GM changed "employee" to "employe"

[Bonnie]

Originally Posted by Daphodil

Years later, when I was working for a company that wrote manuals for the US Army, they handed down a directive to eliminate the double spacing after the end of the sentence as it would save many dollars in paper for printing if all the manuals followed this directive.

The directive specifically indicated that eliminating the double spaces after a period would serve as a cost-saving measure? (I assume you're indicating that this directive was issued by the company itself and not the U.S. Army.)

Just out of curiosity, were you by chance using a Selectric that featured proportional font?

-- Bonnie

[snopes]

There is a similar story about the state government here. Many statutes use the spelling "employe." The story I heard was that it was a cost-saving measure intended to make the statute books shorter and less expensive to print.

I've also seen references claiming that some entities directed the use of the "employe" spelling in order to minimize the chances of "employee" being misrendered as "employer," given that the "e" and "r" keys are adjacent on the QWERTY keyboard.

[katdixo]

From 1978 to 1988, The Washington Posts' official spelling was "employe." It drove me nuts every time I saw it!!

Here's a little about it. I can't link to the article because you have to pay to see the historic archive.

Stop Me Before I Spell Again; First I Took the `E' Out of Employee'-Then I Took the Heat
[FINAL Edition]
The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Washington, D.C.
Author: Robert A. Webb
Date: Jan 10, 1988
Start Page: c.05
Section: OUTLOOK
Text Word Count: 1182

Since employe first appeared in our pages in 1978, it has inspired uncounted phone calls to the ombudsmen and letters to the editor, which usually appeared under the headline "eeeeeeeee (cont'd)." Nor do the writers and callers merely express a scholarly demur. They are vicious ("an abomination"), bitter ("What do I tell my students?"), corrosive ("Please print for me your spelling of the noun that Webster's New Collegiate defines as `a blade of leather or rubber set on a handle and used for spreading, pushing or wiping liquid material on, across or off a surface, as a window") and occasionally unprintable.

[snip]

In compiling a stylebook, an editor can make make thousands of individual and arbitrary decisions about language (the Government Printing Office stylebook has 44 pages on compound words). Or the editor can go for broad rules with as few exceptions as possible. I followed the latter course, comforted by a philosophic observation in the Oxford University Press style manual: "If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad." And that was the fateful decision that led us, inexorably, to employe.

We had already determined that Webster's New World Dictionary of the American language would be our authority on spelling, with Webster's Third New International Dictionary as backup-the same dictionaries used by the wire services and The New York Times. And since variant spellings are common, our stylebook provides this general guideline:

Webster's New World lists variant spellings jointly if usage "is about evenly divided between them" but adds that "in no case is the first spelling considered `more correct.'" Variants are placed at the end of an entry if usage is less frequent . . . . When variants are coequal, The Post style is generally to use the shorter, newer or American form.

That fundamental rule decided a lot of things. Ipso facto, our spelling would be ax instead of axe, mama instead of mamma, glamor instead of glamour-and employe instead of employee.

Nor was The Post alone. The Baltimore Sunpapers, The Detroit News, The Miami Herald and The Chicago Tribune all used employe in the mid-'70s. The Tribune, in fact, went so far as to specify employe as the masculine and employee as the feminine.

Of course, we could have declared an exception for employee. The New York Times and the wire services did. And we, in fact, made exceptions for cigarette and demagogue and a handful of other words, probably because someone felt that the short forms simply looked too silly. But employe stood. The stylebook was circulated-section by finished section and then as a whole-among perhaps 20 Post editors. Dozens of changes were suggested and made, but I recall no one finger-pointing at employe.

Another revision of the Post stylebook is now in the works, and some months ago we quietly decided to return to employee when the book is issued. But with my neck now fully exposed and the assault on the barricades mounting ("Liberte'! Egalite'! Employee!"), we passed the word to the staff late last week, to my great personal relief, to restore the missing "e" forthwith. You may have spotted it already. If not, please note that The Post's official spelling of the e-word is now: Employee

[Dactyl]

Originally Posted by snopes

I've also seen references claiming that some entities directed the use of the "employe" spelling in order to minimize the chances of "employee" being misrendered as "employer," given that the "e" and "r" keys are adjacent on the QWERTY keyboard.

For me that would work the other way around. Employe could be either employee or employer with the ultimate letter missing.

[notgillcup]

This is true! I worked for a subsidiary of GM during this time. I can't confirm the exact timeframes, but I most definitely can give testimony that this did occur, and that the reason given was to save on costs in some way (I'm still not sure how leaving out a letter in a word was supposed to save anything. But they didn't consult little ole' me. ) It was ridiculous. We would say "empoly-a" as a poke at it. Wow, I had almost forgotten about that. Good times.

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

It bears noting that in the United States, at least, "employe" was not an uncommon form of "employee" in the first half of the last century. It persisted into the last half as well. (Both spellings derive from "employé" and it's not too difficult to see how this could be transformed into an accent-less form.)

Originally Posted by Dactyl

For me that would work the other way around. Employe could be either employee or employer with the ultimate letter missing.

Let's look at the French origin: employer means "to employ", "to hire", un employé is a male and une employée is a female person in your employ.

[Bonnie]

Originally Posted by notgillcup

I most definitely can give testimony that this did occur, and that the reason given was to save on costs in some way

How was this information imparted to you? In other words, was the directive to spell this word as "employe" in order to save printing costs (paper, ink, keystrokes, etc.) a word-of-mouth thing or did you ever see it printed as official policy (with the explicit explanation that this was a cost-saving measure)? I'm not doubting that the belief (or joke) that this was issued as a cost-saving measure circulated at GM, but I'm curious to know whether this particular explanation ever appeared in a corporate-issued directive.

-- Bonnie

[Bonnie]

Originally Posted by Floater

Let's look at the French origin: employer means "to employ", "to hire", un employé is a male and une employée is a female person in your employ.

The OED2 (1989) suggests that "employé" to denote an employee dates to at least the first third of the 19th century; the OED2 also describes a feminine form. In English legalese, the French "-é" was often converted to "-ee" without regard to gender of the party in question. Here's the entry for the suffix "-ee" in OED2,

used in technical terms of Eng. law, was orig. an adaptation of the -é of certain AF. pa. pples., which were used as ns. The existence in legal AF. of pairs of correlative words like apelour APPELLOR, apelé APPELLEE, seems to have led in the first place to the invention of words in -ee parallel to those agent-nouns in -or which had been adapted in legal use from AF.; and subsequently the terminations -or and -ee were freely added to Eng. vb.-stems to form ns., those in -or denoting the agent, and those in -ee the passive party, in such transactions as are the object of legislative provision. The derivatives in -ee, however, unlike the AF. participial ns. after which they were modelled, have not usually a grammatically passive sense, but denote the ‘indirect object’ of the vbs. from which they are derived. Thus vendee is the person to whom a sale is made, indorsee the person in whose favour a draft, etc. is indorsed, lessee the person to whom property is let. With still greater departure from the original function of the suffix, payee denotes the person who is entitled to be paid, whether he be actually paid or not. In a few cases the suffix has been appended, not to a verb-stem in Eng. or AF., but to a Latin ppl. stem etymologically related to an Eng. n., as in legatee, a person to whom a legacy has been bequeathed.

2. The use of this suffix in law terms has been freq. imitated in the formation of humorous (chiefly) nonce-words, as iestee, cuttee, educatee, laughee, sendee, denoting the personal object of the verbs from which they are formed.

3. In a few words, as bargee, devotee, the suffix is employed app. arbitrarily.

4. -ee also appears in the English spelling of certain ns. adopted from mod. F. ppl. ns. in -é, as debauchee, refugee.

(By the way, the OED2 suggests that "employee" to describe any worker was in place at least by the mid-19th century and that its suffix was formed in the manner described above.)

-- Bonnie

[notgillcup]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

How was this information imparted to you? In other words, was the directive to spell this word as "employe" in order to save printing costs (paper, ink, keystrokes, etc.) a word-of-mouth thing or did you ever see it printed as official policy (with the explicit explanation that this was a cost-saving measure)? I'm not doubting that the belief (or joke) that this was issued as a cost-saving measure circulated at GM, but I'm curious to know whether this particular explanation ever appeared in a corporate-issued directive.

-- Bonnie

Oh, it was in writing. Which just made the whole thing that much more unbelievable (i.e. did they spend more money and manpower generating the communication about the official spelling change than they could have saved by leaving out one letter?) It was surreal. And you have to remember that back then, most if not all official corporate communication had to be done in writing. There was no such thing as email, really. And not every employee (sorry, employe ) had access to a computer at work. In fact we (the technology folk) didn't even have PC's at that time. T1 terminals. In our subsidiary we had electronic mail of sorts, but GM-wide - paper. (disclaiming that as far as my memory serves).

I can only imagine the magnitude of the emperor-has-no-clothes sort of moment the decision to launch this must have been for those privy.

[dewey]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

The directive specifically indicated that eliminating the double spaces after a period would serve as a cost-saving measure? (I assume you're indicating that this directive was issued by the company itself and not the U.S. Army.)

Just out of curiosity, were you by chance using a Selectric that featured proportional font?

