Peter's new avatar

Of course, and I have only seen a very few original PCC wills, and I can't answer the questions about the clerks, but it does indicate clearly that the our spelling had not dropped out of use, and was therefore not reintroduced by the Victorians.

You can do a similar exercise at FMP, bearing in mind various possible issues, including that their own transcribers may have changed spellings (though with the small random sample I checked they hadn't). Anyway, running separate searches for baptisms, marriages and burials for 1750+/- 40, and adding only the keyword labourer or laborer into the search fields, came out massively in favour of the former spelling.

Also, I found another couple of 18th century registers giving occupations, and those both used the spelling labourer. None of this is conclusive evidence, but so far I have found nothing to suggest that the spelling laborer was the norm in the 18th century.

 

And British dictionaries generally include American spellings ......

 

Having taught the history of English and studied it University with the redoubtable Australian English historian, Professor Kate Burridge; it is quite well known that Americans deliberately went out to differentiate their language from the language of England, particularly in the wake of the Revolution.

Some of the founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin coined new words or spellings in order to create an "American" system. This was back up by the American Spellers created by Noah Webster that were used in schools and he of course created the seminal American English dictionary, in a similar manner to the Oxford English. (Australia's is the Macquarie.)

I did read Pinker's article, but that is more interested in more syntactic and semantic differentiation, rather than historical fact. And while British English removed some of the '-our' endings, American English made sure that all of them were removed, and they of course changed the '-re' spellings to '-er'. They were much more systematic with the changes. That is not to say they were "wrong", I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist.

And you can't say that British English standardised on "one" version of the '-our/-or' spelling, they did remove it from some words, but not from others, and its hard really to say why some were kept and some removed. Words that had included "-our" where it has been removed in British English includes: doctor, terror, horror, error...

 

I can understand your interpretation that athNZ found the article 'boring', because although I found the article interesting (and I believe I have come across it before, or something very similar), after 10 minutes at normal reading pace, quickened to scan reading, I felt the need of a break, and indeed a snooze.

The article covered many grammatical inconsistencies and had a deal of humour in explaining correct -or acceptable - usage. The lesson I learned in staying the course was that as long as what you write can be understood, grammar best sits in the wings on 'look-up' brief.

 

There may be something in that, if only a few years in the timing of the change in spelling.

I have a Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1971 edition, and that only gives connexion. In the 1983 edition both are given but connection is first (implying it is used more). Chambers, of course, was a Scottish publisher and, though now part of an international group, some of that tradition survives.

I have an older dictionary, Dyche's (London, 1777), and that too gives only connexion. So there is a trend with time here, taken at different speeds for different words and different user groups. The 1971 Chambers's contains "reflection; also (now chiefly in scientific use) reflexion". I suspect that in 1777 all of these words taken from Latin had yet to become part of the common speech. Few were then still writing in technical material in Latin, but not long before the likes of Isaac Newton were, so these words had only recently been converted into English words.

The title page of Dyche's Dictionary has direct evidence of that process of the spread of learned words into the wider language: "A new general English Dictionary; peculiarly calculated for the use and improvement of such as are unacquainted with the learned languages. Wherein the difficult words, and technical terms made use of in anatomy, [...], surgery &c. are not only fully explained, but accented on their proper syllables, to prevent a vicious pronunciation; and marked with initial letters, to denote the part of speech to which each word properly belongs." (Original capitalisation ignored.)

 

Likewise my great hard backed tome -1987 edition Readers digest UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY -needs two hands to lift and a table upon which to open its pages (makes a good door stop) - shows Connection first and adds alt: (British) Connexion.

The RAF incidence referred to was early 60's and in all truth I had never known it spelled other that connection, and was surprised then, as I am now, to find its can be spelled connexion.

My wife - my wordsmith guru - without hesitation -when asked to spell it without explaining why I was asking- said 'connection' and after explaining about the British alternative (or indeed primary) spelling as 'connexion- said 'stuff and nonsense'. (Never the one to allow historic fact or academic argument influence her)