformly been bitter in tone, and very free in the imputation of personal motives, or interested or improper motives, on the part of opposing critics." At this time Webster himself had been dead for twenty-two years. Schele de Vere, during the same year, denounced the publishers of the Webster dictionaries for applying "immense capital and a large stock of energy and perseverance" to the propagation of his "new and arbitrarily imposed orthography."[13]

§ 4

/Exchanges/--As in vocabulary and in idiom, there are constant exchanges between English and American in the department of orthography. Here the influence of English usage is almost uniformly toward conservatism, and that of American usage is as steadily in the other direction. The logical superiority of American spelling is well exhibited by its persistent advance in the face of the utmost hostility. The English objection to our simplifications, as Brander Matthews points out, is not wholly or even chiefly etymological; its roots lie, to borrow James Russell Lowell's phrase, in an esthetic hatred burning "with as fierce a flame as ever did theological hatred." There is something inordinately offensive to English purists in the very thought of taking lessons from this side of the water, particularly in the mother tongue. The opposition, transcending the academic, takes on the character of the patriotic. "Any American," continues Matthews, "who chances to note the force and the fervor and the frequency of the objurgations against American spelling in the columns of the /Saturday Review/, for example, and of the /Athenaeum/, may find himself wondering as to the date of the [Pg256] papal bull which declared the infallibility of contemporary British orthography, and as to the place where the council of the Church was held at which it was made an article of faith."[14] This was written more than a quarter of a century ago. Since then there has been a lessening of violence, but the opposition still continues. No self-respecting English author would yield up the /-our/ ending for an instant, or write /check/ for /cheque/, or transpose the last letters in the /-re/ words.

Nevertheless, American spelling makes constant gains across the water, and they more than offset the occasional fashions for English spellings on this side. Schele de Vere, in 1867, consoled himself for Webster's "arbitrarily imposed orthography" by predicting that it could be "only temporary"--that, in the long run, "North America depends exclusively on the mother-country for its models of literature." But the event has blasted this prophecy and confidence, for the English, despite their furious reluctance, have succumbed to Webster more than once. The New English Dictionary, a monumental work, shows many silent concessions, and quite as many open yieldings--for example, in the case of /ax/, which is admitted to be "better than /axe/ on every ground." Moreover, English usage tends to march ahead of it, outstripping the liberalism of its editor, Sir James A. H. Murray. In 1914, for example, Sir James was still protesting against dropping the first /e/ from /judgement/, a characteristic Americanism, but during the same year the Fowlers, in their Concise Oxford Dictionary, put /judgment/ ahead of /judgement/; and two years earlier the Authors' and Printers' Dictionary, edited by Horace Hart,[15] had dropped /judgement/ altogether. Hart is Controller of the Oxford University Press, and the Authors' and Printers' Dictionary is an authority accepted by nearly all of the great English book publishers and newspapers. Its last edition shows a great many American spellings. For example, it recommends the use of /jail/ and /jailer/ in place [Pg257] of the English /gaol/ and /gaoler/, says that /ax/ is better than /axe/, drops the final /e/ from /asphalte/ and /forme/, changes the /y/ to /i/ in /cyder/, /cypher/ and /syren/ and advocates the same change in /tyre/, drops the redundant /t/ from /nett/, changes /burthen/ to /burden/, spells /wagon/ with one /g/, prefers /fuse/ to /fuze/, and takes the /e/ out of /storey/. "Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford," also edited by Hart (with the advice of Sir James Murray and Dr. Henry Bradley), is another very influential English authority.[16] It gives its imprimatur to /bark/ (a ship), /cipher/, /siren/, /jail/, /story/, /tire/ and /wagon/, and even advocates /kilogram/ and /omelet/. Finally, there is Cassell's English Dictionary.[17] It clings to the /-our/ and /-re/ endings and to /annexe/, /waggon/ and /cheque/, but it prefers /jail/ to /gaol/, /net/ to /nett/, /asphalt/ to /asphalte/ and /story/ to /storey/, and comes out flatly for /judgment/, /fuse/ and /siren/.

