Spelling is ruining the English language

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

Please expand on this point. You claim that people would be disadvantaged by changes to spelling. Who would be disadvantaged and how?

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.

[toranokaze]

English is a an amalgamation of words from all around the world. I would love a standardize spelling but I doubt it will happen.
So for now English is a lot like traditional Chinese writing you just have to know.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

It seems K's point is that correct spelling is prohibitive to communication.

Not true for the most part. We can muddle along most of the time. However, in some cases it is easy to demonstrate that the current standard spellings are not optimum and we would be better off with some revision to standard spellings.

I remember a story a little while ago about a Canadian newsreader working for a US television network who pronounced "lieutenant" the British way (as if it was spelt "leftenant"). However, his employers wanted him to pronounce it according to the American pronunciation (he was working for a US network). To do that, they had to eschew the correct spelling on the autocues and instead use the spelling "lootenant".

This need to depart from correct spelling in this way wouldn't be necessary if the two pronunciations had two spellings to go with them. There are precedents for this in English orthography, see: aluminium/aluminum.

For some words, it is possible for them to be spoken but not transcribed without loss of meaning. Example: If one mentioned "axes" in face to face conversation, the listener would know immediately whether "axes" was the plural of "ax" or "axis", but the reader won't know unless context was supplied. Maybe 30 words cannot be disambiguated readily because both meanings are nouns or both verbs.

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Have you tried reading K's posts? I can't understand a freaking word.

That's not my problem.

[Shawnee123]

For some words, it is possible for them to be spoken but not transcribed without loss of meaning. Example: If one mentioned "axes" in face to face conversation, the listener would know immediately whether "axes" was the plural of "ax" or "axis", but the reader won't know unless context was supplied. Maybe 30 words cannot be disambiguated readily because both meanings are nouns or both verbs.

If you're reading a single word, with no context whatsoever, it's irrelevant whether it's the plural of, using your example, ax or axis. Unless you're at Home Depot and can't remember if the word on the paper is to remind you to pick up a couple axes, in which case there is context.

That's not my problem.

It's not really mine either. (Oh wait, did I mean mine as in "belongs to me" or "someplace to get coal and stuff"?)

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

If you're reading a single word, with no context whatsoever, it's irrelevant whether it's the plural of, using your example, ax or axis. Unless you're at Home Depot and can't remember if the word on the paper is to remind you to pick up a couple axes, in which case there is context.

How would you know that it is always irrelevant? How do you know that context is always available?

[classicman]

If the context is missing then it is the fault of the speaker/writer, not the listener/reader.

[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.

[DanaC]

Honestly? I have absolutely no problems whatsoever reading that soliloquoy in it's original. I similarly have very little difficulty reading Chaucer in the original middle-english.

Also, I wasn't saying that I 'fear' any changes. Nor was I saying that I 'fear' them because I : 'feel that would make it harder to read for those who have mastered the traditional spellings.' As it stands, I wouldn't have any problems reading under the new spelling system. I have learned to read and decode language in a variety of forms. I may, however, have found it harder to master when I was learning to read.

I was making a comment about learning styles. It's something I recognise in my own way of learning: ideosyncracies make it easier for me to spot patterns. I was also drawing on my experience of teaching functionally illiterate adults to read.


For some of those adults, the inconsistencies in spelling made for profound difficulties in learning. For some others it made it easier. My point is this: whatever system you come up with, whatever changes are wrought in our spelling, or indeed in the way we teach, it will advantage some and it will correspondingly disadvantage others. For some of the people I taught, your system would have made all the difference. For others, and this counts for both my students and myself, it would have placed an additional stumbling block in their place.

It's not about what people already know (although, that does suggest that several millions of people would suddenly find their own understanding of their language made arbitrarily obsolete), it's about how people learn.

You are positing this as the solution to people's difficulties in learning to spell (amongst other things). I am saying to you, that in my experience, that is unlikely to be the case. It will help some and hinder some. And then you'll be left with a bunch of people who find it difficult to learn to read and recognise words for whom the old system would have been a breeze...and some people who'd have had difficulty before would find it somewhat easier.


Essentially, you are suggesting we replace one flawed and problematic system with another equally flawed and problematic system. We would simply be swapping one set of problems for another.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

How would you know that it is always irrelevant? How do you know that context is always available?

These questions make no sense. OK, I'll play. Show me an example, one word on a piece of paper, with no context whatsover, where you would be completely confused as to the meaning of that word and that knowing the meaning of that word is essential for any purpose. I contend that if no context exists (and this is your argument, I think there is always context) then the meaning of the word is irrelevant. It is, then, only an arrangement of letters.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat a smilie.

[classicman]

oh oh oh - can I play too?
Here is your word....

practice

[Shawnee123]

Yeah...and what do you need to know about that word?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Show me an example, one word on a piece of paper, with no context whatsoever, where you would be completely confused as to the meaning of that word and that knowing the meaning of that word is essential for any purpose.

Originally Posted by classicman

practice

Just trying to play along ... sorry if this was strictly a 2 player game.
Either way - I 'm out.

[monster]

Does Kingswood rhyme with Kings Food? if not why did the OP choose this as a username?

[Clodfobble]

He really meant "Kingswould."

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by classicman

Just trying to play along ... sorry if this was strictly a 2 player game.
Either way - I 'm out.

What do you mean you're out? You were well on the way to helping me make my point. Could you not answer the question?