Simplified Spelling

In 1920 the American Simplified Spelling Board published a list of "Rules for Simplified Spelling". These 27 rules were not intended to revolutionise spelling, but to overcome some of the worst aspects. The rules included:

• - drop most unnecessary silent letters - for example, det (debt), dout (doubt), chimny (chimney), bom (bomb), crum (crumb), sissors (scissors), gard (guard), ges (guess).
• - drop unnecessary final 'e' - as in giv (give), hav (have), ar (are), gon (gone), wer (were), activ (active), leav (leave).
• - drop silent 'e' before final '-d', as in anserd (answered), wrongd (wronged) (but keep the 'e' in bribed, used - so that the correct pronunciation is indicated).
• - change final -ed to -t when so pronounced - as in askt (asked), kist (kissed), past (passed), advanst (advanced) (but not in baked, deduced, faced - so that the correct pronunciation is indicated).
• - use 'f' instead of 'gh' in cof (cough), laf (laugh), enuf (enough), ruf (rough).
• - change -ise to -ize when so pronounced - as in wize (wise), rize (rise), advize (advise).
• - use simpler spellings for altho (although), tho (though), thoro (thorough), thru (through), plow (plough) (but not 'bow' for 'bough').

These rules stopped short of more important, wide-ranging reforms such as consistently spelling the 's' sound with an 's' and the 'k' sound with a 'c' or 'k'. So the overall improvement in spelling using these rules would have been marginal. For example, children would not have gained much advantage in learning to read and write, since the majority of inconsistencies in spelling would have remained.

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