The Way Some People Spell

I don't see any use in having a uniform way of spelling words.

— Mark Twain

Mark Twain thought that policing the way people spelled was a merry chase, like policing the way people dressed. Thorstein Veblen called it a "conspicuous waste," "archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective."

My grammar school teachers, on the other hand, taught me that spelling was like math: there was one, and only one, right answer.

Of course, that was the early 1960s. 

They also taught us that policemen were our friends, that beatniks were dirty, and that America was the greatest country on earth.

Critical Race Theorists would say they were abusing their authority in order to oppress us and make us conform to the "dominant identity;" but, actually, they were following the lead of a mild-mannered Connecticut teacher, Noah Webster, and teaching us to be Americans.

Frustrated by the outdated teaching materials on hand, Webster revised America's grammar school textbooks immediately after the Revolutionary War, to rid them of references to the king. He also wrote a famous dictionary to rid the new nation's language of Briticisms. In the process, Webster simplified the spelling of hundreds of words. Travelling, for example, became traveling; colour became color; and publick became public. 

Webster believed his spellings, being humbler than their British counterparts were "of vast political consequence" to the young republic. 

And perhaps they were.

But we're an old republic now, soon to become a dictatorship. 

Humble is passé.

We don't care whether you spell smoking as smocking or coffee as covfefe. Just as long as you don't mention white supremacy, marginalization, or dominant-determined identifies.

For my part, call me a dinosaur, but I like Webster's democratic way with words.