Quote:
Originally Posted by Beestie
And the idea of spelling reform will just make it worse. First of all, what rules do you propose to use to decide how to respell a word? I suspect you are taking for granted the idea that there will not be any controversy in deciding on a uniform and all-encompassing set of rules to apply and that the application of these rules will not create a new set of inefficiencies for the descendants of English to struggle with. And what do you propose we do with the body of written work that exists in what will become "the olde spelling?" A respelling effort will just create more separation between today's English and yesterday's English.
Ironic since it is exactly that separation which is at the root of the problem you are proposing to solve.
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I do not support large changes to spelling. I am well aware that large changes to spelling would not be acceptable to the general public. This is amply shown by the indignation shown by some posters above, some of whom would rather make personal attacks than refute my more difficult points.
I do not have a particular set of rules in mind because that is something that is a work in progress.
You are incorrect when you believe I feel there won't be any controversy about the best way to decide on the changes. There are many views as to the best approach to spelling reform. These views go all the way from introducing small changes (which I advocate) to extremes such as introducing
new alphabets. And some people just like to create new ways of writing English with the same spirit of fun that kids have when making up secret codes.
Your fears about being unable to read older literature are an important concern, but these fears are unfounded. With a modest reform, the familiar shapes of words won't change that much, and the changes would be relatively few. I expect that students would be taught to read the old spellings alongside the new. This is a plausible approach because it takes less time to learn a word with an irregular spelling well enough to read it than it takes to reproduce its spelling faithfully.