American imitation of English orthography has two impulses behind it. First, there is the colonial spirit, the desire to pass as English--in brief, mere affectation. Secondly, there is the wish among printers, chiefly of books and periodicals, to reach a compromise spelling acceptable in both countries, thus avoiding expensive revisions in case of republication in England.[20] [Pg259] The first influence need not detain us. It is chiefly visible among folk of fashionable pretensions, and is not widespread. At Bar Harbor, in Maine, some of the summer residents are at great pains to put /harbour/ instead of /harbor/ on their stationery, but the local postmaster still continues to stamp all mail /Bar Harbor/, the legal name of the place. In the same way American haberdashers sometimes advertise /pyjamas/ instead of /pajamas/, just as they advertise /braces/ instead of /suspenders/ and /vests/ instead of /undershirts/. But this benign folly does not go very far. Beyond occasionally clinging to the /-re/ ending in words of the /theatre/ group, all American newspapers and magazines employ the native orthography, and it would be quite as startling to encounter /honour/ or /jewellery/ in one of them as it would be to encounter /gaol/ or /waggon/. Even the most fashionable jewelers in Fifth avenue still deal in /jewelry/, not in /jewellery/.
The second influence is of more effect and importance. In the days before the copyright treaty between England and the United States, one of the standing arguments against it among the English was based upon the fear that it would flood England with books set up in America, and so work a corruption of English spelling.[21] This fear, as we have seen, had a certain plausibility; there is not the slightest doubt that American books and American magazines have done valiant missionary service for American orthography. But English conservatism still holds out stoutly enough to force American printers to certain compromises. When a book is designed for circulation in both countries it is common for the publisher to instruct the printer to employ "English spelling." This English spelling, at the Riverside Press,[22] embraces all the /-our/ endings and the following further forms: