When The President Tried to Change the Way Americans Spell August 27, 2010

Taking Aim at Mr. Webster

Andrew Carnegie's Legacy Lives in Today's Libraries

On This Date In History: Back in 1906, Andrew Carnegie thought that if English was made more simple, it could become the dominant language in the world.   In an effort to try and simplify the spelling and writing of English, he funded the Simplified Spelling Board which was made up of a group of intellectuals who would discuss the issue.  The Board had 26 members including Supreme Court Justice David Brewer, US Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage and Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain.  The board determined that there many words that could easily be changed; such words like ”ghost” could be made simpler by dropping the silent “h.”  Words like “blessed” could be reconfigured as “blest” and certainly the “u” could be dropped in words such as “behaviour,” “colour” and “honour.”  They had enough of “enough” and decided that “enuf” would do just fine.   The board did not want to overwhelm the nation so they proposed slowly introducing new word spellings with an initial list of 300 words that would be changed.  Some schools even adopted the suggests.  The go slow approach though got thwarted by a big stick.

Dan Quayle Decided To Be The Little Helper

President Teddy Roosevelt decided that me would be Vice-President Dan Quayle about 90 years before there was a Vice-President Dan Quayle.   If you recall, on June 15, 1992 then Vice-President Dan Quayle went to an elementary school in Trenton, New Jersey.  Quayle decided to help a kid with his spelling and added an “e” to the end of the word, potato.   That was effectively the end of Quayle’s political career and was no help in President Bush’s re-election bid.  It came as a big surprise to the eggheads on the Simplified Spelling Board when President Theodore Roosevelt unilaterly sent a letter to the US Government Printing Office on this date in 1906 that orderd the office to use the new spelling of the 300 words on the list.  President Roosevelt almost immediately got as much of a backlash as Vice President Quayle did nearly a century later.  Newspapers printed it as “Rozevult’s List.”  However,  Roosevelt managed to hold his seat in the White House.   The Rochester Post-Express pondered whether the president’s surname would spelled “Rusevelt” or “Buttinsky.”  The Baltimore Sun claim that the whole effort was simply “a scheme financed by Carnegie, backed by certain large publishing interests, and designed to carry out an immense project for jobbery in reprinting dictionaries and school books.”

The response to Roosevelt’s attempt to expand to power of the presidency to that of Grammarian in Chief was swift, broad and wicked. One columnist wrote that “nuthing escapes Mr. Rucevelt. No subject is tu hi fr him to takl, no tu lo for him tu notis.”  Congress wasn’t too certain that presidential powers extended to the spelling book and ordered the printer to pay no attention to the man with the big stick in the bully pulpit. So great was the public response, Mr. Roosevelt withdrew the order but later wrote that he glad “did the thing anyhow.”  I’m not certain exactly when the order was rescinded but Congress made certain that Presidential Power did not apply to the pen when on December 13, 1906 the US House of Representatives passed a resolution 142-24 that confirmed it would use traditional spelling found in most dictionaries and not the new and improved list of 300.  The US Supreme Court also vowed to not use the new spelling in spite of the involvement of Justice Brewer. 

Some Jobs Require Good Spellers

As many people who have read this blog can attest, either my spelling is lame or I can’t type.  But, spelling is very important and is seen by many as a reflection to the author’s competence or carelessness.  It would seem that words such as “kissed” did not become “kist” (except as part of the brand name “Sunkist”) but other words did gain a new set of letters.  It is not common in American to  spell “behavior’ or “color” with a “u.” 

The Good Old Washington "Natinals"

But, it would seem that text messengers have begun doing what Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and others tried to do over 100 years ago as many words are spelled in a shorter, simpler form in messaging.  One that comes to mind is “enuf.”   The effort at spelling reform has a long history and some people in the 21st century continue the effort at spelling reform.  It remains to be seen if those efforts or the texting craze continues and if the abbreviations eventually transform the way English is written.  In the meantime, make sure you learn to spell properly. Dan Quayle never won another election and neither did Theodore Roosevelt.

Weather Bottom Line:  The operative word for the last few days of August is dry.  High pressure will continue to dominate but will drift to the east.  Today will again have highs limited to the low to mid 80′s and the overnight low will be in the upper 50′s and low 60′s.  After that we get on the backside of the high with a return southerly flow.  We’ll be around 90 on Saturday afternoon and low 90′s for the balance of the week ahead.  Overnight lows will climb to the mid 60′s on Sunday morning and then upper 60′s thereafter.   My hydrangia is telling me that it needs water and your garden will be screaming the same, if it’s not already.

Was 2nd Grader Sent to Psychiatrist and then Home For Drawing Stick Figure of Jesus? December 16, 2009

A school in Massachusetts reportedly sent an 8 year old home for making a drawing of Jesus on a cross.  The father says that his son has some learning disabilities but has never been violent.  He said that his son’s teacher asked the class to draw something that reminded them of Christmas.  So, the boy drew the picture which depicted a stick figure on a cross and he used x’s to depict the eyes.  Dad says that his son was suspended and required to take a psychiatric exam.

Now, the school is putting up a defense.  Taunton School District officials say that the 8 year old was not suspended and the situation was handled appropriately.  The school says that the reports are “totally inaccurate.”    They say there was no assignment that the kids make a drawing of Christmas or any other religious holiday. 

