[Quantum_Wizard]

Many languages, including English, use phonemic script i.e. one where letters correspond roughly to the meaningful sounds of the language. How good or straightforward this correspondence is varies from language to language, but English is one of the most notorious with its particularly bad and complicated letter to sound correspondence.

A more phonemic orthography would have the benefit of facilitating faster acquisition of reading skills by schoolchildren. Thus it would seem to me that English is long overdue for a spelling reform.

I'd be curious to know your opinions on the matter. Would you be for or against and why?

PS Here's a site with answers to some objections to spelling reform.

[ShepherdsDog]

When I was in school, kids were expected to know how to spell. Rather than dumbing everything down, for the 'tards, how about we get today's students to relearn some academic discipline. There are too many teachers out there nowadays, who can't spell themselves, most of them products of Whole Language programs.

[martin14]

ShepherdsDog wrote:

When I was in school, kids were expected to know how to spell. Rather than dumbing everything down, for the 'tards, how about we get today's students to relearn some academic discipline. There are too many teachers out there nowadays, who can't spell themselves, most of them products of Whole Language programs.

[Quantum_Wizard]

ShepherdsDog wrote:

Rather than dumbing everything down, for the 'tards, how about we get today's students to relearn some academic discipline.

If 'dumbing down' means teachin less to make things easier, I wouldn't be in favor of it. But the abstruseness of English phonemic orthography serves no purpose and I wouldn't call reforming it 'dumbing down'.

ShepherdsDog wrote:

There are too many teachers out there nowadays, who can't spell themselves, most of them products of Whole Language programs.

Although this is not a subject I know that much about, I gather you mean you favor teaching reading with Phonics instead. Am I right? But wouldn't a better orthography make this approach more valuable?

[PostFactum]

Oh Crap! I haven't sdudied well the old system yet What they are thinking about!!!??

[Gunnair]

Quantum_Wizard wrote:

ShepherdsDog wrote:

Rather than dumbing everything down, for the 'tards, how about we get today's students to relearn some academic discipline.

If 'dumbing down' means teachin less to make things easier, I wouldn't be in favor of it. But the abstruseness of English phonemic orthography serves no purpose and I wouldn't call reforming it 'dumbing down'.

ShepherdsDog wrote:

There are too many teachers out there nowadays, who can't spell themselves, most of them products of Whole Language programs.

Although this is not a subject I know that much about, I gather you mean you favor teaching reading with Phonics instead. Am I right? But wouldn't a better orthography make this approach more valuable?

It is dumbing down.

How do you think Canadians got to this point with our abstruce language, by the way?

[MacDonaill]

I am against it. English spelling is not so difficult. Moreover, it's English. It looks English. If ever I saw something written phonetically like so:

My teecher sed I shuhd haff go too thuh prinsipuhlz awfiss.

... I would literally want to blind myself. It looks retarded.

Also, the notorious '-ough' words are my absolute favourites, and I know they would be erased in any reform. Ruff, tuff, enuff, boro, thoro, thru, tho.... Ach! Looks awful. Rough, tough, enough, borough, thorough, through, though... these words might not make sense phonetically, but they look pretty if you ask me and moreover, they look English.

In any case, an English spelling reform is near impossible. You'd have to get so many countries to agree with it for it to really stick.

[Brenda]

EVERY language has its spelling things, and it is part of the language. I totally agree with you, MacDonaill. Phonetisizing (is that a word? ) a language is THE worst you can do... Why in the world would you level down a language to the lazyness of its users? Learn how to spell, goddamned!

Regarding your last sentence though, I don't know. US spelling is different from Canadian spelling in some cases...

*edited for grammar f*ck up*

[whiskeyjack]

im against it too, everything is fine the way it is...

Moi quantum qizard, kaunis päivää?

Mielestäni kirjoitettua englantia ei tarvitse muuttaa, se on aivan hyvä nykyiselläänkin.

[DrCaleb]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010 ... 31-cp.html

"TORONTO - Little or no grammar teaching, cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, all are being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who can't write properly.

For years there's been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students.

Now there seems to be some solid evidence. "

[Zipperfish]

English is a living language that evolves in spite of any ststematic attempts to change it. As a wrioter myself, I'd have to say that its current ambiguity and complexity greatly adds to the richness of its palette.

[DerbyX]

Zipperfish wrote:

English is a living language that evolves in spite of any ststematic attempts to change it. As a wrioter myself, I'd have to say that its current ambiguity and complexity greatly adds to the richness of its palette.

Who knows. After a few generations these might have evolved into the correct spelling for those words!

[Zipperfish]

DerbyX wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

English is a living language that evolves in spite of any ststematic attempts to change it. As a wrioter myself, I'd have to say that its current ambiguity and complexity greatly adds to the richness of its palette.

Who knows. After a few generations these might have evolved into the correct spelling for those words!

Bastard! I can spell just fine. I just can't type.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Okay there are several posts that I will answer in one post.


Gunnair:

Gunnair wrote:

It is dumbing down.

I disagree. Since you made your claim without any arguments, I can't really make any counter-arguments.

Gunnair wrote:

How do you think Canadians got to this point with our abstruce language, by the way?

What do you mean? I don't understand your question.


MacDonaill:

MacDonaill wrote:

I am against it. English spelling is not so difficult. Moreover, it's English. It looks English. If ever I saw something written phonetically like so:

My teecher sed I shuhd haff go too thuh prinsipuhlz awfiss.

... I would literally want to blind myself. It looks retarded.

It only looks strange because it isn't what you are used to. It isn't inherently stupider. If this kind of spelling were common it would look quite natural to you.

MacDonaill wrote:

In any case, an English spelling reform is near impossible. You'd have to get so many countries to agree with it for it to really stick.

Certainly a reform would be difficult to implement. But not all countries would have to adopt it. The many English dialects will continue to diverge more and more at least in pronunciation. And e.g. Brits and Americans already spell many words differently.


Brenda:

Brenda wrote:

EVERY language has its spelling things, and it is part of the language.

Many languages have much simpler orthographies than English does. My native language, Finnish, has almost one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes.

Brenda wrote:

Phonetisizing (is that a word? ) a language is THE worst you can do... Why in the world would you level down a language to the lazyness of its users? Learn how to spell, goddamned!

Being unnecessarily complicated is not smart and does not bring any additional value. Why shouldn't one get rid of unneeded complexity?


whiskeyjack:

whiskeyjack wrote:

Mielestäni kirjoitettua englantia ei tarvitse muuttaa, se on aivan hyvä nykyiselläänkin.

Hei, whiskeyjack. Minun mielestäni kirjoitusasun ja äänteiden vastaavuus on englannissa sekavampi kuin missään muussa tuntemassani kielessä. Uudistus voisi tehdä siitä paljon paremman.


Zipperfish:

Zipperfish wrote:

English is a living language that evolves in spite of any ststematic attempts to change it.

I'd say that a spelling reform wouldn't be resisting the natural evolution of the language, but rather going along with it. As the pronunciation of the language changes over time the spelling should also change to reflect this. The English orthography is hundreds of years out of date.

Zipperfish wrote:

As a wrioter myself, I'd have to say that its current ambiguity and complexity greatly adds to the richness of its palette.

How does complexity in spelling add to its richness?

[BartSimpson]

If the Commonwealth nations wish to make themselves more attractive to immigrants who can't hack learning proper English then that's fine with me. We'll take the smarter people and you folks can have the people for whom basic spelling constitutes a challenge.