Current English spelling, like our own, shows a number of uncertainties and inconsistencies, and some of them are undoubtedly the result of American influences that have not yet become fully effective. The lack of harmony in the /-our/ words, leading to such discrepancies as /honorary/ and /honourable/, I have already mentioned. The British Board of Trade, in attempting to fix the spelling of various scientific terms, has often come to grief. Thus it detaches the final /-me/ from /gramme/ in such compounds as /kilogram/ and /milligram/, but insists upon /gramme/ when the word stands alone. In American usage /gram/ is now common, and scarcely challenged. All the English authorities that I have consulted prefer /metre/ and /calibre/ to the American /meter/ and /caliber/.[18] They also support the /ae/ in such words as /aetiology/, /aesthetics/, /mediaeval/ and /anaemia/, and the /oe/ in /oesophagus/, [Pg258] /manoeuvre/ and /diarrhoea/. They also cling to such forms as /mollusc/, /kerb/, /pyjamas/ and /ostler/, and to the use of /x/ instead of /ct/ in /connexion/ and /inflexion/. The Authors' and Printers' Dictionary admits the American /curb/, but says that the English /kerb/ is more common. It gives /barque/, /plough/ and /fount/, but grants that /bark/, /plow/ and /font/ are good in America. As between /inquiry/ and /enquiry/, it prefers the American /inquiry/ to the English /enquiry/, but it rejects the American /inclose/ and /indorse/ in favor of the English /enclose/ and /endorse/.[19] Here American spelling has driven in a salient, but has yet to take the whole position. A number of spellings, nearly all American, are trembling on the brink of acceptance in both countries. Among them is /rime/ (for /rhyme/). This spelling was correct in England until about 1530, but its recent revival was of American origin. It is accepted by the Oxford Dictionary and by the editors of the Cambridge History of English Literature, but it seldom appears in an English journal. The same may be said of /grewsome/. It has got a footing in both countries, but the weight of English opinion is still against it. /Develop/ (instead of /develope/) has gone further in both countries. So has /engulf/, for /engulph/. So has /gipsy/ for /gypsy/.

American imitation of English orthography has two impulses behind it. First, there is the colonial spirit, the desire to pass as English--in brief, mere affectation. Secondly, there is the wish among printers, chiefly of books and periodicals, to reach a compromise spelling acceptable in both countries, thus avoiding expensive revisions in case of republication in England.[20] [Pg259] The first influence need not detain us. It is chiefly visible among folk of fashionable pretensions, and is not widespread. At Bar Harbor, in Maine, some of the summer residents are at great pains to put /harbour/ instead of /harbor/ on their stationery, but the local postmaster still continues to stamp all mail /Bar Harbor/, the legal name of the place. In the same way American haberdashers sometimes advertise /pyjamas/ instead of /pajamas/, just as they advertise /braces/ instead of /suspenders/ and /vests/ instead of /undershirts/. But this benign folly does not go very far. Beyond occasionally clinging to the /-re/ ending in words of the /theatre/ group, all American newspapers and magazines employ the native orthography, and it would be quite as startling to encounter /honour/ or /jewellery/ in one of them as it would be to encounter /gaol/ or /waggon/. Even the most fashionable jewelers in Fifth avenue still deal in /jewelry/, not in /jewellery/.

The second influence is of more effect and importance. In the days before the copyright treaty between England and the United States, one of the standing arguments against it among the English was based upon the fear that it would flood England with books set up in America, and so work a corruption of English spelling.[21] This fear, as we have seen, had a certain plausibility; there is not the slightest doubt that American books and American magazines have done valiant missionary service for American orthography. But English conservatism still holds out stoutly enough to force American printers to certain compromises. When a book is designed for circulation in both countries it is common for the publisher to instruct the printer to employ "English spelling." This English spelling, at the Riverside Press,[22] embraces all the /-our/ endings and the following further forms:

cheque chequered connexion dreamt faggot forgather forgo grey inflexion jewellery leapt premises (in logic) waggon

