by Valerie Yule, Ph.D. with additions by Steve Bett
 
 

How people spelled when they could spell as they liked
   If peple could spel as thay liked, would it result in caos?
   What happened 300 years ago when thay could?

People have been uncomfortable with their invented spellings since the late 18th century.  Before then, people could spell as they pleased.  Take a look at the spelling of George Washington.  circa 1780.

The time when people actually could spell as they liked  was before the late 18th century dictionaries of Johnson and others, and before the directions of  18th century society towards applauding 'conspicuous consumption' and snobbery and the 19th century valuation on elite correctness.  These combined to  set English spelling in concrete, less than two hundred and fifty years ago. Some of the answers to how these earlier writers wanted to spell then are interesting, and not quite what we might expect. This question is relevant to spelling reform now.  What were the spelling preferences of writers in those free old days?  What linguistic principls did they tend to use? We are diverted from asking this question about their spelling when we read old writings, because what hits us most are:
 

a) Vocabulary that has changed or is now obsolete.

b) Changes in English speech, particularly in vowel sounds and in dropped
inflexions for word endings.

c) Changes in lettering: old spellings may  seem full of antique usages
such as Germanic-style 'sharp' ß and Ÿ, and double sses, and lots of 'e'
and 'y' and absences of 'j' , and the use of 'v' for 'w'.

d) The handwriting can be different - for example, here is some typical
17th century handwriting The handwriting can be different - for example, here is some typical 17th century handwriting Here is a study of 'how people spelled when they could spell as they liked', based on long observation in reading in those earlier periods, supported by an analyses of samples of print from around 1370 to 1670. 

The samples are not of the same length, and they are so short and such a
limited sample that the findings can only be indicators to support my
background of wider reading. The figures cannot be used for statistical
comparisons, but there is a rich supply of material that was printed or
handwritten from the late middle ages onward  to examine, to back up 
the generalisations made here.

1. The Anglo-Saxons and perhaps even until Chaucer's time perhaps, writers in English may have 'spelled as they spoke', but after the invention of printing, an interesting thing happened. Books and pamphlets multiplied phenomenally - everyone who could was reading like mad, and it sometimes seemed that they were all writing too. What happened, according to my observations, could probably be graphed as a diagonal, according to the writers' degrees of education and reading,  if someone cared to do confirming research.

                         Educational level

The less education and reading that a person had, the more likely that their spelling in their letters and other personal writing would be more closely fonetic, representing their own local speech. With more education and wide reading, the more likely that the chief determinant of a writers' own spelling would be the spelling in the books and pamflets that they read, even if this spelling did not reflect their own speech - and even if many the commonest spellings they used were already capricious, answering to nobody's way of talking by that time.

That is, writers were more likely to be conformers in their writing, tending to write down the vocabulary they used frequently according to habit, and resorting to their own phonetics when they were not sure or were not familiar with any widely accepted usage.   Pitman's stenographers used to be like that too - with most of their originally-fonetic squiggles were heavily rote-lernt and then used by unthinking habit, but fonetically encoded when necessary.

One reason for this lack of 'spelling as you speak' could have been the lack of a Received Pronunciation even in Johnson's time, as he complained.  There was no prime way of speaking among all the dialects even of London. So it could be wiser, from Aberdeen to Tiverton, to share as common a spelling as they could, in order to communicate.  Printers from Caxton on also put in their bit to support more standardised spelling - it suited them better to have some automaticity, when the hot metal had to be placed letter by letter.)

The lesser educated had not such experience in the prevalent spellings. And in their personal letters, all writers were liable to spell with more personal abandon.

These grounds of habit in public spelling in English were setting even in Chaucer's time.   Chaucer used many spellings, both regular and irregular, that we still use today - altho he would sometimes vary from them . . 

The following words and their spellings will be familiar still today: - "in age was dwelling a dale this of which I my tale day that she last simple for and by of such as God two (a few lines further on, 'tweye') three large sheep sooty many sauce never no morsel passed made never to drank neither served most milk were enclosed land crowing his peer than abbey nature knew degrees ascended amended comb redder coral  . ."

