The difference between Dr. Johnson and Noah Webster is clear. The former was primarily interested in
the meaning of the words and their correct usage. To Dr. Johnson, the spelling was of little importance.
The practical American, on the other hand, while stressing correct usage, was very interested in correct
pronunciation and spelling.
He supports this statement by pointing out that the great English writers Newton, Dryden, Shaftsbury,
Hook, Middleton, et al., wrote these words in the “regular English manner.”
Further on, Webster writes:
The present practice is not only contrary to the general uniformity... but is
inconsistent with itself; for Peter, a proper name, is always written in the English
manner; while salt petre, the word, derived from the same original, is written in the
French manner. Metre also retains its French spelling, while the same word in
composition, as in diameter, barometer, and thermometer, is conformed to the English
orthography. Such palpable inconsistencies and preposterous anomalies do no honor
to English literature, but very much perplex the student, and offend the man of taste.^4From this, we can see that Webster, far from demanding radical change, was only insisting that English
spelling conform to historical spelling rules. He was actually very conservative.
We may again use Noah Webster’s own words in the problem of labor-labour and honor-honour :
To purify our orthography from corruptions and restore to words their genuine
spelling, we ought to reject u from honor, candor, error, and others of this class.
Under the Norman princes... to preserve a trace of their originals, the o of the Latin
honor, as well as the u of the French honeur was retained... our language was
disfigured with a class of mongrels. splendour, inferiour, superiour, authour, and the
like, which are neither Latin nor French, nor calculated to exhibit the English
pronunciation.^5(^) Noah Webster was the first lexicographer to attempt to bring some kind of order to English spelling.
He continues:
The palpable absurdity of inserting u in primitive words, when it must be omitted in
the derivations, superiority, inferiority, and the like; for no person ever wrote
superiourity, inferiourity...^6
Again we can see that Webster was demanding conformity in spelling including a strict adherence to
the basic rules, for, as he wrote in an earlier paragraph, “Uniformity is a prime excellence in the rules of
language.”
Another interesting difference between English and American spelling is the double l. The spelling rule
for doubling the consonant when adding a suffix is quite clear. Part of the rule states that in words of more
than one syllable, the final consonant shall not be doubled unless the accent falls on the final syllable. For
example, regret–regretted. British spelling adheres to this rule except when the word ends in an l. Then,
for some yet to be explained reason, the rule is abandoned and the l is doubled no matter where the accent
happens to be. For example, travel–travelled. This double l can be seen in other strange places, such as,
chili–chilli, woolen–woollen.
However, there are at least half a dozen cases where the situation is reversed and the British spell the