No Christmas Drawings Or You'll Go See the Shrink!

Totally inaccurate?  Apparently a school official “cleared” the child for a return to the class after it was determined he did not pose a threat to himself or anyone else.  So, that means that the child was indeed at least removed from the class and he was required to be examined in some way.  This in itself suggests that there was some accuracy to the reports and there is some sort of subterfuge within the school district’s explaination.  This would cause one to be suspicious of the other aspects of the response.  For instance, while they seem to be extremely worried that the world may think that a teacher would ask for a drawing depicting something associated with Christmas, they don’t say what the assignment was for.  I mean, they don’t say that this child just drew the picture on his own.  So, we have a situation in which the school seems to have some sort of criminalization of an 8 year old’s expression and an attempt to try to distance themselves from any suggestion that kids were asked to draw anything that was associated with Christmas.  To be fair, this same school district did have a situation a year ago when a child drew a stick figure drawing of the student shooting his teacher and a classmate.

Nevertheleless, the father is a part time custodian at the school and says that his hours have been cut.  Why do I think that no teachers will be wishing anyone a Merry Christmas any time soon.

Weather Bottom Line:  The GFS is advertising about 2 inches of snow over the weekend.  But, there is hardly a consensus among the models.  We will probably get some on Saturday with the lead shortwave coming down but I’m skeptical about the amounts or the duration given that it would seem that scenario is based on a big low forming off the Carolina coast.  That may or may not happen and the timing have to be right if it did. Then one must assume that it will be able to transport moisture all the way across the mountains to the Ohio Valley.  Possible, yes.  Probable? It will be tough.  Either way, it will be cold.

6 Year-Old BringsCub Scout Knife to School, Faces Reform School; Gun Battle Caught on Tape in Toledo October 13, 2009

Crown Fit for School District or Legislature?

When I was a kid…probably 3rd or 4th grade…I thought it was so cool when I got a pocketknife for Christmas.  I dutifully took it to school every day because you never know when you might need a good pocketknife.  I even sharpened it to the point that it would cut paper.  Well, the truth is that there really wasn’t any time that you need a pocketknife at school.  So, it didn’t take long for me to stop taking it with me.  I took it on Boy Scout camping trips after I graduated from Cub Scouts and Webelos but never really had much use for it there either.  And when I did, I didn’t want to use it because I didn’t want to dull the super-sharp blade.  So, basically, it was useless to me.  But it was still cool to have.

The 6 year-old Criminal

That was then and this is now.  A kid in Delaware sounds like he was a lot like me.  He is only six but got a little Cub Scout pocketknife.  His was different than mine because he had eating utensils as part of his.  Like me, he wanted to take it to school but he wanted to use it.  So, he sat at lunch, apparently not bothering anyone, and opened it up to use to eat.  A 6-year-old doesn’t know about zero tolerance policies.  He only knows that his knife with the fork and spoon is cool.  But, Zachary Christie now faces 45 days in a reform school for violating the Christina School District’s zero-tolerance policy of kids bringing knives to school.  It would be on his record forever, I suppose.  Now, the state legislature is jumping into action with representatives introducing a bill that would amend Delaware’s zero tolerance law for school discipline. 

6 Year-Old's Weapon of Choice

From this we are able to ascertain that it wasn’t necessarily the school district that had the rule, but instead it was a mandate from the state.  We heard a lot of people complaining about some of the federal efforts to combat terrorism after 911.  There was a hue and cry over the eavesdropping legislation that allowed investigators to listen to phone transmissions without a warrant.  Computers could pick out code words and then pick out calls to listen in on and do so before the call was completed, after which a smart bad guy might dispose of the cell phone and get another one to prevent future detection.  By the time you got a warrant, the caller was long gone.  But, I never heard of a single American whose rights of privacy was really violated.  Yet, after high profile situations like at Columbine, many states and school districts created rules such as this and there have been numerous cases like this in which a pretty benign situation became elevated to an equal  status as a kid who brought a weapon to school with malevolent intentions. The school board of this Houston Area School District approved of a girl’s suspension for having Advil in her backpack.   Yet, there has been no hue and cry.  Are laws like this on th books so that officials don’t have to make a decision?  Do we want blanket rules without giving adminsitrators the flexibility to actually make decisions?  Even if the amendment proposes passes, I’m not so sure that it would affect the kid retroactively unless the legislation specifically addresses Zachary’s particular sitution.  Why are we more sensative to issues related to national security that may create a situation civil rights situation but allow blind policies that do often affect kids adversely?

The Bar Could Have Used Festus Hagen

Meanwhile, there are those who want to ban handguns. As it stands, it’s already illegal for criminals to have a gun, yet the still do.  Criminals by definition do not obey the law.  So, it will be interesting to see if the men who decided to have a shootout at a Toledo, OH bar face charges that fit the crime or if they will get something less than the 45 day sentence imposed on young Zachary.  This video shows the suspects coming into the Route 66 Bar, starting a fight and then having a good old fashioned gun-battle.  These guys should be charged with something, if for no other reason that with so many shots fired in such close proximity…the shooters didn’t hit anthing that they were aiming at, namely anyone else.