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→Roosevelt
===Roosevelt===
===Roosevelt===
[[File:TRSpelling.jpg|thumb|370px|Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.]]
[[File:TRSpelling.jpg|thumb|370px|Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the spirits of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.]]
During his presidency, 1901-1909, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] failed in efforts to simplify the spelling of 300 common words. He (and other spelling reformers) wanted to replace "dropped" and "chased" with "dropt" and "chast", and replace "through" with "thru" and "thoroughly" with "thoroly." He tried to force the federal government to adopt the system by ordering the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt explained, "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.<ref> Henry F. Pringle, ''Theodore Roosevelt'' (1932), pp 465-7; H.W. Brands, ''T.R.: The Last Romantic'' (1998) pp555ff</ref>
During his presidency, 1901-1909, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] failed in efforts to simplify the spelling of 300 common words. He (and other spelling reformers) wanted to replace "dropped" and "chased" with "dropt" and "chast", and replace "through" with "thru" and "thoroughly" with "thoroly." He tried to force the federal government to adopt the system by ordering the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt explained, "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.<ref> Henry F. Pringle, ''Theodore Roosevelt'' (1932), pp 465-7; H.W. Brands, ''T.R.: The Last Romantic'' (1998) pp555ff</ref>