Never trust a word

The popular quote “Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word” and its variants are NOT by Mark Twain.

Most of the versions are ascribed to Mark Twain, while a couple of them are credited to Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Thomas Jefferson and Archibald Alexander Hodge.

Know How To Spell A Word More Than One Way

Now if you ask Google Search, “who said I respect a man who knows how do you spell a word more than one way?”

Instantly Google will spell out Mark Twain!

So is if you ask Google Search, “what did Mark Twain say about spelling?”

Goodness, Google still shows you this Mark Twain misquote from GoodReads:

“Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination”.

First and foremost, let’s me spell it for you.

Mark my words, the humorist and novelist Mark Twain never said or wrote this particular quip.

It is because there are so many versions of this quote, it is difficult to pinpoint the actual author.

Before we look into this wrongly-attributed quote, let’s check out some of Twain’s sarcastic comments about the English spellings.

Mark Twain On Spelling

I know Mark Twain wrote and spoke widely about the subject on spelling.

Twain had a strong view on spelling which can be found in his speeches and articles.

Here are some of Mark Twain takes on spelling or rather funny spelling:

“Look at the “h’s” distributed all around. There’s “gherkin.” What are you going to do with the “h” in that? What the devil’s the use of “h” in gherkin, I’d like to know. It’s one thing I admire the English for: they just don’t mind anything about them at all.” – Mark Twain

(Mark Twain’s Speeches, The Alphabet And Simplifies Spelling, Address At The Dinner Given To Mr. Carnegie At The Dedication Of The New York Engineers’ Club, December 9, 1907) source

“…look at the “pneumatics” and the “pneumonias” and the rest of them. A real reform would settle them once and for all, and wind up by giving us an alphabet that we wouldn’t have to spell with at all, instead of this present silly alphabet, which I fancy was invented by a drunken thief.” – Mark Twain

(Mark Twain’s Speeches, The Alphabet And Simplifies Spelling, Address At The Dinner Given To Mr. Carnegie At The Dedication Of The New York Engineers’ Club, December 9, 1907) source

(This speech was featured in The New York Times on December 10, 1907 titled “MARK TWAIN JEERS AT SIMPLE SPELLING; Has Fun with Mr. Carnegie’s System at the Dedication of the Engineers’ Club. PUTS HARD WORDS TO HIM One of Them Is Pterodactyl — The Ironmaster Elected to Honorary Place in Club for His Gift“)

“And we shall be rid of phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and diphtheria and pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no man addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose some of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt.” – Mark Twain

(Mark Twain’s Speeches, Spelling And Pictures, Address At The Annual Dinner Of The Associated Press, At The Waldorf-Astoria, September 18, 1906) source

(The quote is also found here)

“I don’t say we needed it, for I don’t see any use in spelling a word right, and never did. He spells cow with a large K. Now, that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague impressive, new kind of a cow. Superb effects can be produced by variegated spelling.” – Mark Twain

(The Shamrock Volume 12, Irish National Newspaper And Publishing Company, Limited, 1874, The Shamrock, Dublin Saturday, June 19, 1875, Mark Twain On Spelling, P. 608) source

(The quote is also found here.)

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Related: There is this cautionary article on the perils of language simplification titled “MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM” [pronounced as Mayhem in the Classroom] by Dolton Edwards.

(Astounding Science Fiction, September 1946, Vol. XXXVIII No. 1, New York: Street & Smith Publications, Inc., Articles, MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards, P. 94-95) source

Incidentally, this article is also mis-attributed to Mark Twain under the title “A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling“.

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By the way, here are the variants of this spelling quote:

“You should never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.” – Attributed to Mark Twain

(Mark Twain Society Bulletin, Volumes XV, No. 2, Elmira, New York: Mark Twain Society, July, 1992, P. 6) source

(The quote is also found here.)

Note: This is taken from the then Vice President Dan Quayle who wrongly ascribed this never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word to Mark Twain.

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“I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.” – No Attribution

(The Pittsburgh Press, June 26, 1946, P. 31) source

Note: The article mentioned the epigram I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way is printed on the personal stationery of American vaudeville monologist Joe Laurie, Jr.

You can read Joe Laurie Jr.’s free 1953 book “Vaudeville From The Honky Tonks To The Palace” over here.