It will be noted that /gaol/, /tyre/, /storey/, /kerb/, /asphalte/, /annexe/, /ostler/, /mollusc/ and /pyjamas/ are not listed, nor are the words ending in /-re/. These and their like constitute the English contribution to the compromise. Two other great American book presses, that of the Macmillan Company[23] and that of the J. S. Cushing Company,[24] add /gaol/ and /storey/ to the list, and also /behove/, /briar/, /drily/, /enquire/, /gaiety/, /gipsy/, /instal/, /judgement/, /lacquey/, /moustache/, /nought/, /pigmy/, /postillion/, /reflexion/, /shily/, /slily/, /staunch/ and /verandah/. Here they go too far, for, as we have seen, the English themselves have begun to abandon /briar/, /enquire/ and /judgement/. Moreover, /lacquey/ is going out over there, and /gipsy/ is not English, but American. The Riverside Press, even in books intended only for America, prefers certain English forms, among them, /anaemia/, /axe/, /mediaeval/, /mould/, /plough/, /programme/ and /quartette/, but in compensation it stands by such typical Americanisms as /caliber/, /calk/, /center/, /cozy/, /defense/, /foregather/, /gray/, /hemorrhage/, /luster/, /maneuver/, /mustache/, /theater/ and /woolen/. The Government Printing Office at Washington follows Webster's New International Dictionary,[25] which supports most of the innovations of Webster himself. This dictionary is the authority in perhaps a majority of American printing offices, with the Standard and the Century supporting it. The latter two also follow Webster, notably in his /-er/ [Pg261] endings and in his substitution of /s/ for /c/ in words of the /defense/ class. The Worcester Dictionary is the sole exponent of English spelling in general circulation in the United States. It remains 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 American 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 spellings that brought the dons of the American Philological Association 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 Amendment of English Orthography at Philadelphia, with several delegates from England present, and out of it grew the Spelling Reform Association.[26] In 1878 a committee of American philologists 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 Philological Association issued independently a list of recommendations affecting about 3,500 words, and falling under ten headings. 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 [Pg262] /er/ for /re/ at the end of words, the reduction of /traveller/ to /traveler/, and the substitution of /z/ for /s/ wherever phonetically demanded, as in /advertize/ and /cozy/.

The trouble with the others was that they were either too uncouth to be adopted without a struggle or likely to cause errors in pronunciation. To the first class belonged /tung/ for /tongue/, /ruf/ for /rough/, /batl/ for /battle/ and /abuv/ for /above/, and to the second such forms as /cach/ for /catch/ and /troble/ for /trouble/. The result was that the whole reform received a set-back: the public dismissed the industrious professors as a pack of dreamers. Twelve years later the National Education Association revived the movement with a proposal that a beginning be made with a very short list of reformed spellings, and nominated the following by way of experiment: /tho/, /altho/, /thru/, /thruout/, /thoro/, /thoroly/, /thorofare/, /program/, /prolog/, /catalog/, /pedagog/ and /decalog/. This scheme of gradual changes was sound in principle, and in a short time at least two of the recommended spellings, /program/ and /catalog/, were in general use. Then, in 1906, came the organization of the Simplified Spelling Board, with an endowment of $15,000 a year from Andrew Carnegie, and a formidable membership of pundits. The board at once issued a list of 300 revised spellings, new and old, and in August, 1906, President Roosevelt ordered their adoption by the Government Printing Office. But this unwise effort to hasten matters, combined with the buffoonery characteristically thrown about the matter by Roosevelt, served only to raise up enemies, and since then, though it has prudently gone back to more discreet endeavors and now lays main stress upon the original 12 words of the National Education Association, the Board has not made a great deal of progress.[27] From time to time it issues impressive lists of newspapers and periodicals that are using some, at least, of its revised spellings and of colleges that have made them optional, but an inspection of these lists shows that very few [Pg263] publications of any importance have been converted[28] and that most of the great universities still hesitate. It has, however, greatly reinforced the authority behind many of Webster's spellings, and it has done much to reform scientific orthography. Such forms as /gram/, /cocain/, /chlorid/, /anemia/ and /anilin/ are the products of its influence.

Despite the large admixture of failure in this success there is good reason to believe that at least two of the spellings on the National Education Association list, /tho/ and /thru/, are making not a little quiet progress. I read a great many manuscripts by American authors, and find in them an increasing use of both forms, with the occasional addition of /altho/, /thoro/ and /thoroly/. The spirit of American spelling is on their side. They promise to come in as /honor/, /bark/, /check/, /wagon/ and /story/ came in many years ago, as /tire/,[29] /esophagus/ and /theater/ came in later on, as /program/, /catalog/ and /cyclopedia/ came in only yesterday, and as /airplane/ (for /aëroplane/)[30] is coming in today. A constant tendency toward logic and simplicity is visible; if the spelling of English and American does not grow farther and farther apart it is only because American drags English along. There is incessant experimentalization. New forms appear, are tested, and then either gain general acceptance or disappear. One such, now struggling for recognition, is /alright/, a compound of /all/ and /right/, made by analogy with /already/ and /almost/. I find it in American manuscripts every day, and it not infrequently gets into print.[31] So far no dictionary supports it, but [Pg264] it has already migrated to England.[32] Meanwhile, one often encounters, in American advertising matter, such experimental forms as /burlesk/, /foto/, /fonograph/, /kandy/, /kar/, /holsum/, /kumfort/ and /Q-room/, not to mention /sulfur/. /Segar/ has been more or less in use for half a century, and at one time it threatened to displace /cigar/. At least one American professor of English predicts that such forms will eventually prevail. Even /fosfate/ and /fotograph/, he says, "are bound to be the spellings of the future."[33]

