[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I expanded on it in my post, but here it is again: People like me who found the ideosyncracies of spelling rules intriguing and helpful when it came to remembering how a word was spelt. Greater uniformity in spelling makes for less variety, for me that would have made it harder to learn, not easier. I remembered how to spell 'see' precisely because it was different to 'sea'. As a kid I would read voraciously and often come across words for the first time. Sometimes I'd read it wrong, and have an incorrect pronuniation in my head for that word. Months or years might go by without me hearing that word, but nonetheless encountering it in print. Or I would hear someone say the word, but because they pronounced it differently I would think them two different words *chuckles* 'recipe' was one. For a long time when I was a kid I thought that was pronounced re-cype. I'd see it and that's how it would sound in my head. Then I'd get that moment of discovery when I'd find out how it should sound. I used to love that. It was like I'd found something really cool.

Still happens. oh so rarely these days, but nice when it does. When I was little there were a lot of words like that. Usually they were words that I wouldnt really need to use, but would find in books that were a little too old for me. Guarantee those are the words I will never forget how to spell.

I like the shape of the words. On the page. It's more than just symbols, they have a shape and a visual flow and rhythm. I would miss that.

It is really odd how you find it acceptable to go for years before getting a simple word with an irregular spelling right. What's worse is how you think that's more acceptable than any effort to remove the deadwood from English spelling so as to reduce the learning time for others.

You fear the making of any change because you feel that would make it harder to read for those who have mastered the traditional spellings. There are different approaches to reforming English orthography, and not all of them make large changes.

Consider SR1 (Staged Reform 1). This was a simple rule for reform: wherever a vowel was pronounced the same as the "e" in "bet", it was always spelt with "e". No other rules. This would have the effect of altering the spelling of relatively few words in running text, but every now and again one would read words like "fether" where a surplus letter had been quietly cut. While traditionalist pedants would recoil in horror at that spelling ("You can't do that! It's spelt wrong!"), there is no reason why the "feather" spelling is considered the correct one, other than force of tradition.

But in reality, it is unlikely that anyone would have difficulty recognising the word "feather" with its surplus silent letter cut. At least, not more than once.

Here's a test for you. How well can you read Hamlet's soliloquy, from the First Folio? I won't put in the long esses but this is otherwise much as it was published in 1623.

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there's the rub,
For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
When we haue shuffel'd off this mortall coile,
Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the Lawes delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare
To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,
And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution
Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Currants turne away,
And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
Be all my sinnes remembred.

How much trouble do you have reading that? Some, I'm sure: the usage of the letters u and v is not the same as we use them now. However, you should be able to read the odd spellings. Probably not with the same speed, but you won't have too much trouble recognising the words that are still in use.

If you can read that, you should have little trouble reading texts in modest reforms that only make small changes.