The discerning reader can fill in the spaces, since there is sufficient vocabulary to recognise this as the beginning of the Nonne Preestes Tale. And so, from Scotland to Devon, the educated classes, regardless of their own local vowels, used a wide range of the same common irregular spellings, which they must have picked up from their reading - much as fashions of dress and manners also spread across Europe.

Here are irregular spellings that are still with us, from letters of Thomas 
Cartwright in 1590 (irregular in the sense of unpredictable) " many trouble although reason come obedient voice whom who slaughter peace are most conscience words experience knowledge absurd declare prove sword used passionate third ascend have any beauty certain none worth possible people colour occasion weight prophecy measure breath receipt"

2. On the other hand, writers still varied greatly from the inconsistent standards while these were slowly developing.  Shakespeare's first folios can be compared, as a case in point.

The data below that I will be using to examine spellings that are different from present spelling come from samples from the following printed books, although backed by my recollections of reading old books and mainly 17th century handwriting. Consecutive samples have been taken from  Chaucer, (1340-1400)
Thomas Sackville (1536-1608) Christopher Marlowe (1563-1593)

Letters of Thomas Cartwright, samples around 1590, first edited and
published in 1951, so there is no question that the spellings were influenced by the printers of the time - as they could be with the other samples of print - in which case, of course, we are still looking at diverse spelling styles of the time.

Edmund Spenser (1551? -1599)
Scots ballads  (dates of writing down are uncertain) 
Scots prose  1662 and 1670 Leveller pamphlets - English Civil War 1646-1649  (exerpts from seven pamflets)

Spellings that are different from present spelling are examined in eight categories:

1. Morfemic spelling - that is, compound words have been spelled by their word-components, rather than as single words. The old writers had to endure less changing of letters when words were amalgamated.  One more thing that spellers today have to learn about.

2. Spellings that are shorter than today.  So many antique spellings are longer because of the additional spoken inflexions and fondnesses for doubled consonants - but Surplus-Cut spelling was also alive and well, omitting letters that served no purpose to represent meaning or pronunciation.  Exampls of every one of the streamlining principles of Surplus-Cut spelling appear in all eight samples - although there were not Cuts that went against those principles. 'streamlining principles' appear in all eight writings.

 3. Many ancient spellings are closer to present speech than their spellings today.  Unnecessary complications bother lerners and spellers today -  notably extra and unpredictable letters in vowel spellings,  'o' instead of 'u' for the short vowel foneme /u/, 'u' for  /w/, simple CVC constructions for final syllables turned into CCV, and 'quite mad' changes to construct spellings like 'choir' and 'tongue'.   /kwair/ [kwyr], /tung/ as in  acquire and tungsten.

4. Following the eighteenth century obsession with genteel manners, we have been taught to be absolutely correct with our spelling, even more than with our morals.  The old writers could be cavalier, and in letters particularly (cf Cartwright's) varying spellings of the same word could jostle each other on the same page.

5. No z plurals, but some t for ed.  It should knock for six that assumption of many spelling reformers that it would be easier for learners and spellers to spell the final sound in plurals and verbs 's' or 'z' according to whether natural articulation made that sound /s/ or /z/.  None of these early writers ever did. Not even a woz.  However, there was more fonetic discrimination between -d/ and -t/ in participles, less obvious grammar.

6. Across the board,  spellings that varied  from our spellings today tended to be actually closer to how we pronounce the words, apart from inflexions.

Comment:  The principles that modify the alfabetic principl in Fastr Spelling are supported by how writers spelled when they had greater freedom than they do today.

Valerie Yule

words in the tables for peple who coud very wel be interested in the data?

Word List

Dear Steve,

1. Where is the critique of 70% solutions such as Fastrspel?

2. The problem is not that they are not an advance but rather that there are hundreds of similar proposals making it hard to get an agreement on any one...Unless there is reserch to find out what is most useful for most purposes.

3.  I have been told how to get a yahoo email adress before, and I got one, but everything about it is now overlaid  with so much other stuff that I could not posibly find it again.  So I would need to be instructed inthe steps 1 2 3 AGAIN.

