remember I'm just spittin'

CONTENT WARNING: Abuse of JSTOR, abuse of moose. Moose abuse?

From a 1906 Collier's Weekly. Text reads: "A Few Shots at the King's English: 'What Mr. Roosevelt means is to scrap the English language. He is a patriot, not a pottering philologist,' according to the London Saturday Review."

The cartoon's a reference to a minor failure of Roosevelt reform, a 300-word list of simplified spellings suggested by a committee (which included Mark Twain) and foisted upon the government printing office by presidential edict. Pretty minor, really, but the news media then—as it would now—saw the opportunity for a good laugh and went to town. Admittedly even I, Teddy's number-one fangirl, would have a hard time writing that I "sipt whisky"— if only because no one could tell whether it was Scotch. Anyway, Roosevelt had better things to do than force the issue. "It was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten."₁

This rendering of Teddy as a gunslinging academic somehow evokes Cecil Rhodes astride the continent, another brilliant, punchy image of dubious policy. If I had any legitimate claim to academia (or gunslinging) I would totally have that part of the drawing tattooed across one shoulder blade₂ ... is where I was going with this.
_________________________________
1. qtd. in Dornbusch, Clyde H. "American Spelling Simplified by Presidential Edict." American Speech 36:3 (Oct. 1961), pp. 236-238.₃
2. As it is, I am (was?) a mediocre student and not really into weapons—so I'll be confining myself to "BULLY" down my right calf₄.
3. That was an actual footnote!
4. I'm totally kidding; one of my life coaches talked me out of this long ago. Though, if you happen to be good at hand-drawn lettering and want to do a few sketches for me ...