- Columbia Spelling Board
The Columbia Spelling Board (CSB) was a committee primarily of academics, but possibly including
Mark Twain Fact|date=October 2007, who advocatedsimplified spelling of many words of etymological or philological diverse or difficult spelling. The group primarily operated in theUnited States .Simplified Spelling (or "simplified spellings") was a broadbased philological reform movement, centered in part at
Columbia University under the aegis of a body enshrined as the Columbia Spelling Board duringTheodore Roosevelt 's presidential terms. Roosevelt gave the movement much publicity in the middle of his second term, arguably at the apex of his power, by writing a letter to thePublic Printer of the United States ordering 300 or so frequently used words be published solely in the new spelling recommended by Circular number 6 of the CSB.President Roosevelt's CSB efforts were eventually partly successful, but also had generated opposing resolutions in Congress, as well as defiant Supreme Court justices coming out on the record against the bureaucratic high-handedness. The Press feasted for weeks with "punny headlines" and vyed to coin new sarcastic simplifications, until the influential "
Harpers Weekly " complained in the headline: "THIS IS TU MUCH". The president recanted his order telling the Public Printer of the US that none of his changes should be considered permanent, telling him that if the changes do not meet with public approval, that they should be 'dropt'. This later word, indicative of the resolve by this president to continue using the new spellings himself.References
* "Theodore Rex", Edmund Morris, ISBN 0-8129-6600-7, paperback pp-460-61
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