§ 6

/Minor Differences/--Various minor differences remain to be noticed. One is a divergence in orthography due to differences in pronunciation. /Specialty/, /aluminum/ and /alarm/ offer examples. In English they are /speciality/, /aluminium/ and /alarum/, though /alarm/ is also an alternative form. /Specialty/, in America, is always accented on the first syllable; /speciality/, in England, on the third. The result is two distinct words, though their meaning is identical. How /aluminium/, in America, lost its fourth syllable I have been unable to determine, but all American authorities now make it /aluminum/ and all English authorities stick to /aluminium/.

Another difference in usage is revealed in the spelling and pluralization of foreign words. Such words, when they appear in an English publication, even a newspaper, almost invariably bear the correct accents, but in the United States it is almost as invariably the rule to omit these accents, save in publications of considerable pretensions. This is notably the case with /café/, /crêpe/, /début/, /débutante/, /portière/, /levée/, /éclat/, /fête/, /régime/, /rôle/, /soirée/, /protégé/, /élite/, /mêlée/, /tête-à-tête/ and /répertoire/. It is rare to encounter any of them with its proper accents in an American newspaper; it is rare to encounter them unaccented in an English [Pg265] newspaper. This slaughter of the accents, it must be obvious, greatly aids the rapid naturalization of a newcomer. It loses much of its foreignness at once, and is thus easier to absorb. /Dépôt/ would have been a long time working its way into American had it remained /dépôt/, but immediately it became plain /depot/ it got in. The process is constantly going on. I often encounter /naïveté/ without its accents, and even /déshabille/, /hofbräu/, /señor/ and /résumé/. /Cañon/ was changed to /canyon/ years ago, and the cases of /exposé/, /divorcée/, /schmierkäse/, /employé/ and /matinée/ are familiar. At least one American dignitary of learning, Brander Matthews, has openly defended and even advocated this clipping of accents. In speaking of /naïf/ and /naïveté/, which he welcomes because "we have no exact equivalent for either word," he says: "But they will need to shed their accents and to adapt themselves somehow to the traditions of our orthography."[34] He goes on: "After we have decided that the foreign word we find knocking at the doors of English [he really means American, as the context shows] is likely to be useful, we must fit it for naturalization by insisting that it shall shed its accents, if it has any; that it shall change its spelling, if this is necessary; that it shall modify its pronunciation, if this is not easy for us to compass; and that it shall conform to all our speech-habits, especially in the formation of the plural."[35]

In this formation of the plural, as elsewhere, English regards the precedents and American makes new ones. All the English authorities that I have had access to advocate retaining the foreign plurals of most of the foreign words in daily use, /e. g./, /sanatoria/, /appendices/, /virtuosi/, /formulae/ and /libretti/. But American usage favors plurals of native cut, and the /Journal/ of the American Medical Association goes so far as to approve /curriculums/ and /septums/. /Banditti/, in place of /bandits/, would seem an affectation in America, and so would /soprani/ for /sopranos/ [Pg266] and /soli/ for /solos/.[36] The last two are common in England. Both English and American labor under the lack of native plurals for the two everyday titles, /Mister/ and /Missus/. In the written speech, and in the more exact forms of the spoken speech, the French plurals, /Messieurs/ and /Mesdames/, are used, but in the ordinary spoken speech, at least in America, they are avoided by circumlocution. When /Messieurs/ has to be spoken it is almost invariably pronounced /messers/, and in the same way /Mesdames/ becomes /mez-dames/, with the first syllable rhyming with /sez/ and the second, which bears the accent, with /games/. In place of /Mesdames/ a more natural form, /Madames/, seems to be gaining ground in America. Thus, I lately found /Dames du Sacré Coeur/ translated as /Madames of the Sacred Heart/ in a Catholic paper of wide circulation,[37] and the form is apparently used by American members of the community.

