Spelling is ruining the English language

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Well...except I don't pronounce 'thorough' as 'thorro'. I am from the North of England; I pronounce it 'thoruh'. And in some accents 'trough' is not troff, it's truff.

These spellings were just examples so there's no need to get worked up about them. But for the record, I pronounce "thorough" the same as you, but prefer a spelling based on the American pronunciation because its kinda hard to put a short "u" at the end of a word because it doesn't naturally occur there. The spelling I demonstrated is easier to derive from the traditional spelling: cut off the last 3 letters; whereas your suggestion of "uh" involves a bit of slicing, dicing and splicing.

In both cases, the spellings I selected as examples for these words were closer to the traditional spellings than the ones you mentioned as alternatives. More on that below.

You also ducked the question about which you found easier to read. Obviously it was easier for you to nitpick some obvious examples than for you to admit the validity of my demonstration. (Which was all the more telling considering that the traditional spellings have been in your books for centuries whereas at least two of the spellings I had selected you may have never seen before.)

Originally Posted by DanaC

Which 'accent' and indeed which 'version' of English are we going to privelege in our spelling reforms? There is very little parity of pronunciation. Between countries it varies enormously. Between the regions (and indeed between towns and villages within those regions) of my tiny little island there is huge variance in pronunciation. Even the rhythms and stresses of speech are different region to region. And indeed, class to class (we have the famed North South Divide. This stuff matters).

What accent is "thorough" spelt in? What about "trough", "though"? Do you know anyone that says "trough" as "tr -ou- *phlegm*" anymore? What about "heather", or "one", what accents are these? How about "ptarmigan"? Who says the "p" in that word? How about "colonel"? Who says both els and both oes in that word? What accent says the "b" in "debt" and "doubt"?

It's better to base the spelling standard (and it's a SPELLING standard we're discussing here, not a PRONUNCIATION standard) on someone's living speech rather than on the speech of people that have been corpses for centuries, or farcical etymological errors that have never been pronounced by anyone, ever.

Some spellings are still based on living speech, such as the difference between "tow" and "toe" or "see" and "sea". These should be kept.

Originally Posted by DanaC

What about 'schedule'? It has two pronunciations: skedule and shhedule. Which do we privelege?

Whose pronunciation did we "privelege" when choosing a spelling for aluminium? Sorry, aluminum? Would you look at that, it has two spellings! Perhaps a few words may end up with two spellings, to join the 2000 existing words that already have multiple correct spellings. Variant spellings for variant pronunciations should not be overdone, but in the specific case of "schedule" variants can be accommodated if this particular word is to be respelt.

Originally Posted by DanaC

'Almond' is pronounced 'allmond' and 'ahhmond' depending where in the UK you live. Indeed it can also be pronounced allmund or allmond.

Your accent question does come up a lot even among spelling reformers. One approach that I believe can work is to use the traditional spellings as a guide, and if there's a conflict to select a new spelling that closest to the traditional spelling. Sometimes this would cause a spelling to remain unchanged. This reduces the number of changes to spelling in a systematic manner.

We can get too carried away with that approach, however. Most people do not pronounce "blood" the way it is spelt any more. Maybe a few pronounce "blood" with the same vowel as "food", but I know of no accent anywhere that still does this. Some do pronounce it with the same vowel as "good", but this is mostly found among people who also pronounce "budding" and "pudding" with the same vowel. For most of us, the two words "blood" and "flood" would make more sense if the spelling was allowed to evolve to keep up with the evolution in the pronunciation; in other words, replacing the "oo" with a "u". For people that pronounce "budding" and "pudding" with the same vowel, "blud" and "flud" fit right in alongside these words, and this doesn't do any harm to them at all. For the rest of us, we would spell "blud" and "flud" with the same vowel as we now use in "hum" and "cut", which makes more sense than the current spelling does.

Originally Posted by DanaC

Who decides which accent is 'correct' ?

Who decides what is "correct" now? You tell me that, and maybe you'll have an answer to your own question.

Originally Posted by DanaC

How do you know this? What figures do you have that you can point to that in any way back up your assertion that substantially fewer people would be disadvantaged? How can you possibly know this?

How can you possibly know that disadvantage would be great enough to make it greater than the potential advantages? How can you, without seeing any detail, form the opinion that spelling reform must create disadvantage no matter what the changes may be? How can you claim to speak for everyone when you are only going by your own experiences, and the experiences of a few people you know? That is an awfully small sample in comparison to the hundreds of millions that speak English as native speakers.