Spelling reform idea.

<<Compound words are written as one, rather than separately. For example, the compound word "White House" would be <Hwait'hauss>, but the adjective-noun pair "white house" would be <hwait hauss>.>>


Travis, So if I'm right these would be written as:

fire drill = <fairdril>
fire alarm = <fairalaarm>
smoke alarm = <smookalaarm>
smoke detector = <smookditekter>

Christmas tree = <Krismastri>

swimming pool = <swimmingpuul>

chewing gum (the compound as distinct from the present particle of chewing gum) = <chuinggum>

dental floss = <dentylfloass>

american nic, my original system was less complex, primarily due to representing a simpler phonemic system, and was made significantly more complex by working in provisions for /Q/, /V/, /3`/ and so on which were not originally needed for its original narrow range of target dialects. Another thing that made it more complex is that I decided to treat vowels before /r\/ as separate from other vowels, due to the phonology of various vowels in such positions in NAE dialects. But the real underlying reason for its massive complexity is that it has been designed to deal with having diacritics being unavailable to it, without overusing digraphs and trigraphs for vowels, while at the same time maintaining a visual profile not that different from those of Dutch and German.

All the doubling crap would be unnecessary if I could just stick diacritics on vowels or use symbols like "æ" or "ø" to effectively make the number of vowel symbols available much larger than the original six and to reduce the need for digraphs and trigraphs for consonants. However, I have always wanted to avoid simply looking ad-hoc from a design standpoint, so hence the only new characters I at all wanted to add were "đ", "þ", and maybe "æ", and the only diacritics I really wanted to use were acutes, umlauts (if "æ" were not to be used), and possibly graves; as whole the use of "s"+hacek and "z"+hacek would be technically elegant, they would have the effect of making this look somewhat like a Slavic language orthography, and would look especially weird if combined with "đ"s, "þ"s, "æ"s, or letters with umlauts.

And actually, at least here, the term "hot water heater" is used alongside the term "water heater", just for the record.

>>Travis, what about /r=/? It exists in accents like mine that distinction ''metre'' /mitr=/ and ''meter'' /mit@`/ and don't rhyme ''acre'' /ekr=/ with ''braker'' /brek@`/. It looks like your system doesn't have any provisional way to distinguish /r=/ and /@`/? A way to write /r=/ would be needed in order for me to represent my accent.<<

One provisional way to write such, if one really needed to distinguish such from /@`/, would be as <yr>/<yrr>, along the same lines as <yl>/<yll>. It's interesting though that you a distinction between the two, as for me /r=/ is just an older way of indicating /@`/ notationally, which is not used today in IPA or X-SAMPA, even though it is still used in some systems like the Americanist system; you then must be thinking about similar things in French and like. Anyways, I haven't heard of any such a distinction in *any* English dialect before right now. Also, you really have been making my orthography far, far more complex since you started commenting on it, by requiring the addition of all sorts of things for handling cases that I'd barely even heard much of before then - heh.

>>fire drill = <fairdril>
fire alarm = <fairalaarm>
smoke alarm = <smookalaarm>
smoke detector = <smookditekter><<

Close:

"fire alarm" : <fairallaarm>
"smoke alarm" : <smokallaarm>
"smoke detector" : <smookdettekter> <smookdittekter>

>>Christmas tree = <Krismastri>

swimming pool = <swimmingpuul>

chewing gum (the compound as distinct from the present particle of chewing gum) = <chuinggum>

dental floss = <dentylfloass><<

Close again:

"chewing gum" : <tjuïnggum> (this case needs a diaeresis for disambiguation, to separate /uI/ from /U/)

Actually, another change:

"Christmas tree" : <krissmastri>

I am trying to maintain the pronunciation you're using, as here it would be <krissmistri>; also note that this is being lowercased due to being a name for something for which the proper name mentioned does not itself refer, as the holiday would still be <Krissmass> or <Krissmiss>.

travis, how would ''growworm'' come out in your system? would it be ''gloowerm/glooweurm''? how about ''going'' vs. ''boing''? how are those distinguished in your spelling system? ''going'' and ''boing'' don't rhyme so how would you spell them? how about ''reenter''? how is that spelled? it can't be ''rienter'' because that would be read as /rint@`/.

It's logical to write "Inglish" instead of "English

I pronounce it "Henglish".

>>travis, how would ''growworm'' come out in your system? would it be ''gloowerm/glooweurm''? how about ''going'' vs. ''boing''? how are those distinguished in your spelling system? ''going'' and ''boing'' don't rhyme so how would you spell them? how about ''reenter''? how is that spelled? it can't be ''rienter'' because that would be read as /rint@`/.<<

"glowworm" would probably come out as <glooweurm> if you tried a broad approach, or just <gloowerm> in my own dialect. As for "going" versus "boing", "going" would be <go'ing> and "boing" would be <boing>. Note that I would normally use a diaeresis on the <i> in in <go'ing>, but I cannot write diaeresises on letters on the machine I am currently using (an Internet kiosk that I have no control over the local settings of). As for "reenter", that would be <ri'enter>, for which the same thing about diaeresises applies.

<<One provisional way to write such, if one really needed to distinguish such from /@`/, would be as <yr>/<yrr>, along the same lines as <yl>/<yll>. It's interesting though that you make a distinction between the two, as for me /r=/ is just an older way of indicating /@`/ notationally, which is not used today in IPA or X-SAMPA, even though it is still used in some systems like the Americanist system; you then must be thinking about similar things in French and like. Anyways, I haven't heard of any such a distinction in *any* English dialect before right now. Also, you really have been making my orthography far, far more complex since you started commenting on it, by requiring the addition of all sorts of things for handling cases that I'd barely even heard much of before then - heh.>>

In my speech, I tend to have /r=/ wherever the spelling in traditional orthography is <re'' as in ''acre'' and ''metre'' and I have /@`/ wherever the spelling in traditional orthography is <er> in an unstressed syllable as in ''better'' and ''theater''.

