cigaret

[Rover_KE]

As a subscriber to the American publication Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for a number of years, I've lately become aware that this smokers' item is being spelt 'cigaret'.

This is clearly an editorial policy, as authors will almost certainly write the traditional cigarette.

Is this trend unique to dellmagazines.com, or is it to be found in the output of other USA publications?

 

[SoothingDave]

It's odd to me. I've not seen it spelled like that.

 

[Skrej]

I've certainly never seen it, either. If I had, I'd have just assumed it was something that had slipped by a proofreader.

Some Google research seems to suggest it's a dated spelling, which sort of makes sense given the genre of the magazine. Aren't a lot of those stories in that publication written as hardboiled/noir?

I suppose it makes sense to use an antiquated spelling in that context.

 

[GoesStation]

Cigaret was one of the many words on the Chicago Tribune's simplified spelling list. The paper used non-standard spellings of many words for much of the twentieth century, and some other publishers adopted some of them.

I read the Los Angeles Times regularly when I lived in that city. It insisted on spelling "employee" as employe, ​which never failed to stop me in my tracks.

 

[SoothingDave]

The company my dad worked for used "employe" as well. I think it's one of those things that was supposed to save a lot of ink. It was a big company. A lot of employees. A lot of forms.

 

[Tdol]

I smoked for a few decades without ever seeing this spelling. I can't say that it would have made me feel any better about smoking.