Hoo wunts speling too chaenj?

Oh, this is new. When you don't put your name at the top the software calls you "Guest". It used to just give you an error message. That explains why there are so many "Guest"s here these days. Anyhow, I posted the above in error here's what I'd meant to have written.

I'd written "I second Lazar's thauts." except for one. I'd find it hard to tolerate the extension of the American <l> doubling. I'd rather abolish it altogether.

This would be the easier step: settle on the Commonwealth form (with respect to these double <l>s). The Commonwealth form is consistant here already. Why introduce a third alternative?

"Jim," askes RFK "wie doent ue wunt speling too chaenj. Wuudunt it leed too guud benufits? Such az geting rid uv thu needlis sielunt ''gh's'', and thu nonsensikul spelingz liek 'one', 'two', 'sugar', 'chauffeur', 'phlegm' etc." RFK, you know, it 's the bad benufits that I'm concerned about.

Writes Al "you can't remove the double 't' from 'putt' as that would leave 'put' which has a different meaning and pronunciation." Just to be smart: if you remove the double "t", you end up with "pu". No, you're right, Al. However if first you rewrite "put" as "poot", then it would be possible.

I've done it again. Those two "Guest"s above are I.

Remember what happened when they started to "reform" our German language a couple of years ago. Meanwhile everything is mixed up and many of the newly created spelling rules don't make any sence at all. Besides, very few people know them and even fewer keep to them, including myself.

I heard the Dutch give their spelling system a spring cleaning each year. If we needed to do that to English it would be more than a spring clean it would be a full overhaul of the whole English spelling system.

Of course it would be beneficial especially to Non native speakers but whatabout existing speakers? Or the fact we need to take into considersation of the multiple English accents out there when deciding new spellings.

Personally I would prefer for the existing English spellings to be retain or I wouldn't mind a slow phase of introducing new spelling for words not a complete overhaul of the system in one go.

The "-ea-" as in "feather" should be spelled as "-e-".
ex. dedd, endevor, fether, hevy, insted, ledd, lether, mesure, relm, thred, weppon

The "ear-" as in "learn" should be spelled as "er-".
ex. derth, ern, ernest, erth, lern, perl, serch

<<You do understand that there is enough internal variation inside German to consider it an entire language group unto itself>>

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but yes, I do realise that ... and I also realise more importantly that mutual intelligibility is neither a necessary nor a sufficient critereon to distinguish between languages. Much more importantly is society, and what it considers to be separate languages.

<<Personally I would prefer for the existing English spellings to be retain or I wouldn't mind a slow phase of introducing new spelling for words not a complete overhaul of the system in one go. >>

Yes, Helen and I think that's been happening to the English language over time without any "reform." I often notice, in informal communications such as this forum, and in emails more and more of us are using "kinda" for "kind of." I imagine that "kinda" will gradually be "accepted." And then we have the "alright," "all right" debate but I suspect that "alright" will win in the end. It's easier and that's how language changes.

I don't think it would be wise to try to "reform" English in one swoop. I can't imagine it would ever fly, at least not in the US. How many times have they tried to make us change over to the metric system?

***I imagine that "kinda" will gradually be "accepted.""***

Not in the United Kingdom it won't! Not officially anyway. In txt msgs yes bt thts abt all..wot hppns in othr Eng spkng cntries is kinda thr busnss.

>>Yes, Helen and I think that's been happening to the English language over time without any "reform." I often notice, in informal communications such as this forum, and in emails more and more of us are using "kinda" for "kind of." I imagine that "kinda" will gradually be "accepted." And then we have the "alright," "all right" debate but I suspect that "alright" will win in the end. It's easier and that's how language changes.<<

The thing about "kinda", "sorta", and "alright" is that they are less new spellings than new words altogether, the matter being that they are more than the sum of their parts. "Kinda" and "sorta" are often used adverbially in a manner that one could never do with "kind of" and "sort of" proper, were one to actually treat "of" as a separate word, and similarly, "alright" is not synonymous at all with "all right", but rather is distinct from it both in pronunciation and in meaning. Consequently, there is likely to be more impetus to actually accept these in the long run in writing than orthographic changes affected other things, as these are orthographic changes that actually correspond to changes in usage, meaning, and in the case of "alright", pronunciation, which are distinct from the original versions of such.

