Spelling is ruining the English language

[The Teapot]

The problem is people see two extreams.

Either you have a stagnent, strict, conservative language, in which you preserve the meanings and thus protect yourself from the 'slippery slope' of communicative collapce.

On the other hand you have the everything goes aproach, in which you avoid the counter productive and pointless dogma of literacy, but can lead to some serious comunication problems.

Anyone who read Lord of the Rings at twelve can tell you that you can only read 'thou' so many times before the desire to scratch out your own eyes begins to overpower.

However, as I see it language evolves and there is nothing you can do about it. You can have in place structures to slow the mutation of words, but eventualy you're going to have a language in writing that doesn't make any sence in comparison to the verbal one.

I think the fear that its all going to become uninteligable is silly, because if people don't understand, it isn't going to pass on its message, which puts a natural cap on how much language can change.

Lets not worry too much about being 'right'.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by The Teapot

Anyone who read Lord of the Rings at twelve can tell you that you can only read 'thou' so many times before the desire to scratch out your own eyes begins to overpower.

Doesn't happen a lot in LOTR, though. I think the boss Nazgûl says it, just once. A better example might be the Book of Mormon. I finished LOTR the first time at fifteen, and only regret that I did not first read it at twenty-one, when I enjoyed and appreciated its literary depth so much more. A twelve-year-old might get twitchy with LOTR's slow start, but the trilogy amply repays the mature reader.

uninteligable

You've just managed to make that word unintelligible to the ear. You're forcing it to rhyme with "gable" or perhaps the Monty Python "un-sing-ABLE." A G followed by an A will be hard, the improbably-spelt "gaol" being the only exception I can think of. Also a spelling I almost never use.

Lets not worry too much about being 'right'.

Clearly you don't -- but I recommend that you worry a little harder. The absence of the tadpole in the contraction Let's is bothering me, and really, it's no effort to get contractions right, nor spelling either.

Let's not worry too hard about Kingswood being stubborn about this, either. I can think of worse hobbyhorses to ride, and if this is his, it's still a reasonably amusing couple of laps around the carousel.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Let's not worry too hard about Kingswood being stubborn about this, either. I can think of worse hobbyhorses to ride, and if this is his, it's still a reasonably amusing couple of laps around the carousel.

The only stubbornness in this thread are those people who get too precious when their views on the immutability of spelling are challenged, and who resort to puerile name-calling and other gutter tactics when they cannot refute a point any other way.

I could have done the same quite easily. However, I did not. It's clear where the moral high ground lies, and it is not with those who chose to demonize rather than refute.

Is it wrong to point out that some words in the English language have spellings that are demonstrably flawed? No. It's a shame that some people here simply cannot handle having this pointed out to them.

Is it wrong to question authority or challenge orthodoxy? No. If we never did this, women would not have the vote in any country and citizens of the USA would still be British subjects, being taxed without representation.