,

If Americans and Canadians have been trying to streamline and simplify the actual English language forever, why don’t we have more simple words?

—Ariadne, Zoom school

Dear Ariadne,

First we’ll mention a few of the many words Americans—including the principals of the American Philological Society (founded in 1876)—have tried but failed to shorten: liv for live, tho for though, hav for have, wisht for wished. But then, according to Bill Bryson, author of the wonderful book The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, “the Simplified Spelling Board became altogether carried away with its success and...called for such spellings as tuf, def, troble (for ‘trouble’),” and clipped words such as filosofy for philosophy. No, really—could we make it up? The word-shortening craze ended as quickly as it had begun. But over the years, various luminaries and ordinary readers and writers zoomed in on particular words and tucked in a few revisions. Apparently no one protested, for example, when the e at the end of deposite, fossile, secretariate and a few others quietly slipped away.

—The Editors