1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Programme

PROGRAMME, or Program, in its original use, following that of Gr. πρόγραμμα, a public notice (προγράφειν, to make public by writing), now chiefly in the sense of a printed notice containing the items of a musical concert, with the names of the pieces to be performed, the composers and the performers, or of a theatrical performance, with the characters, actors, scenes, &c. In a wider sense the word is used of a syllabus or scheme of study, order of proceedings or the like, or of a catalogue or schedule containing the chief points in a course of action, and so, politically, in the sense of a list of the principal objects on which a party proposes to base its legislative course of action, as in the “Newcastle Programme” of 1891, drawn up by the Liberal Federation. The spelling “program,” now general in America, was that first in use in England, and so continued till the French form “programme” was adopted at the beginning of the 19th century. The New English Dictionary considers the earlier and modern American spelling preferable, on the analogy of “diagram,” “telegram,” “cryptogram” and the like. Scott and Carlyle always used “program.”