Words that should be respelt

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

English-speaking students who learn Spanish, Italian, Finnish or several other languages can achieve a greater spelling proficiency in those languages after a year of instruction than they had in English after six years or more.

I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Spanish, because I'm deep into my second semester on it and am frustrated beyond my wit's end as to how many forms there are of any given verb when compared to English. The conjugation is madness and irregular verbs/stem changers are very difficult to remember. Just like the students in my class that complain about why Spanish isn't easier, you need to realize that you can't approach a language that has been developing for thousands of years and simply request it change because you have a tough time remembering certain technical aspects of it.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Exactly my point. The journey that word has gone on tells a story. It tells us of the sensibilities and aspirations of those people who changed the word to \make it more latinate. By attempting to 'correct' the spellings, you take the place of the 'hypercorrectionists' you seek to displace.

I prefer to think of it as reducing the systematic child abuse that is spelling in English. It is only the English language that can have an annual competition to prove that all school students except one in a country of 300 million people will misspell at least one word - the National Spelling Bee of the USA.

One does not need to know the history of a word every time one puts that word to paper. Most people couldn't care less about that. How often in a lifetime does the average person need to know the history of a particular word? Maybe once or twice? How often do people just need to spell words? A lot more often than that. Most people don't know or care that the -gh- digraph was originally a letter called yogh (Ȝȝ) that was purged from the orthography by Norman French scribes who despised non-Latin letters. But I'm sure most people have had trouble learning the ten or so different ways that the ending -ough can be pronounced, and assigning the correct pronunciation to each unfamiliar word with that ending.

Most people won't shed a tear for lost history if "debt" lost its silent b. The history can still be found in a good dictionary if anyone wants it. Yet English-speaking children all over the world would not mind a bit if you told them that "frend" was now an acceptable alternative spelling for "friend". (Derived, btw, from OE "freond", via ME "frend" - so "frend" is actually a historically plausible spelling.)

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Spanish, because I'm deep into my second semester on it and am frustrated beyond my wit's end as to how many forms there are of any given verb when compared to English. The conjugation is madness and irregular verbs/stem changers are very difficult to remember. Just like the students in my class that complain about why Spanish isn't easier, you need to realize that you can't approach a language that has been developing for thousands of years and simply request it change because you have a tough time remembering certain technical aspects of it.

I didn't say that learning Spanish would be easy. If I was learning Spanish, I would also be complaining loudly about irregular verb conjugations. (I know I did when I studied French. ) I said that spelling in Spanish is easy compared to English, once you've spent some time learning the basics. Had you heard these conjugated verbs spoken out loud, you would have had a decent chance of spelling them correctly.

[Cloud]

You want to be "most people?" I do not.

English is one of the most spoken, most complex, and richest languages in the world, if not the most (Mandarin has more speakers). It will evolve on its own, without people trying to "fix" it.

[Aliantha]

Hey Kingswood, where abouts are you from anyway? You are another one of us (aussie) aren't you?

[monster]

Cellar = Sillier

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Cloud

English is one of the most spoken, most complex, and richest languages in the world, if not the most (Mandarin has more speakers). It will evolve on its own, without people trying to "fix" it.

That is happening, yes. "Thru" appears in my dictionary as a variant spelling of "through". Change in English spelling may proceed at a glacial pace, but it does occur.

Here are some more words with knotty spellings:

ptarmigan. This word is of Gaelic derivation (Scots Gaelic tarmachan), not Greek, yet it has apparently taken a silent p from another word as if it has gone home with the wrong clothes after a party.
lieutenant. Americans are satisfied with the silent i in this word. The Brits, not satisfied with this, have shown remarkable innovation with their pronunciation of this word by managing to morph a "u" into an "f". Yes, the proper way to say this word in Britain is leftenant.
colonel. Military ranks appear to be a rich source of interesting spellings. The pronunciation of colonel is like a traveller that goes from point A to point B via the scenic route.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The end result of total, rigorous phoneticization of English orthography is the expansion of the alphabet from twenty-six characters to around forty. And this will only do, if fixed and unmodified, for a century or two.

See Omniglot, and suchlike neo-alphabets. All interesting, none likely to see use.

French is even more nuts about silent letters than English is, although its usage is more regularized owing to assigning authority over usage and orthography to the Academie Francaise. [French characters omitted] We get a lot of our use of silent letters used as signals to modify the sounds of letters preceding them from the French, which has four E sounds (conveniently indicated by four diacritical marks counting an occasionally used umlaut, and the absence of a diacritical) and a silent E, used to soften C, S or G, as well as a grammatical-gender indicator.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The end result of total, rigorous phoneticization of English orthography is the expansion of the alphabet from twenty-six characters to around forty. And this will only do, if fixed and unmodified, for a century or two.

See Omniglot, and suchlike neo-alphabets. All interesting, none likely to see use.

I agree. Public acceptance of such an extended alphabet would be unlikely. The USA still does not use the metric system in everyday life for similar reasons.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

Had you heard these conjugated verbs spoken out loud, you would have had a decent chance of spelling them correctly.

