The great authority of Webster was sufficient to establish the American pronunciation of /schedule/. In England the /sch/ is always given the soft sound, but Webster decided for the hard sound, as in /scheme/. The variance persists to this day. The name of the last letter of the alphabet, which is always /zed/ in English, is usually made /zee/ in the United States. Thornton shows that this Americanism arose in the eighteenth century. FOOTNOTES: [1] Bristed was a grandson of John Jacob Astor and was educated at Cambridge. He contributed an extremely sagacious essay on The English Language in America to a volume of Cambridge Essays published by a group of young Cambridge men; London, 1855. [2] Vol. i, p. vi. [3] Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling; Philadelphia, 1768. [4] Dec. 26, 1789. The Works of B. Franklin, ed. by A. F. Smyth; New York, 1905, vol. i, p. 40. [5] /The Druid/, No. 5; reprinted in Witherspoon's Collected Works, edited by Ashbel Green, vol. iv; New York, 1800-1. [6] /Vide/, in addition to the citations in the text, the /British Critic/, Nov. 1793; Feb. 1810; the /Critical Review/, July 1807; Sept. 1809; the /Monthly Review/, May 1808; the /Eclectic Review/, Aug. 1813. [7] 1815, pp. 307-14; reprinted in his Remarks on National Literature, Boston, 1823. [8] American English, /North American Review/, April, 1883. [9] A number of such Indian words are preserved in the nomenclature of Tammany Hall and in that of the Improved Order of Red Men, an organization with more than 500,000 members. The Red Men, borrowing from the Indians, thus name the months, in order: /Cold Moon/, /Snow/, /Worm/, /Plant/, /Flower/, /Hot/, /Buck/, /Sturgeon/, /Corn/, /Travelers'/, /Beaver/ and /Hunting/. They call their officers /incohonee/, /sachem/, /wampum-keeper/, etc. But such terms, of course, are not in general use. [10] A long list of such obsolete Americanisms is given by Clapin in his Dictionary. [11] An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations....; Phila., 1818. [12] /Cf./ Hans Brinker, by Mary Maples Dodge; New York, 1891. [13] (/a/) A chest of drawers, (/b/) a government office. In both senses the word is rare in English, though its use by the French is familiar. In the United States its use in (/b/) has been extended, /e. g./, in /employment-bureau/. [14] From /Sint-Klaas/--/Saint Nicholas/. /Santa Claus/ has also become familiar to the English, but the Oxford Dictionary still calls the name an Americanism. [15] The spelling is variously /sauerkraut/, /saurkraut/, /sourkraut/ and /sourkrout/. [16] /Cf./ The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol. i, pp. 14 and 22. [17] The American origin of this last word has been disputed, but the weight of evidence seems to show that it was borrowed from the /rapides/ of the French Canadians. It is familiar in the United States and Canada, but seldom met with in England.