Words that should be respelt

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The support for that point is not very strong, however; that is why I said at the very least -- it'll do that well, but that isn't the limit of its usefulness.

To make English spelling phonetically consistent a outrance will call for an alphabet of about forty characters -- something like, say, Unifon or Omniglot.

I'm a living example of the effectiveness of a course of phonics, Kingswood, even if you've never heard of it. My elementary school class got phonics, while my younger brothers' class a few years behind did not and it took their spelling a looong time to catch up with mine; basically we could spell, they couldn't. Not like us. Phonics is why I'm a good writer and copyeditor and tw, to cite an obvious example, is not.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

To make English spelling phonetically consistent a outrance will call for an alphabet of about forty characters -- something like, say, Unifon or Omniglot.

This is true. It is also true that adding this many new letters to the alphabet (and omitting redundant letters like q and x) would have acceptance issues with the general public. Another difficulty with a 40-character alphabet would be the complexity of the keyboard that would be required.

Yet there are grounds for considering the addition of new letters. English has six short vowels that can take stress but only five vowel letters, so adding one vowel letter would make it possible for all short stressed vowels to be written distinctly with single letters. (The short vowel without a convenient monographic representation is the vowel in "good".) It should not be necessary to add more than one letter, and this letter could be as simple as a u with an umlaut or something: ü. Some people would object to the addition of a new letter to the alphabet (and fair enough, they would not be used to it) but other people may embrace it. ("Woohoo! We're getting umlauts!")

This does not mean that any new letters would be required. Instead, English is more likely to make do with digraphs even after any reform that may take place.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I'm a living example of the effectiveness of a course of phonics, Kingswood, even if you've never heard of it. My elementary school class got phonics, while my younger brothers' class a few years behind did not and it took their spelling a looong time to catch up with mine; basically we could spell, they couldn't. Not like us. Phonics is why I'm a good writer and copyeditor and tw, to cite an obvious example, is not.

My formal education did not involve phonics, I just had a good memory for spelling. (I remember spelling Latinate words of 10 letters or so correctly in first grade.)