over 18 different pronunciations for ''caramel''.

Erimir, I don't favor spelling reform at all. You should realize that no one will accept spelling reform. They'll let everyone free from jail before they reform spelling in this English language.

Quote-''And as I've said before (and something keepspellingthewayitis has never addressed) is that spelling "lock" (noun) and "lock" (verb) are already spelled the same. How are Welsh people going to be hurt if it continues to be spelled the same?''

''Are they going to be at any more of a disadvantage if, instead of spelling them both as "lock" they spelled them both as "lak" or "lok" or something? Clearly not.''

''Are they going to be better off spelling both versions as "light", they spelled both as "lite" or "layt"? Yes, because they don't have to remember to spell it with "igh".''

''So, in no cases will they be made to be worse off, and in many, they'll be better off. Still not seeing how this is a problem.''

Erimir, According to your logic we should continue to write ''close'' (close the door) and ''close'' (close to the door), ''bow'' (president's bow) and ''bow'' (bow and arrow), ''sewer'' (a person who sews) and ''sewer'' (something that collects sewage) the same way because they are already spelt the same.

Sure, I have to deal with spelling "lock" (noun) and "lock" (verb) the same but I'm use to the fact that this spelling system is not phonemic. I'm from Scotland and have a little bit of Welsh influence on my accent as well and I make the distinction between "lock" (noun) and "lock" (verb) and between ''light'' (opposite of heavy) and ''light'' (opposite of dark) by pronouncing "lock" (noun) and ''light'' (opposite of heavy) with the Welsh ''ll'' sound. In a decent phonemic spelling reform the distinction made by many Welsh English speakers between these words should be shewn.

''At any rate, as I said before, there's no need for a spelling reform to impose a distinction on everybody that only a tiny minority of speakers make.''

A decent phonemic spelling reform should shew all of the phonemic distinctions made in all English dialects regardless of how tiny the minority of speakers there are that make them. A spelling reform shouldn't only favour a few dialects but all should be included. My accent is a mix of Scottish and Welsh and I make the distinction between ''l'' and the Welsh ''ll'' sound.

Would you like it if a spelling reform didn't shew all of the distinctions that you make? Would you accept it if the Cockneys said we should ignore the distinction not made by them between ''three'' and ''free'' and that they should be spelt the same in a reformed orthography. I wouldn't.

Would you accept it if the Southern Englishmen said we should ignore the distinction not made by them between ''father'' and ''farther'' and that they should be spelt the same in a reformed orthography. I wouldn't.

I agree with keepspellingthewayitis that spelling reform is flawed. How could we rewrite all of those books that have the olde spellings still in them. Wouldn't it be much much work to rewrite all of the encyclopaedias, dictionaries etc. to match the new spelling.

I'd say that spelling is best left the way it is if it's just going to completely ignore my accent and the accents of the Scots and the Welsh.

They'd almost be better off letting all of the gaol birds escape then reforming the spelling of this English language.

Erimir, I and most Scots make the distinction between ''wine'' and ''whine'' but I do not use ''hw''. I pronounce ''whine'' with a voiceless ''w''. Keeping ''wh'' is better than replacing it with ''hw''. If you're going to replace ''wh'' with ''hw'' then you should also replace ''sh'' with ''hs''. Would you like to write ''hsip'' for ''ship''? I think you'd rather keep the spelling ''ship'' and you should do the same for ''when'' rather than respelling it ''hwen''. If you're using ''hw'' for the ''wh'' words then there's a problem because ''Huang'' (the name of a river) actually starts with ''hw'' and not a voiceless ''w'' like the ''wh'' words. ''hw'' does not shew the voiceless ''w'' better than ''wh'' does. What kind of nonsense are you trying to tell me?

I don't like spelling reform because the new orthography would look crazy. I'd rather keep the olde illogical orthography. I'd agree though that we should remove the ''b'' from ''doubt'' and ''debt'' and the ''s'' in ''island'' that were never pronounced but were inserted by some ignorant etymology.

Let's just leave our orthography alone. I amn't about to start spelling words strangely in a new phonemic orthography (especially one that ignores my accent).

"Would you like it if a spelling reform didn't shew all of the distinctions that you make? Would you accept it if the Cockneys said we should ignore the distinction not made by them between ''three'' and ''free'' and that they should be spelt the same in a reformed orthography. I wouldn't."

But you didn't notice that I said "only a tiny minority". The majority of English speakers distinguish 'th' and 'f'.

Also, fortunately for me, I make many majority distinctions: I distinguish th sounds, post-vocalic 'r's, marry/Mary, pin/pen, among others.

I have some mergers: caught/cot, latter/ladder (but not writer/rider), merry/marry, whether/weather, I rhyme father & bother.

But I'm willing to make those distinctions in writing since I know a majority or sizeable minority of speakers make them.

It is impossible to make every distinction in every dialect. You're holding reformed spelling to an impossible standard to justify keeping the old spellings, which are even further from that impossible standard.

It makes no sense at all and is selfish. You want all YOUR accent features represented, or no change at all, no matter the effect on the 99% of speakers who don't say lock (noun) and lock (verb) differently. No matter what happens to English, sorry to say, but the 'l' of lock-noun and lock-verb will stay the same since only maybe 1% of speakers make that distinction. And spelling them differently won't all of a sudden make RP speakers any less snobbish towards you. That won't change due to spelling reform, that requires something else.

