No Man shall be told how to Spelle, nor to Speake…

Una reimpresión 😉 del número de The Onion del 6 de octubre de 1783, poniendo a parir a Webster, vía The Language Hat. Me encantan estas partes:

… and this pompuss, detestible New-England School Marm should be a-Sham’d to assume he is more Qualliflied than his Fellow Man to instruck the Englysh Langguige & defy the Lord’s Will with a pryggish Parlour-Game such as this. What is More, asks the Founding Editing-Master of this News Gazette, How is One Suppos’d To «Look-Up» A Word, to use the curious Parlence of the Dictionarists, when One does not even know how it is Spelt any How? Mark well these Words, Meny a Sensible young Scholar shall pose this Same Question to their Grammer-Profesors in the Countrie’s Leurning-Academyes for Ages to come.

(…)

For it is a Guiding Principel, not only of our new Repubblick, but of this Newses Paper, that no Man shall be told how to Spelle, nor to Speake, nor be Bounded by a Ruling that does not Agree with Himm.

(…)

And Be Ware, also, of Rogues who try to sell you on a Suppelment’ry Glossarie, or a beastly Thing known as a Thesaurus, as they too are compleatly malnecessary.

Trescientos años más tarde, leyendo algunos blogs y algunas cosas que no son blogs, parecería que mucha gente (y muchos jefes de redacción) siguen pensando lo mismo.