In capitalization the English are a good deal more conservative than we are. They invariably capitalize such terms as /Government/, /Prime Minister/ and /Society/, when used as proper nouns; they capitalize /Press/, /Pulpit/, /Bar/, etc., almost as often. In America a movement against this use of capitals appeared during the latter part of the eighteenth century. In Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence /nature/ and /creator/, and even /god/ are in lower case.[38] During the 20's and 30's of the succeeding century, probably as a result of French influence, the disdain of capitals went so far that the days of the week were often spelled with small initial letters, and even /Mr./ became /mr/. Curiously enough, the most striking exhibition of this tendency of late years is offered by an English work of the highest scholarship, the Cambridge History of English Literature. It uses the lower case for all titles, even /baron/ and /colonel/ before proper names, and also avoids capitals in such [Pg267] words as /presbyterian/, /catholic/ and /christian/, and in the second parts of such terms as Westminster /abbey/ and Atlantic /ocean/.

Finally, there are certain differences in punctuation. The English, as everyone knows, put a comma after the street number of a house, making it, for example, /34, St. James street/. They usually insert a comma instead of a period after the hour when giving the time in figures, /e. g./, /9,27/, and omit the /0/ when indicating less than 10 minutes, /e. g./, /8,7/ instead of /8.07/. They do not use the period as the mark of the decimal, but employ a dot at the level of the upper dot of a colon, as in /3·1416/. They cling to the hyphen in such words as /to-day/ and /to-night/; it begins to disappear in America. They use /an/ before /hotel/ and /historical/; Kipling has even used it before /hydraulic/;[39] American usage prefers /a/. But these small differences need not be pursued further.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Fowler & Fowler, in The King's English, p. 23, say that "when it was proposed to borrow from France what we [/i. e./, the English] now know as the /closure/, it seemed certain for some time that with the thing we should borrow the name, /clôture/; a press campaign resulted in /closure/." But in the /Congressional Record/ it is still /cloture/, though with the loss of the circumflex accent, and this form is generally retained by American newspapers.

[2] Richard P. Read: The American Language, /New York Sun/, March 7, 1918.

[3] /To shew/ has completely disappeared from American, but it still survives in English usage. /Cf./ The /Shewing/-Up of Blanco Posnet, by George Bernard Shaw. The word, of course, is pronounced /show/, not /shoe/. /Shrew/, a cognate word, still retains the early pronunciation of /shrow/ in English, but is now phonetic in American.

[4] /Cf./ Lounsbury; English Spelling and Spelling Reform; p. 209 /et seq./ Johnson even advocated /translatour/, /emperour/, /oratour/ and /horrour/. But, like most other lexicographers, he was often inconsistent, and the conflict between /interiour/ and /exterior/, and /anteriour/ and /posterior/, in his dictionary, laid him open to much mocking criticism.

[5] In a letter to Miss Stephenson, Sept. 20, 1768, he exhibited the use of his new alphabet. The letter is to be found in most editions of his writings.

[6] R. C. Williams: Our Dictionaries; New York, 1890, p. 30.

[7] Nomenclature of Diseases and Condition, prepared by direction of the Surgeon General; Washington, 1916.

[8] American Medical Association Style Book; Chicago, 1915.

[9] /Democratic Review/, March, 1856.

[10] /Vide/ English Spelling and Spelling Reform, p. 229.

[11] A Critical Review of the Orthography of Dr. Webster's Series of Books ...; New York, 1831.

[12] Good English; p. 137 /et seq./

[13] Studies in English; pp. 64-5.

[14] Americanisms and Briticisms; New York, 1892, p. 37.

[15] Authors' & Printers' Dictionary ... an attempt to codify the best typographical practices of the present day, by F. Howard Collins; 4th ed., revised by Horace Hart; London, 1912.

[16] Horace Hart: Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford: 23rd ed.; London, 1914. I am informed by Mr. Humphrey Davy, of the /London Times/, that, with one or two minor exceptions, the /Times/ observes the rules laid down in this book.

[17] Cassell's English Dictionary, ed. by John Williams, 37th thousand: London, 1908. This work is based upon the larger Encyclopaedic Dictionary, also edited by Williams.

[18] /Caliber/ is now the official spelling of the United States Army. /Cf./ Description and Rules for the Management of the U. S. Rifle, /Caliber/ .30 Model of 1903; Washington, 1915. But /calibre/ is still official in England as appears by the Field Service Pocket-Book used in the European war (London, 1914, p. viii.)

[19] Even worse inconsistencies are often encountered. Thus /enquiry/ appears on p. 3 of the Dardanelles Commission's First Report; London, 1917; but /inquiring/ is on p. 1.