For me, ''meter'' is /mit@`/ and ''metre'' is /mitr=/.

So I guess those would become <miter> and <mityr> in my accent, right?

Also, how would you spell ''lightyear''? If you spelled it <laitjier> it would look like ''light cheer'', so I guess it would be <lait'jier>, right?

travis, how would your system spell ''mankind'' if you're using ''nk'' for /Nk/. ''mankind'' is pronounced /m{nkaInd/ not */m{NkaInd/ (or at least in my accent.) Also, as ''l'' said, how would it represent dialects without the meter-metre merger (such as my own)?

also, did <tjuïnggum> become <tjuinggum> in your system because you change <ui> to <uo> for /U/.

Also, how would you respell ''misspell''? I guess it would have to be <missspel> because your using ''s'' for /z/ and ''ss'' for /s/ after vowels, but that looks strange because of the triple ''s''.

As for how I would spell the aforementioned words, they'd be:

"meter" : <miter> : /"mit@`/ -> {"mi.4@`]
"metre" : <mityr> : /"mitr=/ -> ["mi.4r=] (assuming a /@`/ - /r=/ contrast)
"light year" ; <lait'jier> : /"laitjIr\/ -> ["5@I?.jIr\] (assuming a merged /ir\/ and /Ir\/)
"manking" : <maen'kaind> : /"m{nkaInd/ -> ["m{~:N.kaI~nd] (assuming separate /nk/ and /Nk/ but also assuming /nk/ -> [Nk] assimilation)
"chewing gum" : <tjuïnggum> : /"tSuINgVm/ -> ["tSu.IN.gVm] (assuming a /@/ - /V/ contrast)
"misspell" : <misspel> : /mIs"spEl/ -> [mI."s:pE:5]

Note that "misspell" is spelled differently than you would guess, because /s/ between a vowel and an unvoiced consonant is spelled <s> not <ss>, and also <s> does not double like most single character consonants, so hence the <ss> here actually represents /ss/ due to preceding an unvoiced consonant.

Ack, I meant <tjuinggum> for "chewing gum" as, yes, the diaeresis is not needed for it anymore.

So, if I'm right, this sentence in your system:

''I went to buy some acres of land to build my house by and then parked my car by the parking meter.''

Would become:

''Ai went tu bae sum eekyrz uv laend tu bild mae hauss bae aend dhen parkt mae kaar bai dha parking mieter.''

Assuming the lack of the meter-metre merger.

Also, do you have any provisions for representing any of these distinctions:

The ''fern''-''fir''-''fur'' merger: /E`/ vs. /I`/ vs. /3`/

examples:

fern - /fE`n/

herd / heard - /hE`d/

fir - /fI`/

bird - /bI`d/

burn - /b3`n/

fur - /f3`/

The ''vane''-''vain''-''vein'' merger: /e/ vs. /{I/ vs. /eI/

Merged everywhere except for parts of Northern England and Wales.

Examples:

vane - /ven/

Sundae - /sVnde/

cafe - /k{fe/

break - /brek/

vain - /v{In/

day - /d{I/

vein - /veIn/

they - /DeI/

The ''toe''-''tow'' merger: /o/ vs. /oU/

Merged everywhere except for parts of Northern England and Wales.

toe - /to/

tow - /toU/

dough - /doU/

sole - /sol/

soul - /soUl/

groan - /gron/

grown - /groUn/

throne - /Tron/

thrown - /TroUn/

The ''meet''-''meat'' merger: /i/ vs. /I@/

Occurs everywhere except for parts of Northern England.

see - /si/

meet - /mit/

reed - /rid/

sea - /sI@/

meat - /mI@t/

read - /rI@d/

The ''rode''-''road'' merger: /o/ vs /o@/

Distinct in parts of Scotland.

rode - /rod/

road - /ro@d/

cole - /kol/

coal - /ko@l/

moat - /mo@t/

oat - /o@t/

boat - /bo@t/

The ''mews''-''muse'' merger: /Iu/ vs. /y/

Distinct in parts of Scotland.

mews - /mIuz/

muse - /myz/

dew - /dIu/

due - /dy/

do - /du/

yew - /jIu/

you - /ju/

cue - /ky/

new - /nIu/

few - /fIu/

mute - /myt/

music - /myzIk/

The ''kitty''-''committee'' merger: /I/ vs. /i/

Distinct in various parts of Briton.

kitty - /kItI/

happy - /h{pI/

penny - /pEnI/

antennae - /{ntEni/

The ''brute''-''fruit'' merger: /y/ vs. /Y/

Distinct in parts of Scotland.

brute - /brYt/

fruit - /frYt/

suit - /sYt/

cruise - /krYz/

rude - /ryd/

lute - /lyt/

juice - /dZys/

My provision for representing the kitty-committee distinction would be to use ''i'' for /I/ in final position and then to use ''ie'' for /i/ for final position, thus:

happy - haepi

penny - penni

Mississippi - /mIsIsIpI/ - Mississippi (I think)

antennae - aentennie

I think that would be the best provision.

And as for the word ''naive'', would that become ''naaiev'' or ''naiev''? Hmm.