Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English impersonal verbs)

Sally Caves wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "R A Brown" <ray@...>
>
>
>> When the two letters were differentiated, those final Es could'v been
>> dropped, but most people continued, and still continue, the write
>> them. It is just habit.
>>
>> However, from time to time some people have indeed dropped the darn
>> things. I am actually slightly surprised that our Merkan cousins
>> havn't indeed done just that.
>
>
> Whaddya mean, Ray?  You Brits have dropped it?  :)  Thanks, luv.  But
> that's totally informal.
I do *NOT* mean the graffiti of those who spray walls with things like
"Kev luvs Shaz"!!!

I mean people like Charles E. Sprague who in the in 1888 in his
"Handbook of Volapük" (published in London & Chicago) wrote:
{quote}
Upon the recommendation of the American Philological Association and the
London Philological Society, I have dropped the final e. misleading and
unhistorical, from words such as "infinitiv", "feminin" etc.
{/quote}

You will find in the Handbook the sensible spellings "nominativ",
"accusativ", "genitiv", "dativ", "passiv".

His writing was clearly _not_ totally informal. And IIRC Charles Sprague
was not alone in making that reform.

> No serious Mercan spelling reform could do much better than we have.
Well, one of your fellow countrymen, at least, in the late 19th century
not merely advocating the reform but actually put it into practice. I am
just a little surprised that such a sensible reform did not catch on -
that's all.

FWIW I have on more than one occasion - the last being quite recent -
gone on record as saying that I think the American leveling out of -or &
-our to just plain -or, and the writing of -re & -er uniformly as -er
are sensible reforms. Indeed, the change of -our --> -or was also
underway here, until the Merkans adopted it wholesale and conservation
reaction, alas, then set in here.

Apart from 'thru', I consider the other Merkans reforms to be sensible.
Though why the same sensible principle has not been applied to leveling
out the completely arbitrary -cede ~ -ceed spellings of all those words
derived from Latin -cedere verbs still puzzles me.

I am not criticizing American spellings - that would be quite contrary
to the line I have consistently taken both on this list and on other
lists. I was merely expressing surprise that American reform had not
encompassed one or two other similar modest reforms which were proposed
(and, in the case I mentioned, put into practice) as long ago as the
19th century.

--
Ray
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