Short Stuff: Simple Spelling Movement

Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Episode: Short Stuff: Simple Spelling Movement
Release Date: April 1, 2026
Hosts: Josh and Chuck

In this "Short Stuff" episode, Josh and Chuck explore the long and quirky history of attempts to simplify English spelling. Focusing especially on Teddy Roosevelt’s early 20th-century efforts—and moving through 20th-century reformers like Edward Rondthaler—they discuss why English spelling is such a mess, famous supporters of reform, and the cultural resistance to changing how we write. The tone is humorous, light, and slightly incredulous at the strange turns in spelling history.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Origins of the Simple Spelling Movement

[01:37]

• English is notoriously tough to learn, especially because of bizarre and inconsistent spelling.
• Multiple movements have sought to simplify spelling, making it more phonetic.

[01:37] Chuck:

“We’re talking about the idea that English is a really tough language to learn and that there have been many movements over the years to simplify things and spell things out a little more phonetically.”

2. Teddy Roosevelt and the 1906 Simplified Spelling Reform

[02:04–03:31]

• President Teddy Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1906, mandating all federal documents use simplified spelling for 300 words.
• Heavyweight supporters included Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James—“a lot of thinkers in America.”
• The plan was widely mocked; Roosevelt was pilloried in cartoons, and Congress was indignant at being bypassed.

[02:49] Chuck:

“This kind of just goes to show you that you can be super, super popular as a public figure or even a politician. And if you come up with an idea that people think are dumb…they turn on you pretty quickly because people hated this idea.”

• Congress countered with a bill specifying Webster’s Dictionary as the spelling authority, ironically as Noah Webster himself advocated for earlier, simpler spelling.

3. Historic Champions of Spelling Reform

[04:00–04:44]

• Noah Webster and Benjamin Franklin both previously promoted spelling simplification.
• However, their efforts, like Roosevelt’s, met stiff resistance.

[04:27] Josh:

“Both Noah Webster and Benjamin Franklin had already found out that people don’t like the concept of simplifying English for some reason, even though there’s reason after reason to do this.”

4. Why English Spelling Is So Difficult

[04:44–05:39]

• Absurdities like the "ght" ending in “caught,” “though,” “draft,” “drought,” etc. defy logic and rules.
• English learners are forced to memorize spellings rather than rely on logic.
• Spelling bees are mainly a U.S./English-language phenomenon precisely because English spelling is so tricky.

[05:18] Josh:

“Spelling bees are almost entirely an American phenomenon...because it’s so tricky to spell English words.”

5. The Simplified Spelling Board and Organic Change

[06:35–08:11]

• Carnegie, Twain, and others funded the “Simplified Spelling Board” aiming to push organic spelling change faster.
• Example: In Elizabethan England, "fish" was spelled “fySHe.” Over time, it organically became “fish.”
• Much U.S.-U.K. spelling divergence (like “color” vs. “colour”) stems from informal, organic change—not authority.

[07:45] Josh:

“At some point the people in the United States said, ‘We’re just going to start spelling this. It’s just easier this way.’”

6. Later Efforts and Obstacles

[09:40–12:52]

• Other reformers included James Ruggles, who proposed “knowed” as past tense of “know.”
• There’s a stigma attached to “incorrect” or “overly phonetic” English, even though elite thinkers have sometimes championed it.
• In the 1970s, Edward Rondthaler tried again, linking spelling difficulty to illiteracy and even “a life of crime.”
• Rondthaler hoped the rise of computers could automate the switching to simple spelling.

[10:18] Chuck:

“If you’re a literate human and you look at something phonetically or say something like ‘I knowed that,’ it makes you sound like you’re maybe not so smart.”

7. Functional Illiteracy in America

[12:52–14:01]

• Despite a 99% literacy rate, 21% of Americans are functionally illiterate: they can read but struggle with tasks like tax forms.
• This represents about 71 million adults.