In my system, "sh" is spelled 'x', like in Portuguese and Basque. "hw" is the only consonantal digraph, and "aa" is the only monophthong vowel digraph. There will be no need for such silliness as "hs". But I still see no advantage to "wh" as a digraph over "hw", other than tradition. Even so, if it bothers people that much, I'd be willing to accept spelling it as "wh". It's not that big of a deal.

Do you want to write the vowel of "write" and "ride", of "bound" and "bounty" differently to accommodate Canadian raising? How about writing in ' to represent glottal stops, such as in Hawai'i? Or putting a q (for ch in loch) in "daughter" giving "doqter" to represent Lallans? We can write "isyoo" for "issue". And since Singaporeans don't use stress accent, but rather, they assign tones to the syllables of English, we'll have to use diacritics to represent the tone (in Singlish) of each syllable of English.

Yes, it's all or none. Compromising would make a system viable, therefore it's unacceptable.

Fortunately, most people ought to be rational enough to realize that if a new system BETTER approximates their dialect, even if not perfectly, then they'd be BETTER OFF with it than keeping the TO which doesn't even closely approximate anyone's dialect, much less theirs. And actually, the system I propose doesn't represent any one dialect perfectly, although some are better represented than others.

You keep spelling "fuchsia" that way, since you'd rather keep idiotic spellings than even make one compromise.

''It is impossible to make every distinction in every dialect. You're holding reformed spelling to an impossible standard to justify keeping the old spellings, which are even further from that impossible standard.''

''It makes no sense at all and is selfish. You want all YOUR accent features represented, or no change at all, no matter the effect on the 99% of speakers who don't say lock (noun) and lock (verb) differently. No matter what happens to English, sorry to say, but the 'l' of lock-noun and lock-verb will stay the same since only maybe 1% of speakers make that distinction. And spelling them differently won't all of a sudden make RP speakers any less snobbish towards you. That won't change due to spelling reform, that requires something else.''

It is not impossible for a reformed orthography to shew all the phonemic distinctions made in all of the dialects. I'm not talking about allophonic distinctions but phonemic distinctions. It sure is possible for a spelling reform system to try to shew all of the distinctions made in all the accents.

''It makes no sense at all and is selfish. You want all YOUR accent features represented, or no change at all, no matter the effect on the 99% of speakers who don't say lock (noun) and lock (verb) differently.''

It's not selfish at all because I'd want to shew all of the distinctions made in all accents, not just the distinctions made in my accent in a phonemic spelling reform. If there's a phonemic distinction out there in some dialect that I don't make, I'd still not object to shewing that distinction in a phonemic spelling reform.

''Do you want to write the vowel of "write" and "ride" differently to accommodate Canadian raising?''

Yes, the distinction should be shewn because it's a phonemic distinction that has minimal pairs also. This so called ''Canadian raising'' occurs in Scotland as well and in my Scottish accent ''hide'' (the noun) and ''hide'' (the verb) form minimal pairs.

''How about writing in ' to represent glottal stops, such as in Hawai'i?''

Yes, the glottal stop should be represent because it actually occurs in all dialects in the word ''uh-oh''.

''It is impossible to make every distinction in every dialect. You're holding reformed spelling to an impossible standard to justify keeping the old spellings, which are even further from that impossible standard.''

''It makes no sense at all and is selfish. You want all YOUR accent features represented, or no change at all, no matter the effect on the 99% of speakers who don't say lock (noun) and lock (verb) differently. No matter what happens to English, sorry to say, but the 'l' of lock-noun and lock-verb will stay the same since only maybe 1% of speakers make that distinction. And spelling them differently won't all of a sudden make RP speakers any less snobbish towards you. That won't change due to spelling reform, that requires something else.''

It is not impossible for a reformed orthography to shew all the phonemic distinctions made in all of the dialects. I'm not talking about allophonic distinctions but phonemic distinctions. It sure is possible for a spelling reform system to try to shew all of the distinctions made in all the accents.

''It makes no sense at all and is selfish. You want all YOUR accent features represented, or no change at all, no matter the effect on the 99% of speakers who don't say lock (noun) and lock (verb) differently.''

It's not selfish at all because I'd want to shew all of the distinctions made in all accents, not just the distinctions made in my accent in a phonemic spelling reform. If there's a phonemic distinction out there in some dialect that I don't make, I'd still not object to shewing that distinction in a phonemic spelling reform.

''Do you want to write the vowel of "write" and "ride" differently to accommodate Canadian raising?''

Yes, the distinction should be shewn because it's a phonemic distinction that has minimal pairs also. This so called ''Canadian raising'' occurs in Scotland as well and in my Scottish accent ''hide'' (the noun) and ''hide'' (the verb) form minimal pairs and ''rider'' and ''spider'' don't rhyme for me either.

''How about writing in ' to represent glottal stops, such as in Hawai'i?''

Yes, the glottal stop should be represent because it actually occurs in all dialects in the word ''uh-oh''.

Caramel ~ /k@r..m..l/

Freeman - why do you write "shew" instead of "show"?

That's how people spell it in my region. ''show'' is a noun and ''shew'' is a verb in my region.

They will be shewing my favourite show this weekend.