<<***I imagine that "kinda" will gradually be "accepted.""***

Not in the United Kingdom it won't! Not officially anyway. In txt msgs yes bt thts abt all..wot hppns in othr Eng spkng cntries is kinda thr busnss. >>

Well! But here in the stupid old US of A, I think it will be, thank you very much. And haven't I seen you use "kinda" Damian?

If some peeple continue using simplifyed spellings persistently, they will be gradually accepted. Like gender-free terms are accepted.

Al Tue Dec 13, 2005 10:16 pm GMT
''<<The reason why "egg, odd, err" have doubled consonants is because English, at some point in its history, developed a prohibition against 2-letter words that were not function words. I'd like to drop this prohibition in order to make consonant doubling patterns more consistent.>>

Lazar,

Also:

add - ad

mitt - mit

mutt - mut''

If you omit the d in add, you're get ad, a very different meaning.

add: to add

ad: abbreviated form of advertisment.

mitt with omited t would look like german 'mit' = with

mutt: with omited t can easily become mud!

If there are just 26 letters in english alphabet, and if words should not be to long, then there's only a relatively small amount of words possible.

Nowadays, the amount of things and facts to be named increases exponentionally, we use acronymes which resemble ordinary words to play with words to show to others that we are able to do so, that we are ''intelligent'', that we can handle complex layers of meaning. In doing so, our language becomes more and more difficult to understand even if the orthography is simplified. The ''orthographic distance'' form one meaning to another decreases if words are simplified and shortened. Changing one letter will then more likely change the meaning of a word or even a sentence. In the exemple of add vs. ad, the meaning of ''to add'' and ''advertisement'' would merge. Communicating therefore will become more difficult, the amound of misunderstanding amongst people will increase, especially beneath harsh conditions. Note that between speaker and listener, between writer and reader, too, there's a channal the message must pass through, so if it gets demaged during transmission, the meaning will more likely not be able to be restored because of the lack of redundancy introduced by simplifying reforms. The reform enthousiasts forget about that! Try to read the reformed texts in this and other treads. For the ones able to read ''classical'' english orthography, it is quite hard to get what the writer means. If you were forced to read a book like Harry Potter in reformed orthography of every kind, you surely would complain.

Words and syllables are resources, we should not waste them for ridiculous and unnescessary orthographic reforms.

The prohibition about 2-letter-non-functional-words does make sense, it helps to easily get the structure of a sentence. (Short words: grammatical information, longer ones: content! Even if you should not read for content as a beginner, a skilled reader or a native speaker will do so and reconstruct the information automatically.) Actually, I never heard about this prohibition before, but it's very interesting.

>>If some peeple continue using simplifyed spellings persistently, they will be gradually accepted. Like gender-free terms are accepted.<<

Jes, but iz mier simpliffikkeesjin oal dhaet ju woant hier? Djust bikkuz sumthing iz "simpyl" duz not mien dhaet it iz sistimmaettik. Dha maeter iz dhaet simpli raesjinnyllaizing spellingz individjuylli rizzoalt in sumthing dhaet iz truli raesjinnyl, hweer wun kaen kunvert hau sumthing iz speld derrektli intu foniemz in hwat foorm uv dha leenggwidj dhaet dha oorthograffi waz dezzaind foor. Uv koors, hwat dhiez foniemz aar iz annudher maeter untu itself, and tjuzing oor dizzaining hwitj spietj foorm dha oorthograffi wil reprezzent iz moost deffinnitli e nontriviyl taesk in dha veri liest.

''Messages in bad English ("i like help you , becouse , us bery important for mi lern more english. send my one email place"). If you make a lot of mistakes, you shouldn't be writing in English, because you will only reinforce your mistakes.''

According to that rule, you are not allowed to post texts in orthographically raped Englisch!

'Slong as ye no wotsbinsaid, 'sdifference?