University of Virginia Library

27. young

Alice Walker assigns the yong spellings to B and young to A. The evidence in the Paviers shows that B's treatment of young does not display a marked preference for either form. Of the thirty-six (+J18) -ou- spellings in copy, B changes eight (+J6) to -o-. On the other hand, he changes eleven (+J6) of the twenty-eight (+J8) -o- spellings to -ou-. The number of changes of -o- to -ou- has a slight numerical superiority over -ou- to -o-, but no clear-cut habit can be observed.