[20] Mere stupid copying may perhaps be added. An example of it appears on a map printed with a pamphlet entitled Conquest and Kultur, compiled by two college professors and issued by the Creel press bureau (Washington, 1918). On this map, borrowed from an English periodical called /New Europe/ without correction, /annex/ is spelled /annexe/. In the same way English spellings often appear in paragraphs reprinted from the English newspapers. As compensation in the case of /annexe/ I find /annex/ on pages 11 and 23 of A Report on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War Behind the Firing Lines in France and Belgium; Miscellaneous No. 7 (1918). When used as a verb the English always spell the word /annex/. /Annexe/ is only the noun form.

[21] /Vide/ Matthews: Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 33-34.

[22] Handbook of Style in Use at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass.; Boston, 1913.

[23] Notes for the Guidance of Authors; New York, 1918.

[24] Preparation of Manuscript, Proof Reading, and Office Style at J. S. Cushing Company's; Norwood, Mass., n. d.

[25] Style Book, a Compilation of Rules Governing Executive, Congressional and Departmental Printing, Including the /Congressional Record/, ed. of Feb., 1917; Washington, 1917. A copy of this style book is in the proof-room of nearly every American daily newspaper and its rules are generally observed.

[26] Accounts of earlier proposals of reform in English spelling are to be found in Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. i, p. 330 /et seq./, and White's Everyday English, p. 152 /et seq./ The best general treatment of the subject is in Lounsbury's English Spelling and Spelling Reform; New York, 1909.

[27] Its second list was published on January 28, 1908, its third on January 25, 1909, and its fourth on March 24, 1913, and since then there have been several others. But most of its literature is devoted to the 12 words and to certain reformed spellings of Webster, already in general use.

[28] The /Literary Digest/ is perhaps the most important. Its usage is shown by the Funk & Wagnalls Company Style Card; New York, 1914.

[29] /Tyre/ was still in use in America in the 70's. It will be found on p. 150 of Mark Twain's Roughing It; Hartford, 1872.

[30] /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/ for March 26, 1918, p. 4374. It is curious to note that the French themselves are having difficulties with this and the cognate words. The final /e/ has been dropped from /biplan/, /monoplan/ and /hydroplan/, but they seem to be unable to dispense with it in /aéroplane/.

[31] For example, in Teepee Neighbors, by Grace Coolidge; Boston, 1917, p. 220; Duty and Other Irish Comedies, by Seumas O'Brien; New York, 1916, p. 52; Salt, by Charles G. Norris; New York, 1918, p. 135, and The Ideal Guest, by Wyndham Lewis, /Little Review/, May, 1918, p. 3. O'Brien is an Irishman and Lewis an Englishman, but the printer in each case was American. I find /allright/, as one word but with two /ll's/, in Diplomatic Correspondence With Belligerent Governments, etc., European War, No. 4; Washington, 1918, p. 214.

[32] /Vide/ How to Lengthen Our Ears, by Viscount Harberton; London, 1917, p. 28.

[33] Krapp: Modern English, p. 181.

[34] Why Not Speak Your Own Language? in /Delineator/, Nov., 1917, p. 12.

[35] I once noted an extreme form of this naturalization in a leading Southern newspaper, the /Baltimore Sun/. In an announcement of the death of an American artist it reported that he had studied at the /Bozart/ in Paris. In New York I have also encountered /chaufer/.

[36] Now and then, of course, a contrary tendency asserts itself. For example, the plural of /medium/, in the sense of advertising medium, is sometimes made /media/ by advertising men. /Vide/ the /Editor and Publisher/, May 11, 1918.

[37] /Irish World/, June 26, 1918.

[38] /Vide/ The Declaration of Independence, by Herbert Friedenwald, New York, 1904, p. 262 /et seq./

[39] Now and then the English flirt with the American usage. Hart says, for example, that "originally the cover of the large Oxford Dictionary had '/a/ historical.'" But "/an/ historical" now appears there.

