Just a few minutes ago, the word "judgement" appeared on the television screen. My friend Mike, who takes grammatical things serious, got real mad. "That's not how it's spelled, dammit," he said to the television screen.
"It's not?" I said.
"No. There's no e. The e is for error," he replied.
Mike is usually right, so I believed him, but I decided to look it up in the dictionary.com anyhow. Mike was wrong, sort of. The first definition of judgement is "a variant of judgment," and the second is just the definition of judgment: "The formation of an opinion after consideration or deliberation." So, if one had to spell it for "Jeopardy!", judgment could be spelled judgement.
What this must mean then, is that so many people made the mistake of misspelling judgment that they just added the wrong way of spelling it to the dictionary. They dumbed down the dictionary to include the common misspelling of a word.
Maybe that doesn't seem like such a big deal, but I think it's in very bad judgment. Should recieve make it? Should tommorrow? Should Febuary? What's the point of the dictionary if not to tell us how to spell a word? It's not like it defines anything.
Luckily, my computer is keeping it real and underlined those words in red. The computer knows how to spell things. He won't let you slip up. He can be counted on, unlike the dictionary. He'll even fix them for you. You type it in wrong, he'll just replace it in right. Nope, after c buddy. That goes the other way around. Nope, no e there. I'll just take that out for you.
We can't just throw e's around like we got some to spar. Then everything would start getting messed up. We can't just alter our language because it's e-sier that way. We can't just change it when we feel a whim to make people feel better about their spelling abilities. Spelling is meant to differentiate the smart from the stupid. That's why we have bees. There are good spellers, and there are bad spellers, and we can't complicate that by making both spell a word right.
Even the Oxford English Dictionary has it in there. Judgment, judgement. The Oxford English freaking Dictionary, from which I learned that Daniel Pell must have made a spelling mistake by adding an extra e when he used the word judgement in his 1659 visionary classic An Improvement of the Sea and got it published anyway. They'd only had the printing press for five years, though, so I don't think they were worrying about editing just yet. The OED also said that William Shakespeare made a spelling mistake in Act I scene I line 109 of Romeo and Juliet, but I went to a Web site that had the play online, and it had been made right.
Every other entry in the dictionary for judgement is spelled correctly: final judgment, summary judgment, in good judgment, judgment day. Every one of these is spelled without the e's, but yet they put judgement in there anyway. I just don't understand it. Don't they realize what their doing?
Our language is in danger. The dumb are taking it over. Our language is being distorted, manipulated, decimated, and decomposed. Pretty much it's an all-out idiot free-for-all. However you spell it, well, that's fine, as long as there are enough other shmucks out there are spelling it wrong that way too. We'll just toss it in here. When the dumb are writing our dictionaries, we're in trouble. Who's next, the mimes?
Now, I'm no etymologist. I never claimed to be. When I looked that up to learn how to spell it, I though it meant someone who studies bugs. But I do feel it is in my duty as a writer to protect the honor of our language or something. I will not sit idly by and let spelling errors be accepted. I will not let the people be cheated into ignorance. I will fight for correct spellings everywhere.
This is why I'm beginning my nation-wide campaign to bring proper spelling back into the mainstream. Good spelling will be in style again. Everyone will want to get it right. From the urban centers to the rural general shops, people will be enjoying grammar once again. Spelling will be the new math. We will not let ourselves be dumbed down by our patronizing lexicographers any longer. We will not let them make things simple. We will spell the way spelling was meant to be done. Right.
And, if not, we'll always have the computer to do it for us.
Gavin Shulman '05 encourages you all to check out thebeirutleague.com.