[13:31] Chuck:

“Apparently 21% of Americans are functionally illiterate, which…seems high, but, you know, if that’s the stat, that’s the stat.”

8. Will Spelling Ever Change?

[14:01–14:16]

• Informal writing (texts, chats) shows more phonetic spellings (e.g., “tho”), but formal spelling change is unlikely.
• The “ship has sailed” on wholesale reform.

[14:16] Chuck:

“Yeah, I mean, there’s a case to be made. I think people are doing it on their own a little bit, like I said, through texts. But I don’t think…proper, graded spelling is ever going to change that much.”

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the futility of trying to reform English spelling:
  [06:39] Josh:

  “Do we have to wait like a thousand years before it just happens on its own?”

• On English spelling idiosyncrasies:
  [04:44] Chuck:

  “There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason…If you learn English and learn how to spell in English, you’re basically just taught, like, you just gotta memorize this stuff. There are no rules...”

• On Roosevelt’s short-lived experiment:
  [03:31] Josh:

  “Because there was an election coming up, he’s like, okay, I’m backing off. You guys win. We’ll just stay with the…dumb rules of grammar and spelling that English has.”

• On literacy statistics:
  [13:42] Josh:

  “To be functionally illiterate means that you can read, but you have trouble navigating life as an adult…because you’re basically literate, but not functionally literate.”

---

Important Segments (Timestamps)

• [01:37] Introduction to the simple spelling movement and its challenges
• [02:04] Roosevelt’s executive order & famous backers
• [03:11–03:31] Roosevelt mocked in the press; Congress’s reaction
• [04:00–04:44] Historical reformers (Webster and Franklin)
• [04:44–05:39] The madness of English spelling; the spelling bee phenomenon
• [06:35–08:11] Simplified Spelling Board: organic vs. enforced change
• [09:40–11:36] Later reformers, stigma, and failed efforts
• [12:52–13:42] America’s functional illiteracy problem
• [14:01–14:16] Unlikely prospects for future change

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Sources Referenced

[14:16] Josh:
Acknowledges history.com, TIME, Paleofuture, Smithsonian, and Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader as sources for the episode's research.

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This episode is a breezy, informative look at both the history and the (very human) resistance to making English any easier to spell—grounded in surprising historical footnotes and contemporary statistics, and punctuated by Josh and Chuck’s affable banter.

Transcript

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[Josh]

Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And there's Jerry, and Dave's here in spirit. And this is Short Stuff, which should be spelled exactly like it's spelled right now.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Should another simple spelling movement come along, Chuck?

[Chuck]

Yeah. Although they may drop an F.

[Josh]

Yeah, you're right. Although that could be stoof. But there is no such word as stoof, so I guess it wouldn't be a problem.

[Chuck]

Yeah, but that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the idea that English is a really tough language to learn and that there have been many movements over the years to simplify things and spell things out a little more phonetically. And back in 1906, none other than Teddy Roosevelt, who was president, got into this idea. And he was a very, very popular president who had some other very famous people on board at the time as well, Right.

[Josh]

Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James, the father of psychology, an unnamed Supreme Court justice. Basically a lot of thinkers in America came together to basically put their might behind this, what was another progressive movement at the time. And Teddy Roosevelt was an enthusiastic supporter of it. He issued what he later called an experiment, an executive order to the printer of the United States, the official one, and said all federal documents from now on have to be printed using the simplified spelling of these 300 words, and gave them a list and it ended up not going very well at all.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I mean, this kind of just goes to show you that you can be super, super popular as a public figure or even a politician. And if you come up with an idea that people think are dumb even back then, they turn on you pretty quickly because people hated this idea. He was all over the newspapers being made fun of all of a sudden. And this is a guy that got, like, a lot of great press.

[Josh]

Right.

[Chuck]

He was in, you know, political cartoons. There was one where he was. Lang knocked out in a boxing ring with a anthropomorphized dictionary had just knocked him out. And Congress certainly didn't like it because he had sidestepped Congress with this executive order. And they were not having it.

[Josh]

No, not at all. Like you said, he was mocked for it. And his political opponents in Congress just jumped all over this because he was a beloved president, like you said, and there wasn't a lot that they could use against him. And this was great. So because there was an election coming up, he's like, okay, I'm backing off. You guys win. We'll just stay with the. The dumb rules of grammar and spelling that English has. And let's talk about that a little bit. You want to.

[Chuck]

Well, they actually even brought a bill against him where they cited Webster's. Like, they demanded that all federal documents be written according to Webster's or other generally accepted dictionaries of the English language. Which is ironic because Webster himself was a proponent of making spelling simpler at one point. And it was also something I know that we've talked about. Benjamin Franklin had also championed this earlier in his career.

[Josh]

Yeah. And both Noah Webster and Benjamin Franklin had already found out that people don't like the concept of simplifying English for some reason, even though there's reason after reason to do this. Chuck, you want to talk a little bit about how English is kind of screwy?

[Chuck]

Well, yeah. I mean, anyone who's ever learned the English language knows that the spelling doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of times. And the rules contradict one another all the time. It's a tough language to learn. And you can look no further than the final three letters, ght, at the end of words like caught and though and draft and drought. To know that there just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. You know, if you learn English and learn how to spell in English, you're basically just taught, like, you just gotta memorize this stuff. There are no rules which are gonna

[Josh]

help you out Exactly. And that is the reason why I didn't realize this, but spelling bees are almost entirely an American phenomenon. They're almost entirely an English speaking phenomenon because it's so tricky to spell English words and that even countries that do hold spelling bees typically hold them as English spelling bees.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Which is really saying something about how difficult it is to remember all this stuff in spelling the English language. Yeah.

[Chuck]

Although to be fair, they're spelling. They're not spelling things like draft, you know.

[Josh]

No, no. They're spelling anti disestablishmentarianism.

[Chuck]

Yeah. I think that one's not too hard, actually.

[Josh]

No, it's not. But it's the one that always gets thrown out because it's fun to sing.

[Chuck]

The hard part for me would be doing it in my brain. I would have to write it down. I think Emily was a champion spelling

[Josh]

bee kid, as was my gal.

[Chuck]

Yeah. So they're both great spellers. I'm an okay speller, but yeah, I would have to write it down. I have a hard time doing that in my brain.

[Josh]

Yeah. Way hard. It's much harder to do it just in your brain, for sure. I think you have to be like a visual person to be able to kind of see it in front of you, too. That's got to help.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

The thing I think that this. I don't know if we said it or not, but the group with Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain, they founded what was known as the. This is official, the Simplified Spelling Board. And what the Simplified Spelling Board was trying to do, as far as they were concerned, was just kind of hasten what was already an organic, naturally occurring process of making it easier to spell English words. And a really good example that I saw was that in Elizabethan England, or Beethan, depending on where you are speaking English, fish was spelled F y S H e. And at some point, naturally, there was no board telling everyone to do this. Which I think ultimately is what people's problem is with this. It's somebody saying, we're going to do this. Now, just naturally it happened that people started spelling fish F I s h instead. It makes way more sense. It is easier to spell F y S H E was clearly the invention of a madman. So that happens anyway. I mean, that's also the reason why in the United States we don't spell like honor or color with an ou like they do in the UK or Canada or Australia, or we don't spell program with an extra m E at the end. Because at some point the people in the United States said We're just going to start spelling this. It's just easier this way. And so what the simplified spelling board was saying is, like, we're just trying to move all this along to its inevitable conclusion. Do we have to wait like a thousand years before it just happens on its own?

[Chuck]

No, but we do have to wait a very short time while we take a break. And then short stuff will be right back.