-- Bonnie

Bonnie,

I am not so familiar with the Selectric but I was a phototypesetter about 30 years ago and used some of the earliest electronic phototypesetting equipment. The reason for the single space was so that when the automatic end of lines were inserted during entry or rejustification a line following a period would not start with a space. This problem has been largely eliminated with most word-processing programs but was very real back in the 70s and 80s.

dewey

[notgillcup]

I'm going to further qualify what I said. To my recollection, the move was made as a cost saving measure, yes, but I cannot remember how exactly it was specified to us that it was supposed to save costs. In other words, I don't recall if any written communication came out saying the savings was in, ink, for instance. I think it was supposed to be some sort of aggregate savings - perhaps the combination of man-hours (the saving of time by leaving off one letter of an oft-typed word), and I guess the reduced maintenance required in handling communications that were shorter, the paper, printer wear and tear, copier wear and tear, reduced costs to distribute reduced amount (albeit by one letter of one word) of written communications, and ink. But I really can't remember if they spelled out precisely what cost was going to be saved. I do remember that the reason was to save costs (at least, that's what I took from it at the time), and that it didn't make any sense to me. I was really glad when the era of the employe was ended. I'll see if I can find any official communication from then, though.

[Dactyl]

Originally Posted by Floater

Let's look at the French origin: employer means "to employ", "to hire", un employé is a male and une employée is a female person in your employ.

The latter is only relevant if the er/ee = person who's doing it/person who it's done to* is derived from French.

*As in lender/lendee, hirer/hiree etc

[Bonnie]

Thanks, dewey and notgillcup. Your replies have been very helpful!

-- Bonnie

[notgillcup]

You're welcome. I wish I could remember better, and be of more help. Now I'm just curious myself. Why did they feel the need to spend so much money and effort to officially announce that employee is now employe? I've been googling to no avail (I didn't think I would find anything that way, but you never know.) Maybe one of these days I'll get my hands on something, but I haven't worked there in a very long time, and also have moved a few times since then. I don't tend to keep paper myself, and this certainly is the sort of correspondence I would have placed directly in the recycle bin.

I do know for sure that an official announcement was distributed in writing. And that after a few years, the practice was officially abandoned - at least in the subsidiary I worked in. I can't remember whether there was a similar written announcement for that, though. I did not work for GM itself - so perhaps only subsidiaries needed to be told how to spell employe.

[Bonnie]

Originally Posted by notgillcup

I did not work for GM itself - so perhaps only subsidiaries needed to be told how to spell employe.

Hmm, do you recall who issued the "new spelling directive," then? Was it something that was put out by the subsidiary for which you worked and passed along to its employees or did it come directly from GM (and then passed along to its subsidiary's employees)? And did your receipt of this directive coincide with GM's acquiring controlling interest in your employer or was this relationship already in place by the time you began work there?

-- Bonnie

[dewey]

Just out of curiosity I tried a test in Word to see if it would carry a second space over to the next line. As I suspected it did not. So people could type two spaces after periods if they wanted but I think that people commonly don't anymore.

dewey

[SplishFish]

Originally Posted by dewey

... So people could type two spaces after periods if they wanted but I think that people commonly don't anymore.

Unless it's the company I currently am contracting for. When I questioned this convention the only answer I got was "we always did it this way." Going by that logic, we should still be using manual typewriters.

I've seen an "Employe Handbook" that also used "employe" but never heard any justification as to why, other than it is an archaic spelling and the company was established in 1901. Unfortunately the handbook didn't have a copyright or publication date.

I should dig out that handbook, it was filled with such gems as "employes shall not leave their cages..." , and "employes shall have two weeks of vacation in the summer...".

[AnglRdr]

Originally Posted by dewey

Just out of curiosity I tried a test in Word to see if it would carry a second space over to the next line. As I suspected it did not. So people could type two spaces after periods if they wanted but I think that people commonly don't anymore.

dewey

It's how I learned to type; I'd been using a typewriter for 10-ish years before I was really using a computer regularly, so the two-spaces-after-a-period thing has stuck. I prefer how it looks, anyway.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by AnglRdr

I prefer how it looks, anyway.

The board does seem to preserve the two spaces as characters, but on the whole I'm not sure you could tell how it "looks" any more... a lot of software would strip the second space anyway, I think

(eta) I use only one space after a full stop, and I've never noticed a difference in appearance between my posts and yours. The quote function tells me that you use two spaces, as you said. It would be up to the board software (first), the browser software (second) and the OS software (third) how the double space was shown on screen, I think. If you printed the page then the printer software would have a go, too.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by Richard W

The board does seem to preserve the two spaces as characters, but on the whole I'm not sure you could tell how it "looks" any more... a lot of software would strip the second space anyway, I think

(eta) I use only one space after a full stop, and I've never noticed a difference in appearance between my posts and yours. The quote function tells me that you use two spaces, as you said. It would be up to the board software (first), the browser software (second) and the OS software (third) how the double space was shown on screen, I think. If you printed the page then the printer software would have a go, too.

It's an HTML and browser issue; generally multiple white spaces are collapsed:

Note that a sequence of white spaces between words in the source document may result in an entirely different rendered inter-word spacing (except in the case of the PRE element). In particular, user agents should collapse input white space sequences when producing output inter-word space. [emphasis mine]

Source.

Most browsers will preserve multiple non-breaking space characters, but they are not required to do so in the spec.

Nick