Words that should be respelt

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by monster

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

I have no qualms about words with reasonable spellings. "Color" is a reasonable spelling because it has no unnecessary silent letters and the consonants are all correct. The vowels aren't to my taste but otherwise this word is not particularly difficult to spell. I just feel that it's the words with the most bizarre spellings that could do with some TLC. Every word I have quoted as being difficult to spell satisfies one or more of the following criteria (1) has one or more unnecessary silent letters, (2) is a common exception to a spelling rule, and (3) has a spelling that is a particularly poor match to pronunciation. Other people have listed words that mostly follow these rules as well.

I see nothing wrong with finding out what words people think could do with an overhaul.

Originally Posted by monster

Learning to spell teaches our children a lot more than just how to spell. It teaches them about rules and exceptions to rules ...

Rules with exceptions grow weaker as rules the more exceptions there are. There are only four words that have an "-efy" ending instead of "-ify", so this rule is easy to learn - just teach the "-ify" rule and the four exceptions. On the other hand, "I before E except after C" only correctly predicts the spelling of about one third of words with "CEI" in them; the other two thirds of the words have "CIE" instead.

Kudos, by the way, to anyone who really knows the full "I before E except after C" rule. I don't know the proper way to phrase it, but it's something like "I before E except after C when the sound of the vowel rhymes with BEE". Many adults don't remember the bit about the vowel. When many adults cannot remember all the spelling rules, it's no surprise that many adults cannot spell.

Originally Posted by monster

... 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).

English spelling is not about guesswork and approximations (otherwise plausible yet incorrect spellings would not be stigmatised); many people do not in fact learn to make "fine distinguishments" (otherwise there wouldn't be so many people confusing "lose" and "loose", "their" and "there" and so on); the patterns often have no meaning (otherwise "tomb", "bomb" and "comb" would rhyme); symmetry of letter shape is only useful when learning to write letters, not spelling with them; learning sounds is not very useful after two years because many words cannot be sounded out using the methods taught in the first year of education; and multitasking and redundancy are only further evidence that English spelling could be in better shape than it is.

Many students also get to experience the joys of not ever becoming competent spellers in English, of being more likely to be diagnosed with dyslexia than students in other countries with more regular spelling systems, and the unbridled joy of being permanently shut out of many higher-paying fields of employment because their spelling skills are substandard.

Originally Posted by monster

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?

How many years of education does it take to become truly proficient in English spelling? Six to eight years is a rough estimate. How long does it take a child in Italy to learn to read Italian with the same proficiency? One year, maybe two. Does that mean Italian children are not challenged in the classroom? Of course not - it's just they are not challenged by the need to learn to spell in their native language. Some languages don't even have a word for "spelling".

Let's imagine that spelling was simplified. What would we lose? Good question.

The biggest risk with wholesale change would be an inability to read literature in Traditional Spelling. However, few people really read Shakespeare in the original these days. We don't study "The Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet" or need to puzzle over spellings like heauen and neuer. The spellings in reprinted literature are updated to more modern spellings. If orthographic change does occur, this will also happen to modern works when they are reprinted.

Suppose some words with redundant silent letters received alternative spellings with the redundancy removed. For some time, kids would still need to be able to recognise the older spellings so they can read older books that contained them. They may puzzle for a moment when they see "friend" instead of "frend" for the first time, but they would be able to cope. "Oh, that's just old-spell for 'frend'" they might say, then read on. Learning to recognise Traditional spellings does not take as much time as rote memorization of them.

And what would we gain? We would have higher rates of literacy, a greater percentage of people that can confidently read a newspaper after eight years of education, and less likelihood of being denied employment because someone misspelled a word in a job application.

Originally Posted by Kitsune

So you're going to teach them more by...teaching them less? What? Kids could save time in math class by using a calculator the entire time, too, but it isn't going to offer much overall improvement.

The mathematics analogy is false. It's more like having to write the number "37" as "317", "874" as "6174" and "45" means either "45" or 54" depending on context, and having to spend an entire life doing this because great stigma is attached to the practice of writing numbers more sensibly.

With more streamlined spellings, one would be able to teach the kids less and yet they learn as much. No longer would they need to learn the sound signs for the letters, then separately learn the spelling of "friend"; instead "frend" would be recognisable from the sound-signs alone and one less word needs to be learnt by rote. Do this for other common words that cause particular trouble and kids would still know how to spell the same number of words - but spend less time learning them. It's pretty obvious, really.

Some people appear to have overreacted to the idea of even considering alternative spellings for words that are most badly in need of them. The world is not going to end tomorrow just because someone had the temerity to consider dropping a totally useless silent letter from a word that one might use a dozen times in a lifetime. The sky won't fall because the latest editions of some dictionaries list "thru" as an acceptable alternative spelling for "through". The moral standards of society will not be degraded for daring to point out that some words in English are in need of better spelling.

So lighten up please.