 4. Then you don't have to worry about getting too much mail, overloading your
mail server, or saving important messages.  Just save the 
URLs.> I don't understand how this works.
 

5. Is there a way that I can ftp to your web server. I could clean up some of your pages if I could download them directly rather than  >trying to get you to do it.>
Well, is there a way? COPY-PASTE loses the formating I gess.
How could I download them directly to you anyway?
I could send you the html formating as a copy-paste perhaps?
For example, I have attached a PC  doc abov - it is 34 pages 
copy-pasted from the html but may have the tables in it OK.  I cant do a copy-paste 
and then send it as RTF because the copy-paste loses the tables.
Unless I tried to do it from the Word version not the Web-page version?
I have also tried to attach the web-page itself as html.

valerie
 
 

See also Steve Bett's web page www.unifon.org/1600spelling.html
 
 

How people spelled 

when they could spell as they liked

before the 18th century
 
 

If peple could spel as they liked, what sort of caos would result?

What happened when they could?
 
 

          The time when people actually could spell as they liked was before the late 18th century dictionaries of Johnson and others, and before
          the directions of 18th century society towards applauding 'conspicuous consumption' and snobbery and the 19th century valuation on elite
          correctness. These combined to set English spelling in concrete, less than two hundred and fifty years ago. 

          Some of the answers to how these earlier writers wanted to spell then are interesting, and not quite what we might expect.

          This question is relevant to spelling reform now. What were the spelling preferences of writers in those free old days? What linguistic
          principls did they tend to use?

          We are diverted from asking this question about their spelling when we read old writings, because what hits us most are:

          a) Vocabulary that has changed or is now obsolete.

          b) Changes in English speech, particularly in vowel sounds and in dropped inflexions for word endings.

          c) Changes in lettering: old spellings may seem full of antique usages such as Germanic-style 'sharp' ß and ƒ, and double sses, and lots of
          'e' and 'y' and absences of 'j' , and the use of 'v' for 'w'.

          d) The handwriting can be different - for example, here is some typical 17th century handwriting

          The handwriting can be different - for example, here is some typical 17th century handwriting

          Here is a study of 'how people spelled when they could spell as they liked', based on long observation in reading in those earlier periods,
          supported by an analyses of samples of print from around 1370 to 1670. The samples are not of the same length, and they are so short
          and such a limited sample that the findings can only be indicators to support my background of wider reading. The figures cannot be used
          for statistical comparisons, but there is a rich supply of material that was printed or handwritten from the late middle ages onward to
          examine, to back up the generalisations made here.

          1. The Anglo-Saxons and perhaps even until Chaucer's time perhaps, writers in English may have 'spelled as they spoke', but after the
          invention of printing, an interesting thing happened.

          Books and pamphlets multiplied phenomenally - everyone who could was reading like mad, and it sometimes seemed that they were all
          writing too. What happened, according to my observations, could probably be graphed as a diagonal, according to the writers' degrees of
          education and reading, if someone cared to do confirming research.

          The less education and reading that a person had, the more likely that their spelling in their letters and other personal writing would be
          more closely fonetic, representing their own local speech.

          With more education and wide reading, the more likely that the chief determinant of a writers' own spelling would be the spelling in the
          books and pamflets that they read, even if this spelling did not reflect their own speech - and even if many the commonest spellings they
          used were already capricious, answering to nobody's way of talking by that time. That is, writers were more likely to be conformers in
          their writing, tending to write down the vocabulary they used frequently according to habit, and resorting to their own phonetics when they
          were not sure or were not familiar with any widely accepted usage. Pitman's stenographers used to be like that too - with most of their
          originally-fonetic squiggles were heavily rote-lernt and then used by unthinking habit, but fonetically encoded when necessary.

          One reason for this lack of 'spelling as you speak' could have been the lack of a Received Pronunciation even in Johnson's time, as he
          complained. There was no prime way of speaking among all the dialects even of London. So it could be wiser, from Aberdeen to
          Tiverton, to share as common a spelling as they could, in order to communicate. Printers from Caxton on also put in their bit to support
          more standardised spelling - it suited them better to have some automaticity, when the hot metal had to be placed letter by letter.)