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[Josh]

So again, this is not the first and only time people have proposed simplified spelling. There have also been other initiatives to not only simplify the spelling of English words, but also to kind of straighten out some of the weirder rules of grammar, too. And there's a guy named James Ruggles. He was an Ohio teacher, and he said, we're going to spell know K N o W the way that it should be spelled, N O e in the present tense. Like, I know Chuck is great. But instead of knew K N e W for past tense, we're going to say knowed. Like, I've always knowed that Chuck is great.

[Chuck]

Yeah. So, you know, therein presents part of the problem. If you're a literate human and you look at something phonetically or say something like, I knowed that, it makes you sound like you're maybe not so smart.

[Josh]

Right.

[Chuck]

So that's kind of the issue, is that the people always pushing for this are probably like the hyper literate. And they're not gonna push for something that looks like it's not.

[Josh]

Yeah, but what's weird is you do have occurrences of people in history like Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie. Like, it's weird. Yes, but there's like a roadblock in that. Yes, people who are well versed in English literacy do see this as kind of like there's something wrong with it. But those are also the same people who have kind of started initiatives in the past. So I don't know what the deal is. I don't know if we're ever going to do this to you.

[Chuck]

I don't know. I mean, what I wonder is how far Twain and that board was pushing things. Because it's one thing to spell, you know, thought or though T, H, O, which is how people do it on text now. Or T, H, O, E, maybe. And then to say, like, I knowed that guy. You know what I mean?

[Josh]

Yeah, No, I do know. You mean.

[Chuck]

Yeah, one's a little further, I think, than the other.

[Josh]

Well, so, yeah, I'm not exactly how far they were pushing it either, but I do know that they backed off big time after Teddy Roosevelt got his. His campaign hat handed to him by Congress. Right.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

So it just died down for decades. And it wasn't until the 70s that it came up again from a guy named Edward Ronthaler. And he was the chairman of the American Literacy Council. He not only saw a need to simplify spelling just for the sake that it could be simplified, he traced the problem of having trouble learning English and illiteracy rates to dropping out of school and then turning to a life of crime. So to him, simplifying English would actually help alleviate America's crime problem, which was a big deal from the 70s to the 90s. Yeah.

[Chuck]

And he thought, like, computers are coming along now. This will be the perfect time to make this transition because we can have computer programs sort of just convert this stuff automatically and into the simplified form, and then before you know it, everyone will just sort of, you know, adopt this as it becomes the regular thing in computers.

[Josh]

Right. So America seems to be doing pretty good. There's a 99% literacy rate among Americans. That seems to be, like, fairly where it is throughout the English speaking world. But something that I didn't realize, Chuck, is that that just talks about basic literacy, like just being able to read. Like you can sound out words and read. You understand the basic building blocks of English grammar. 99% of Americans know how to do that. But when you talk about functional literacy, it drops precipitously.

[Chuck]

Yeah, this number surprises me.

[Josh]

Me, too.

[Chuck]

Apparently 21% of Americans are functionally illiterate, which, yeah, that's. That seems high, but, you know, if that's the stat, that's the stat.

[Josh]

Yeah. And to be functionally illiterate means that you can read, but you have trouble navigating life as an adult in the English speaking world, say, like, reading tax forms or something like that, because you're basically literate, but not functionally literate. Yeah. 21% of Americans, by the way, equals 71 million people.

[Chuck]

Yeah, that's a lot of folks. So, yeah, I mean, there's a case to be made. I think people are doing it on their own a little bit, like I said, through texts. But I don't think, like, you know, proper graded spelling is ever going to change that much. I think that ship has kind of sailed.

[Josh]

Yeah, for sure. Before we go, thank you very much to history.com, tIME, Paleofuture, Smithsonian, and the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, who introduced this to me. God, when I was probably 15. We're finally getting around to do it, Chuck.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

This is.

[Chuck]

How many years later is that?

[Josh]

Like 20.

[Chuck]

Okay, great. Happy birthday.

[Josh]

Short Stuff is out.

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