Chapter 8.1 Summary

American spelling takes the spotlight here. Mencken establishes a division between the two orthographies, charting both American and English word-spellings by the following criteria: 1) The omission of the penultimate u in words ending in -our; 2) The reduction of duplicate consonants to single consonants; 3) The omission of a redundant e; 4) The change of terminal -re into -er; 5) The omission of unaccented foreign terminations; 6) The omission of u when combined with a or o; 7) The conversion of decayed diphthongs into simple vowels; 8) The change of compound consonants into simple consonants; 9) The change of o into a; 10) The change of e into i; 11) The change of y into a, ia or i; 12) The change of c into s; 13) The substitution of s for z; 14) The substitution of k for c; 15) The insertion of a supernumerary e; 16) The substitution of ct for x; 17) The substitution of y...