          The lesser educated had not such experience in the prevalent spellings. And in their personal letters, all writers were liable to spell with
          more personal abandon.

          These grounds of habit in public spelling in English were setting even in Chaucer's time. Chaucer used many spellings, both regular and
          irregular, that we still use today - altho he would sometimes vary from them . . The following words and their spellings will be familiar still
          today: -

          "in age was dwelling a dale this of which I my tale day that she last simple for and by of such as God two (a few lines further on, 'tweye')
          three large sheep sooty many sauce never no morsel passed made never to drank neither served most milk were enclosed land crowing
          his peer than abbey nature knew degrees ascended amended comb redder coral . ."

          The discerning reader can fill in the spaces, since there is sufficient vocabulary to recognise this as the beginning of the Nonne Preestes
          Tale.

          And so, from Scotland to Devon, the educated classes, regardless of their own local vowels, used a wide range of the same common
          irregular spellings, which they must have picked up from their reading - much as fashions of dress and manners also spread across Europe.

          Here are irregular spellings that are still with us, from letters of Thomas Cartwright in 1590 (irregular in the sense of unpredictable)

          " many trouble although reason come obedient voice whom who slaughter peace are most conscience words experience knowledge
          absurd declare prove sword used passionate third ascend have any beauty certain none worth possible people colour occasion weight
          prophecy measure breath receipt"

          2. On the other hand, writers still varied greatly from the inconsistent standards while these were slowly developing. Shakespeare's first
          folios can be compared, as a case in point.
 
 

          The data below that I will be using to examine spellings that are different from present spelling come from samples from the following
          printed books, although backed by my recollections of reading old books and mainly 17th century handwriting.

          Consecutive samples have been taken from

               Chaucer, (1340-1400)
               Thomas Sackville (1536-1608)
               Christopher Marlowe (1563-1593)
               Letters of Thomas Cartwright, samples around 1590, first edited and published in 1951, so there is no question that the
               spellings were influenced by the printers of the time - as they could be with the other samples of print - in which case, of
               course, we are still looking at diverse spelling styles of the time.
               Edmund Spenser (1551? -1599)
               Scots ballads (dates of writing down are uncertain)
               Scots prose 1662 and 1670
               Leveller pamphlets - English Civil War 1646-1649 (exerpts from seven pamflets)

          Spellings that are different from present spelling are examined in six categories:

          1. Morfemic spelling - that is, compound words have been spelled by their word-components, rather than as single words. The old writers
          had to endure less changing of letters when words were amalgamated. One more thing that spellers today have to learn about.

          2. Spellings that are shorter than today. So many antique spellings are longer because of the additional spoken inflexions and fondnesses
          for doubled consonants - but Surplus-Cut spelling was also alive and well, omitting letters that served no purpose to represent meaning or
          pronunciation. Exampls of every one of the streamlining principles of Surplus-Cut spelling appear in all eight samples - although there were
          no Cuts that went against those principles. 'streamlining principles' appear in all eight writings.

          3. Many ancient spellings are closer to present speech than their spellings today. Unnecessary complications bother lerners and spellers
          today - notably extra and unpredictable letters in vowel spellings, 'o' instead of 'u' for the short vowel foneme /u/, 'u' for /w/, simple CVC
          constructions for final syllables turned into CCV, and 'quite mad' changes to construct spellings like 'choir' and 'tongue'.

          4. Following the eighteenth century obsession with genteel manners, we have been taught to be absolutely correct with our spelling, even
          more than with our morals. The old writers could be cavalier, and in letters particularly (cf Cartwright's) varying spellings of the same word
          could jostle each other on the same page.

          5. It should knock for six that assumption of many spelling reformers that it would be easier for learners and spellers to spell the final
          sound in plurals and verbs 's' or 'z' according to whether natural articulation made that sound /s/ or /z/. None of these early writers ever
          did. Not even a woz. However, there was more fonetic discrimination between -d/ and -t/ in participles, less obvious grammar.

          6. Across the board, spellings that varied from our spellings today tended to be actually closer to how we pronounce the words, apart
          from inflexions.
 