Well, I'm certainly not that good, but I can say that it became even more difficult this semester as I came from a class taught by someone who spoke South American Spanish and am now being taught by an instructor that speaks the dialect spoken in Spain. Suddenly, many of the sounds became "th" where there was none, before. Spelling based upon listening to the spoken word got thrown out the window, entirely.

So, for English, what standard do we use for all these spelling changes? The north and south are going to fight over "peacon" versus "puhcon" pie, people from Bahstan will get the "idear" to have "r" swapped with "h" in many words so they can drive a "cah", and Pittsburghers are still going to put their clothes in a "worsher". Let's hope to god we never change "schedule" to "shedule" in an attempt to standardize on Queen's English, although I do agree they need to start dropping those "u"s in "colour" and "favourite".

Besides, all these words get underlined in red no matter where I type them in, so I can correct common mistakes from hearing and learn over time. Autocorrect in MS word, however, will be the dooming of us all...

[Aliantha]

It's pecan

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

If English words were art, they would be classified as belonging to the Rococo period. This is apt because the first dictionaries for English were written during the Rococo period.

This has nothing to do with the alleged "dumbing down" of America. English is spoken in many countries all over the world.

English-speaking students who learn Spanish, Italian, Finnish or several other languages can achieve a greater spelling proficiency in those languages after a year of instruction than they had in English after six years or more. Native speakers of such languages can spell any word reliably after less than two years of instruction. Does that mean their languages have been "dumbed down"? Or is that because such languages have an orthography that is easy to learn?

How does the knowledge of other languages following into increased proficiency have anything to do with being "dumbed down."? I don't get the connection.

What I'm talking about is the penchant for making everything easier. If we make words "easier" then kids will get better grades on spelling tests and we'll have smarter kids? The logic doesn't follow. I was talking about America; I actually do know that there are other English speaking cultures around the world. [/green acres]

Better yet, let's give test answers, let's not make the kids learn to do addition and subtraction without calculators, let's do everything in our power to make life easier because having to learn something is for the birds.

[DanaC]

although I do agree they need to start dropping those "u"s in "colour" and "favourite".

For why? I happen to like the 'u' in colour and favourite. Just because one of the english speaking populations doesn't use it, why change the way we've been spelling the words for centuries?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by DanaC

For why? I happen to like the 'u' in colour and favourite. Just because one of the english speaking populations doesn't use it, why change the way we've been spelling the words for centuries?

Hey, I'm just following Kingswood's suggestion and if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

What I'm talking about is the penchant for making everything easier. If we make words "easier" then kids will get better grades on spelling tests and we'll have smarter kids? The logic doesn't follow.

A quotation from The Matrix:

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Kids who don't have to waste their time on rote memorization of 500-year-old pronunciations, 600-year-old printers' typos, 700-year-old scribal conventions and other odd spellings can put their time in the classroom to another use. Would kids be smarter then?

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Better yet, let's give test answers, let's not make the kids learn to do addition and subtraction without calculators, let's do everything in our power to make life easier because having to learn something is for the birds.

Do you put a "u" into words like color, flavor, honor? Do you use -er or -re on words like center? Do you use -ise or -ize endings? Do you spell jail or gaol? If you use American spellings for these words, you are already using the products of spelling reform. Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionaries, was a supporter of spelling reform and introduced simpler spellings in early editions of his dictionaries. Some of those spellings became standard in American English.

But you seem to think that changing spelling is a bad idea. Does that mean you will also reject American spellings for such words and use the older British spellings? Maybe you would also put the silent e back onto words such as shop and run? And maybe you would also use "u" for "v" and "i" for "j" because if it was good enough for Shakespeare then it is good enough for you? And while we're at it, let's make all the kids learn them too, because we don't want them to go to school just to have a good time learning easy stuff. Let's make learning as hard as possible for our kids. Why stop at bizarre spellings? We'll make them multiply numbers using Roman numerals, learn to tell the time using a sundial, make them calculate the epicycles in planetary motions and calculate the proper number of gargoyles to place on a new building.

[monster]

So colour should really be culler? or kuller? or kulla? Should people with different accents spell things differently?

Learning to spell teaches our children a lot more than just how to spell. It teaches them about rules and exceptions to rules, it teaches them about guesswork and approximations, it teaches them about making fine distinguishments (their there they're). They learn about patterns, about symmetry (b/d p/q), about shape. They learn about sounds and how to make them. They get to experience multitasking (c) and redundance (qu).

How much of this would be lost if spelling were simplified? Is there a gain that can justify that loss? Let's simplify spelling so a simple AI program can do it. Do we really want to reduce the challenge to our children to that level? Is reducing mental obstacles really a good thing?

Spelling may seem a boring thing when you are on the learning end, but frankly, so does potty training to some kids. That doesn't mean it's not a good thing. Maybe, in some instances, the teaching approach could be improved. But then learning to deal with a little tedium is also a valuable life skill.