Comments on: The Oddest English Spellings, or, The Future of Spelling Reform

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:04:38 +0000

I’ve been involved in setting up a new website aimed at young people (www.under25.co.nz). It’s mainly aimed at people 15 to 25 and to make the site fun and relaxed we have used text language on the site.

It is interesting, the target age group uses text language every day in text messages with their friends, but we have been surprised by a number of angry emails from young people saying the use of text language other than in a text message insults their intelligence… Whilst the number of emails like this is a low in proportion to the amount of people signing up to the site, I am surprised at the level of passion in many emails on the topic.

For now we are keeping the text language spelling and replying to the hate mail pointing out we are having a bit of fun rather than insulting young peoples spelling abilities. But what is being quite enjoyed by many is making others really angry!

Personally I don’t mind even if we end up with many spellings of the same words. If the various spellings all look how they sound I’m going to understand it. And even if people spell things differently because they pronounce the word differently, who cares, we learn to cope when we are talking to them so why the big deal if we are reading what they have written? I am still going to know that a Tom-(ar)-to and a Tom-(ay)-to is a round red thing that you can eat so I don’t care if both pronounciations are used to spell it how it sounds… Bring on the changes I say!

By: bentley naire luyong

bentley naire luyong — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:47:50 +0000

can u help me with our thesis writing about spelling competency in reltaion to texting or sms sending?

By: JO 753

JO 753 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:19:18 +0000

Sorry, DR. Liberman, but I think the whole texting thing throws your ‘reform is dead’ idea in the trash.

John R, Nooalf is a 1 letter per sound system with new letters that can still be typed on a present day keyboard without any special tricks. It even has a texting version.

most pepl kan red xis ferle ezule. its slakrz nqalf, wic iz u kwikr-tu-tip vrjn uv nqalf.

A few things about disagreements of what dialect to use: 1.What dialect do you think the dictionary writers use? 2. Everybody who speaks English can understand broadcast quality American. 3. Nooalf only specifies a letter for each sound, not the spelling of the words, so even though there can be a standard, it can also spell dialects.

By: John R

John R — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:15:05 +0000

Understanding phonology to a degree I can only comment that a spelling reform in English is desirable and could be done if ten million people in one country spoke it. But this is not the case and the hundreds of millions of speakers in many countries could never reach agreement. So we are faced with Chinese-stye writing (memorised spellings) until kingdom come.

In fact a spelling reform could be done but the Americans would never go cold turkey and change quickly, overnight almost … and that would kill it. Witness the inertia in the USA over a conversion to the metric/SI system of measurements which has been dragged out for so long that it has effectively died out. This has left all the other English speaking countries who have successfully changed to metric/SI as measurement orphans.

The other issue would entail creating a new alphabet to accomodate a one sound, one letter spelling system system. The IPA, or a modified IPA could be used as it is already in (non-American) dictionaries which would involve such a radical change that unfortunately a few generations after the spelling reform nobody would be able to read old books. So yes, I would conclude too, it will never happen.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:53:06 +0000

I am an EFLA teacher, writer, and amateur linguist, so I am very interested in not only English as a current language, but its historic roots. I have been following the changes made recently in Germany (set in motion in 1996, but which only came into full effect in early 2003)and see the chaos that arises with such attempts at change. The biggest questions that rise are “who decides?” and “what gives them the right to decide?”. Students of this generation have grown up in flux – they are so insecure about “the proper way” to spell something that they just don’t bother anymore; the parents don’t know what to tell their children when asked, because no one bothered to inform the general population of the specifics of change – they just know from some newspapers that it occured, while from others that it will not be adhered to in their publications.
For me, the most important point is aesthetics; if the change to a word improves its appearance and pronunciation clarity, then so be it; but spellings such as “enuf” or “uther” are simply ugly to my eye – which brings us back to the point, “who decides”. Shakespeare had a dozen ways to spell his own name, and he introduced many of our modern words into the language; but I challenge the average reader to read Shakespearean English in its original form with no problems, and I think that if modern writing moves that way, fewer people will take the time to bother reading at all. It behooves the writer to cater to the aesthetic, even in the choice of words and spellings.

By: Steve Bett

Steve Bett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:55:48 +0000

Andy R says people could never agree on a base dialect to be represented in a more phonemic writing system. Allan disagrees saying all could cope with a mid-Atlantic broadcast dialect.

Both are correct. While all could cope as well with broadcast English or dictionary key pronunciation, there would still be endless charges of favoritism. People would argue, “Why should I have to learn broadcast English in order to spell?”

People would have less trouble spelling broadcast English than they have spelling traditionally but they seem to prefer it becsuse it equally disadvantages all.

By: Allan

Allan — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:25:22 +0000

Andy R finds varius dialects a hindrance to improving our spelling sistem. Aint necessarily so!

Our present imperfect spellings rufly represent General American (GA) and receevd pronunciation (RP, standard British English).

If upgraded spellings ar based on a ‘mid-Atlantic English’, as represented by reeders of NBC and BBC news bulletins, we of uther dialects could cope with that, as we do now!
Allan Campbell
Spell 4 Literacy
New Zealand

By: Justin T. Holl, Jr.

Justin T. Holl, Jr. — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:38:57 +0000

I believe it was Andrew Jackson that said that he did not trust anyone who didn’t know more than one way to spell a word.

By: Michael Bangert

Michael Bangert — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:13:06 +0000

Ironically the spell check can strike even here: “One *my* even argue that benign looks better than benine, for benign and benignant are a natural pair.”

By: Andy R

Andy R — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:51:35 +0000

The argument in favour of reforming the spelling of English words is a powerful one, but so is the counter-argument. If we are to simplify spelling so that words more closely match their pronunciation, then whose pronunciation should we choose as the gold standard? English is so widely spread across the world, and so varied in its sound, that nobody could agree on a hypothetical ‘correctness’ of any specific accent or dialect.