Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingswood
What accent is "thorough" spelt in? What about "trough", "though"? Do you know anyone that says "trough" as "tr -ou- *phlegm*" anymore? What about "heather", or "one", what accents are these? How about "ptarmigan"? Who says the "p" in that word? How about "colonel"? Who says both els and both oes in that word? What accent says the "b" in "debt" and "doubt"?
It's better to base the spelling standard (and it's a SPELLING standard we're discussing here, not a PRONUNCIATION standard) on someone's living speech rather than on the speech of people that have been corpses for centuries, or farcical etymological errors that have never been pronounced by anyone, ever..
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say we agree. your point is that words that rhyme should have similar spellings, no?
And yet words which rhyme for Americans don't for Brits and/or Aussies (and all possible permutations of that concept). For example, some Brits would agree that thorough rhymes with colour/color. I'm pretty sure few americans would. So how should be "improve" those spellings?