Found at The College Writing Programs, University of California, Berkeley — ‘we commenced wrighting &c.’ —
In an age when spelling was haphazard at best and even the well- educated Thomas Jefferson sometimes wrote “knolege” for “knowledge,” William Clark stood out as a discoverer of orthographic possibilities hitherto unknown. For example, who but William Clark could take the five-letter word Sioux and spell it in no less than twenty-seven different ways? (“Scioux,” “Seauex,” “Seeaux,” “Soux,” and “Suouez” are just a few of his renderings, with perhaps the most bizarre being “Cucoux.”) Who but William Clark could relish the taste of “Water millions” fresh from the gardens of the Oto tribe, swat pestiferous “Muskeetors” along the Missouri, gratefully “bid adew to the Snow” after crossing the Bitterroot Range, and, wonder of wonders, come upon the tracks of “bearfooted Indians” in the wilderness of the Northwest? And who but William Clark could transform an ordinary sentence into a classic howler by writing, as he did on the day the expedition set out, “Many of the Neighbours Came from the Countrey Mail and feeMail”? (One can only wonder whether he referred to the distribution of letters among the men as “male call.”)
Because Clark had little, if any, formal schooling, he spelled many words phonetically, and in this his ear was often true. Thus, celestial navigation understandably entailed taking “Looner” observations, a tribe of Indians spoke with a different “axcent,” he was entertained by “10 Musitions playing on tambereens,” a sailing ship could be either a “Slupe” or a “Skooner,” and the Pacific was an “emence Ocian.” On the other hand, his ear frequently failed him, and this was when he demonstrated his remarkable gift for picturesque inventions. An umbrella became an “Humbrallo,” a naturalist became a “natirless,” a botanist became a “Botents, and a duct in the digestive tract of a candlefish became an “alimentary Duck” In addition, some hard-bargaining Indians “tanterlised” him, other Indians lived in houses built in “oxigon” form; beaver swimming in a river made a “flacking” noise, the Yankton Sioux wore “leagins and mockersons,” he and Captain Lewis “assended” a hill, and, among the choicest of all his malapropisms, two rifles were damaged when they “bursted near the muscle.”
When it came to spelling the names of people and places, Clark abided by Emerson’s maxim that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Although he never surpassed himself in the number of variations he discovered in the word Sioux, he did manage to take the last name of Toussaint Charbonneau, one of the expedition’s interpreters and the husband of Sacagawea, and spell it at least fifteen different ways, not once correctly. (“Chabonat,” Chabonee,” and “Shabowner” are a few of his creations, with the closest to the mark being “Charbono.”) Admittedly, the French Canadian’s name is not easy to spell, but one would expect the simple last name of Clark’s longtime friend and co-commander of the expedition to have been inviolate. Yet even here Clark spurned consistency, on one occasion referring to Captain Lewis as “Cap Lewers” and on another naming what is now called the Salmon River “Louis’s river.”
The whole essay is worth a click.