 
 

          Comment: The principles that modify the alfabetic principl in Fastr Spelling are supported by how writers spelled
          when they had greater freedom than they do today.

 
Comment: The principles that modify the alfabetic principl in Fastr Spelling are supported by how writers spelled when they had greater freedom than they do today.  [why is this morphemic?] doesn't make sense without also knowing the pronunciation.

2. Shorter spelling

Chaucer	Chaucer 2	Sackville	Cartwright	Marlowe	Spencer	Scots	Levellers
agast agu al arys bad (bade) berd (beard) bifel blis blisful blody bord bour chuk cok colerik com contree cotage cours Cresus dich dout ech erly fether flour (flower) ful fyn fyr groning herd lak laxatyf lege	litel lyf lyk malencolye maner merier mery neded nigard peple Pharao resonable romed sleper sleping smal solas somtyme syk tarie therfor vois wal wel wo wyf wyn whyt slayne layd woe begon	agast al appered approched blud bluddy brest breth carkas corps delites dredfull drery ful gastly gladsom glas godhed gyltles hart hel knobd lothly lothsome ruful savor sorowing spred strayt thre tyl unstedfast wel wil woful	becom brused chuse clense comon comunion delite doctrin fal cal al frends ful grudg hart holesome immediatly knowledg maner obstinat oportunity stif thorow undoutedly unfained straite waied (weighed) wheras	brest delite faining kis moovd opposit peble shal shels wandring	al bels croking delite drery dwels fethered gon hed ly mischivous roring scatterd spels spred sumd yel	dyed middest rejoyce tryals befor chuse comunion disciplin doctrin doubl handl imediatly peopl requir sumond therof therin twelv wher	chair-man dayly defyance denyal trible (cf dubl) tryall abreviations adjurnable al badg brests chuse disolvable endevors grevances garding greatned heightned entred grosly judg lingring opressions hav rendred sel selvs shal shufle sutable wil

3. Other spellings closer to modern speech than present spellings - None in the Marlowe sample

Chaucer	Sackville	Spenser	Cartwright	Scots ballads	Scots prose	Levellers	Levellers 2
eet Egipt gentil meel middel repleet yeer	candels cristall crummes eckoed iye mantels stomake wurdes	doo dore neer obay perle quyre yvory	sswaged clyme doo eschue perswasions reconsiliaton renued suffise tounges	cumpanie cuntrie nobil cumpanie Inglish luving mault (malt)	dait evrie disswaded meerly onely perswaded theevish yeeld	arreers axel beleeve center! cleer cloaths compairing compleat compleatly	deer gyant neerly onely perswaded supream yeers

4..Varying spellings on the same page - None in the samples from Marlowe and Scots ballads; Scots prose- the only close variation was ' tym/tyme'

Chaucer	Sackville	Spenser	Cartwright's letters	Leveller pamflets
blak/blake dreem/dremes seide/seyde seith/sey/seyn shal/shul wys/wyse	assined/assynde worthy/wurthyest yel (but dwell)	doen (done) doo	beauty/beiuty buisnes/ busines curat/curate extorcioners/extortioners hainous/haynouse obay/obey sheepeheardes/shepheards/ sheephearde (all within 6 lines) shuld/shoulde solemne/solempne physition/phisition thretning/threatned- within 3 lines vnfained/unfained wel/well	endevors/endevours grevances/grievances publique/publike

5. t- endings to verbs. None in Chaucer, Spenser, Cartwright or Scots samples

Sackville	Marlowe	Leveller
approcht dipt whypt slypt prest coucht opprest stretcht	reacht past brancht sipt stript	opprest releast stopt

6.s/c/ variations - None in Marlow, Scots ballads or Leveller samples

Chaucer	Sackville	Marlowe	Cartwright	Spencer	Scots ballads	Scots prose	Levellers
compleccion congregacioun pacience tribulaciouns	pearst (pierced)		contricion gratious mencion pacient substanciall	chace disperst noyce sence sences		caice antient antients gratious councellor

7. Obsolete distinctions of medial and final vowels - only Chaucer - broun doun renoun toun hewed (hued)

8. Other variations from present spelling
 

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