A short editorial battle ensued the other day. I corrected a couple of typos in my esteemed colleague's article, including one elective typo: the first letter "e" in the word judg(e)ment. It had been included, and I endeavored to omit it. A few hours later, it had returned. Again, I removed it, only to repeat the measure once more.

My preference has always been to omit the initial "e" for one simple reason: my 1L Civil Procedure professor told the class that "there is no 'e' in the word judgment - wait, I mean there is only one 'e'".

Maybe he would have been willing to spell it "judgmnt", but I took his statement to be an old-guard viewpoint. Ever since, I have always made a point to refrain from inserting the first "e".

I then set out to write this entry, and in doing so consulted my favorite authority: Fowler. Much to my surprise, it was not the double-"e" variety which was the cultural upstart, but rather "judgment".

From Fowler's Modern English Usage:

Modern usage, however, favors judgment; judgement is the form sanctioned in the Revised Version of the Bible, & the OED prefers the older & more reasonable spelling. (emphasis added)

It has long been my preference to preserve the antiquated spellings of words, but only so long as the battle is still being waged in my lifetime. The battles for "theatre" and "shoppe" were lost long before my day. These spellings now serve to apply a quaint touch when invoked by modern scribes.

While the emergence of "judgment" certainly predates my existence, its supplantation of "judgement" is far from complete. Further, if Fowler and the OED endorse "judgement," then that is the spelling that shall henceforth carry the day - for me, at least.

However, perhaps this opinion is elitist rather than preservationist. The Simplified Spelling Society takes the following view:

Over the centuries the pronunciation of English has moved farther away from the spelling. Many languages have reformed their spelling to adjust to such changes, but English has not. Traditional English spelling therefore makes the task for learners more difficult and results in a lower level of literacy.

It appears that the silent "e" is nothing more than a thief in the night that robs our nation of literacy. Perhaps the need for lawyers may some day become obviated by such a widespread phenomenon as literacy.

A noble cause indeed, this literacy. But as long as there are lawyers and legislators writing the laws and interpreting their meanings, that day will not likely come. Lawyers are perhaps in the best position to make themselves indispensable by performing their responsibilities convolutedly - the opposite of planned obsolescence.

A friend of D. Maizenberg’s once told him that you do not need to be a doctor or a lawyer, but you need to know how to talk to them. Those two professions, medicine and law, hold the keys to what we value most: life and liberty. This advice has since been modified into the following axiom: You need to know how to talk to “the man,” and you need to know how to talk to the “medicine man.”

Whether you need to know how to spell like a doctor or an attorney remains to be seen.