The most resounding byline on the Anglophobe Chicago Tribune belongs to British-born John Lucius Astley-Cock. Now 74, bushy-browed, patrician Astley-Cock has been, among many things, a Cambridge University athlete, linguist, Shakespearean scholar, psychologist and church organist. At the Trib, where he has worked since 1932, his nominal title is assistant education and religion editor. But he has done his most enduring work as the paper's doctor of philology, in charge of amputating letters from words. One day last week, Astley-Cock's byline heralded the latest additions to the Trib's simplified spelling list—one of the most formidable latitudes of Colonel Robert R. McCormick's...
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