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“Any man who can’t think of more than one way to spell a word can’t have too good an imagination ” – Attributed to Thomas Jefferson

(Getting the Most from WordStar and MailMerge:Things MicroPro Never Told You By M. David Stone, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984, P. 139) source

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“…it is a damned poor mind that cannot think of more than one way to spell a word.” – Attributed to Andrew Jackson

(Daily News, Friday, May 18, 1945, P. 21) source

Note: Here is The New York Times article titled “JACKSON ON SPELLING, KENNEDY ON YALE” on May 19, 1985, Section 4, Page 20, with the above quote.

This is another attribution to Andrew Jackson found in “The New England Historical and Genealogical Register”, July 1882.

“The variety of ways in which Groton Town-Clerks contrived to spell the same office is marvellous to behold. Evidently, like General Jackson, they despised a man who could spell a word in only one way.”

(The New England Historical And Genealogical Register, New England Historic Genealogical Society, For The Year 1882, Volume XXXVI, Boston: The Society’s House, 1882, Addendum: Hog Reeves or Hog Constables, July 1882, P. 273) source

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“I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way” – Attributed to Mark Twain

(The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York, Sunday, May 15, 1932, column 2, P. source

Note: The article stated that the personal letterhead of American comedian Ed Wynn bears Mark Twain’s epigram: “I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way”.

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“I think a man must be an awful poor speller if he can’t spell a word only one way.” – No Attribution

(Democrat And Chronicle, Saturday, July 19, 1890, P. 4) source

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“He must be a very ignorant man who cannot spell a word in more than one way.” – Attributed to Davy Crockett

(Suggestions To Medical Writers By George M. Gould, Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Medical Publishing Company, 1900, Ch. III, Orthography, Punctuation, Pronunciation, P. 40) source

(The quote is also found here.)

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“…I have a poor opinion of a man who can not spell a word more than one way!” – Attributed to A. A. Hodge (Archibald Alexander Hodge)

(Between Two Wars, 1861-1921: Being Memories, Opinions And Letters Received By James Mark Baldwin, In Two Volumes, Volume 1, Boston, Mass: Stratford Company, 1926, Vol. I, Memories, VI, A Winter At Oxford, P. 114) source

You can read the full book here.

More Than One Way To Spell A Word Quote

Now, let’s find out how does this spurious quotation, I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way or never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word come about.

I think it is a combination from these two different sources:

The first part of the quote is taken from Mark Twain’s autobiography.

“…I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.”

(Mark Twain’s Autobiography, Volume 2, With An introduction By Albert Bigelow Paine, New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1924, Wednesday, February 7, 1906, Susy Clemens’s biography of her father.–Mr. Clemens’s opinion of critics, etc., P. 68) source

(The quote is also found here and here.)

The second part is probably taken from a news article published in The Olean Journal, August 24, 1855.

I could not locate this original article, but I managed to find the same article from another New York newspaper, The Buffalo Commercial, dated August 29, 1855.

It is about the lawyer Nyrum Reynolds of Wyoming county who was ridiculed for his poor spelling in court.

He retorted with this line:

‘the learned counsel on the other side finds fault with my writin’ and spellin’, as though the merits of this case depended upon such matters! I’m agin lugging in any such outside affairs, but I will say, that a man must be a great fool who can’t spell a word more than one way.‘

(The Buffalo Commercial, August 29, 1855, Spelling Word more than one Way, From the Olean (N. Y.) Journal, Aug. 24) source

Note: This particular line cannot be read properly here as it is from the OCR (optical character recognition) text.

You can read this full article from The Fremont Weekly Journal, October 5, 1855, column 7, on page 1.

(Here is another source of the story at: The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, Volume XVIII, Liverpool: Orson Pratt, 1856, The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, Saturday, December 8, 1855, Varieties, P. 784) source

This article when it was published from August to October 1855, the lawyer or barrister was Nyrum Reynolds of Wyoming county.

But in November 8, 1855 in “The Independent“, it not only changed from Nyrum Reynolds of Wyoming county to Hiram Runnels of Wyoming Pennsylvania.

The article had also been rewritten as the one published in the 1862 “The Ladies’ Repository, Volume 22” and the 1880 “Wit And Humor: A Choice Collection” by Marshall Brown.

By the way, there was this lawyer by the name of Nyrum Reynolds from Wyoming county.

But I am not certain about Hiram Runnels of Wyoming Pennsylvania.

The only Hiram Runnels I managed to locate online is Hiram George Runnels who was a U.S. politician from the state of Mississippi.

To conclude, never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word or I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way epigram is not by Mark Twain.