It's a Journalism thing; you wouldn't understand

["Doug, Data Librarian at Ext 4225" <engstromdd -at- PHIBRED -dot- COM>]

OK, gather 'round, kiddies, and hear the True Story of the origins of
"thru" and "nite" and several other perplexing spellings.  Unlike most
other bizarre variations in English, whose root cause is usually something
along the lines of, "Because Harold couldn't hold the ridge at the Battle
of Hastings," these variants originate in this century, and are largely the
work of one man.

Robert McCormick, known as "The Colonel" after his service in WWI, is one
of the great legends of the newspaper business.  Like many of his
contemporaries, he was a man of strong passions and large causes.  Sometime
after taking over the Chicago Tribune in 1910, McCormick became a believer
in phonetic spelling.  He decided to use the Tribune (in its day, the
largest-circulation daily newspaper in the country), to convert the world to
his point of view.  Dictionaries were thrown out, and were largely replaced
by The Colonel striding between copy desks and thundering "Spell it like it
sounds!!" in response to questions.

Legend has it that one day, in the midst of this crusade to reform American
spelling, he went down to the pressroom to view the daily test copy of
page one. As the sample came up from the plates, he was confronted with the
headline "Frater Sinks."

"What the hell is that?" The Colonel inquired.

"Well, it's a big boat; it went down out in Lake Michigan," explained the
editor.

The Colonel contemplated the results of his handiwork for a few moments
and announced, "Make it 'ship.'"  Then he turned on his heel and left the
room.

McCormick eventually abandoned phonetic spelling for other causes, but the
results live on as quirky variants.

Doug
ENGSTROMDD -at- phibred -dot- com