publications of any importance have been converted[1] and that most of the great universities still hesitate. It has, however, greatly reinforced the authority behind.many of Webster's spell- ings, 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,[2] esophagus and theater came in later on, as program, catalog and cyclopedia came in only yes- terday, and as airplane (for aeroplane)[3] 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.[4] So far no dictionary supports it, but
- ↑ The Literary Digest is perhaps the most important. Its usage is shown by the Funk & Wagnalls Company Style Card; New York, 1914.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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 aeroplane.
- ↑ 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