[Pg268]

VIII

Proper Names in America

§ 1

/Surnames/--A glance at any American city directory is sufficient to show that, despite the continued political and cultural preponderance of the original English strain, the American people have quite ceased to be authentically English in race, or even authentically British. The blood in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth. They show their alien origin in their speech, in their domestic customs, in their habits of mind, and in their very names. Just as the Scotch and the Welsh have invaded England, elbowing out the actual English to make room for themselves, so the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians and the Jews of Eastern Europe, and in some areas, the French, the Slavs and the hybrid-Spaniards have elbowed out the descendants of the first colonists. It is not exaggerating, indeed, to say that wherever the old stock comes into direct and unrestrained conflict with one of these new stocks, it tends to succumb, or, at all events, to give up the battle. The Irish, in the big cities of the East, attained to a truly impressive political power long before the first native-born generation of them had grown up.[1] The Germans, following the limestone belt of the Alleghany foothills, pre-empted the best lands East of the mountains before the new [Pg269] republic was born.[2] And so, in our own time, we have seen the Swedes and Norwegians shouldering the native from the wheat lands of the Northwest, and the Italians driving the decadent New Englanders from their farms, and the Jews gobbling New York, and the Slavs getting a firm foothold in the mining regions, and the French Canadians penetrating New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Japanese and Portuguese menacing Hawaii, and the awakened negroes gradually ousting the whites from the farms of the South.[3] The birth-rate among all these foreign stocks is enormously greater than among the older stock, and though the death-rate is also high, the net increase remains relatively formidable. Even without the aid of immigration it is probable that they would continue to rise in numbers faster than the original English and so-called Scotch-Irish.[4]

Turn to the letter /z/ in the New York telephone directory and you will find a truly astonishing array of foreign names, some of them in process of anglicization, but many of them still arrestingly outlandish. The only Anglo-Saxon surname beginning with /z/ is /Zacharias/,[5] and even that was originally borrowed from the Greek. To this the Norman invasion seems to have added only /Zouchy/. But in Manhattan and the Bronx, even among the necessarily limited class of telephone subscribers, there are nearly 1500 persons whose names begin with the letter, and among them one finds fully 150 different surnames. The German /Zimmermann/, with either one /n/ or two, is naturally the most numerous single name, and following close upon it are its derivatives, /Zimmer/ and /Zimmern/. With them are many more German names: /Zahn/, /Zechendorf/, /Zeffert/, /Zeitler/, /Zeller/, /Zellner/, /Zeltmacher/, /Zepp/, /Ziegfeld/, /Zabel/, /Zucker/, /Zuckermann/, /Ziegler/, /Zillman/, /Zinser/ and so on. They are all represented heavily, but they indicate neither the earliest nor the most formidable accretion, for underlying them are many Dutch [Pg270] names, /e. g./, /Zeeman/ and /Zuurmond/, and over them are a large number of Slavic, Italian and Jewish names. Among the first I note /Zabludosky/, /Zabriskie/, /Zachczynski/, /Zapinkow/, /Zaretsky/, /Zechnowitz/, /Zenzalsky/ and /Zywachevsky/; among the second, /Zaccardi/, /Zaccarini/, /Zaccaro/, /Zapparano/, /Zanelli/, /Zicarelli/ and /Zucca/; among the third, /Zukor/, /Zipkin/ and /Ziskind/. There are, too, various Spanish names: /Zelaya/, /Zingaro/, etc. And Greek: /Zapeion/, /Zervakos/ and /Zouvelekis/. And Armenian: /Zaloom/, /Zaron/ and /Zatmajian/. And Hungarian: /Zadek/, /Zagor/ and /Zichy/. And Swedish: /Zetterholm/ and /Zetterlund/. And a number that defy placing: /Zrike/, /Zvan/, /Zwipf/, /Zula/, /Zur/ and /Zeve/.

Any other American telephone directory will show the same extraordinary multiplication of exotic patronymics. I choose, at random, that of Pittsburgh, and confine myself to the saloon-keepers and clergymen. Among the former I find a great many German names: /Artz/, /Bartels/, /Blum/, /Gaertner/, /Dittmer/, /Hahn/, /Pfeil/, /Schuman/, /Schlegel/, /von Hedemann/, /Weiss/ and so on. And Slavic names: /Blaszkiewicz/, /Bukosky/, /Puwalowski/, /Krzykolski/, /Tuladziecke/ and /Stratkiewicz/. And Greek and Italian names: /Markopoulos/, /Martinelli/, /Foglia/, /Gigliotti/ and /Karabinos/. And names beyond my determination: /Tyburski/, /Volongiatica/, /Herisko/ and /Hajduk/. Very few Anglo-Saxon names are on the list; the continental foreigner seems to be driving out the native, and even the Irishman, from the saloon business. Among the clerics, naturally enough, there are more men of English surname, but even here I find such strange names as /Auroroff/, /Ashinsky/, /Bourajanis/, /Duic/, /Cillo/, /Mazure/, /Przvblski/, /Pniak/, /Bazilevich/, /Smelsz/ and /Vrhunec/. But Pittsburgh and New York, it may be argued, are scarcely American; unrestricted immigration has swamped them; the newcomers crowd into the cities. Well, examine the roster of the national House of Representatives, which surely represents the whole country. On it I find /Bacharach/, /Dupré/, /Esch/, /Estopinal/, /Focht/, /Heintz/, /Kahn/, /Kiess/, /Kreider/, /La Guardia/, /Kraus/, /Lazaro/, /Lehbach/, /Romjue/, /Siegel/ and /Zihlman/, not to mention the insular delegates, /Kalanianole/, [Pg271] /de Veyra/, /Davila/ and /Yangko/, and enough Irishmen to organize a parliament at Dublin.

