Incredibly after a run of forty-one years, the Chicago Tribune announced on this day in 1975 that it would be revising its style guide and discontinue the editing standards in place since January of of 1934 of offering simplified, phonetic spellings (see previously) of about eight common words, conceding that the newspaper was not making the grade when it came to came to English language conventions of putting words in print (both in headlines and copy) and wanted to cause no further confusion in the classroom, particularly for young pupils. While holding out that sanity and prescription might one day come to orthography, going forward, the paper agreed to no longer publish thru, tho and thoro for through, though and thorough—as well as rime for rhyme, fantom for phantom, sofomore for sophomore, etc.
synchronoptica
one year ago: sea birds in a hurricane (with synchronopticรฆ) plus a Schoolhouse Rock!-style explainer for Project 2025
twelve years ago: punctuation marks that failed to catch on plus downplaying the climate catastrophe
thirteen years ago: real life raiders of the lost Ark plus the debut of Star Trek: TNG (1987)
fourteen years ago: austerity measures for the German economy plus biometric punch-clocks
fifteen years ago: the reckoning of Iceland’s financial crisis