In the New York city directory the fourth most common name is now /Murphy/, an Irish name, and the fifth most common is /Meyer/, which is German and chiefly Jewish. The /Meyers/ are the /Smiths/ of Austria, and of most of Germany. They outnumber all other clans. After them come the /Schultzes/ and /Krauses/, just as the /Joneses/ and /Williamses/ follow the /Smiths/ in Great Britain. /Schultze/ and /Kraus/ do not seem to be very common names in New York, but /Schmidt/, /Muller/, /Schneider/ and /Klein/ appear among the fifty commonest.[6] /Cohen/ and /Levy/ rank eighth and ninth, and are both ahead of /Jones/, which is second in England, and /Williams/, which is third. /Taylor/, a highly typical British name, ranking fourth in England and Wales, is twenty-third in New York. Ahead of it, beside /Murphy/, /Meyer/, /Cohen/ and /Levy/, are /Schmidt/, /Ryan/, /O'Brien/, /Kelly/ and /Sullivan/. /Robinson/, which is twelfth in England, is thirty-ninth in New York; even /Schneider/ and /Muller/ are ahead of it. In Chicago /Olson/, /Schmidt/, /Meyer/, /Hansen/ and /Larsen/ are ahead of /Taylor/, and /Hoffman/ and /Becker/ are ahead of /Ward/; in Boston /Sullivan/ and /Murphy/ are ahead of any English name save /Smith/; in Philadelphia /Myers/ is just below /Robinson/. Nor, as I have said, is this large proliferation of foreign surnames confined to the large cities. There are whole regions in the Southwest in which /López/ and /Gonzales/ are far commoner names than /Smith/, /Brown/ or /Jones/, and whole regions in the Middle West wherein /Olson/ is commoner than either /Taylor/ or /Williams/, and places both North and South where /Duval/ is at least as common as /Brown/.

Moreover, the true proportions of this admixture of foreign blood are partly concealed by a wholesale anglicization of surnames, sometimes deliberate and sometimes the fruit of mere confusion. That /Smith/, /Brown/ and /Miller/ remain in first, second and third places among the surnames of New York is surely no sound evidence of Anglo-Saxon survival. The German and [Pg272] Scandinavian /Schmidt/ has undoubtedly contributed many a /Smith/, and /Braun/ many a /Brown/, and /Müller/ many a /Miller/. In the same way /Johnson/, which holds first place among Chicago surnames, and /Anderson/, which holds third, are plainly reinforced from Scandinavian sources, and the former may also owe something to the Russian /Ivanof/. /Miller/ is a relatively rare name in England; it is not among the fifty most common. But it stands thirtieth in Boston, fourth in New York and Baltimore, and second in Philadelphia.[7] In the last-named city the influence of /Müller/, probably borrowed from the Pennsylvania Dutch, is plainly indicated, and in Chicago it is likely that there are also contributions from the Scandinavian /Möller/, the Polish /Jannszewski/ and the Bohemian /Mlinár/. /Myers/, as we have seen, is a common surname in Philadelphia. So are /Fox/ and /Snyder/. In some part, at least, they have been reinforced by the Pennsylvania Dutch /Meyer/, /Fuchs/ and /Schneider/. Sometimes /Müller/ changes to /Miller/, sometimes to /Muller/, and sometimes it remains unchanged, but with the spelling made /Mueller/. /Muller/ and /Mueller/ do not appear among the commoner names in Philadelphia; all the /Müllers/ seem to have become /Millers/, thus putting /Miller/ in second place. But in Chicago, with /Miller/ in fourth place, there is also /Mueller/ in thirty-first place, and in New York, with /Miller/ in third place, there is also /Muller/ in twenty-fourth place.