Comments on: Monthly Gleanings http://blog.oup.com/2008/02/spelling-4/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Fri, 24 May 2013 14:13:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Wander Frota http://blog.oup.com/2008/02/spelling-4/#comment-139605 Wander Frota Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:44:57 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2008/02/spelling-4/#comment-139605 Why is it that English native speakers, when writing a letter, for instance, tend to not part words at the end of a line where a word does not fit in? Instead, they choose to blot it out and put it down the following line available. Don't they know they could as well look up the word in a good dictionary to see how the word is decomposed and try to keep the right margin of their text a bit more justified? Pretty much following this English language writing pattern, word processors are not made to part words at the end of a line - unless you tell them to. Their default settings (as when you open a word processor for the first time) always leave the right margin unjustified as if all other languages were like English. An English word like 'sep.a.rate' (from Latin)is decomposed in Romance languages like Portuguese and Spanish as 'se.pa.rar'. Is there a reason why it is parted differently in English, where it's more based on morphological elements (affixes)? Why is it that English native speakers, when writing a letter, for instance, tend to not part words at the end of a line where a word does not fit in? Instead, they choose to blot it out and put it down the following line available. Don’t they know they could as well look up the word in a good dictionary to see how the word is decomposed and try to keep the right margin of their text a bit more justified?

Pretty much following this English language writing pattern, word processors are not made to part words at the end of a line – unless you tell them to. Their default settings (as when you open a word processor for the first time) always leave the right margin unjustified as if all other languages were like English.

An English word like ‘sep.a.rate’ (from Latin)is decomposed in Romance languages like Portuguese and Spanish as ‘se.pa.rar’. Is there a reason why it is parted differently in English, where it’s more based on morphological elements (affixes)?

]]> By: Bruce Balden http://blog.oup.com/2008/02/spelling-4/#comment-139499 Bruce Balden Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:31:51 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2008/02/spelling-4/#comment-139499 Spelling/writing reforms are interesting/useful if they solve a problem. For instance, your understanding of the Japanese situation is not accurate. In that country, there are precise lists of which characters must be learned at particular education levels, and varying both the content and length of these lists in the post-war period has been very successful in creating the 99% plus levels of literacy which the country claims. In China, the post-1949 government introduced writing reform which has likewise been a component of greatly increasing literacy in that country. However the pre-1949 "traditional" characters have not been abandoned, and instead have become part of an additional layer of learning for advanced learners. However, the traditional characters are not needed for everyday life in China. Applying these considerations to English, English-speaking countries have already achieved high literacy levels without modifying the written language. As far as English for non-native speakers is concerned, something like Basic English, in which the more esoteric and archaic elements of the language are discouraged (avoided completely), is more important. In the context of today's article, for instance, there is no reason for "insipient" (the archaic) word to appear in a modern document. Even the word "moot" might be restricted to legal contexts. The element lacking for English, compared to Chinese or Japanese, is the lack of any authoritative body to compile any well-accepted lists of common words. OED might do this de facto by simply estimating which words are more common and publishing lists of the 10,000 most common words. Of course English, being a common medium of many countries, is well-past the stage where any country or institution can or should control it unilaterally. Even Chinese "reforms" are not well-accepted in overseas Chinese communities or Taiwan (they are accepted in Singapore). Spelling/writing reforms are interesting/useful if they solve a problem. For instance, your understanding of the Japanese situation is not accurate. In that country, there are precise lists of which characters must be learned at particular education levels, and varying both the content and length of these lists in the post-war period has been very successful in creating the 99% plus levels of literacy which the country claims. In China, the post-1949 government introduced writing reform which has likewise been a component of greatly increasing literacy in that country. However the pre-1949 “traditional” characters have not been abandoned, and instead have become part of an additional layer of learning for advanced learners. However, the traditional characters are not needed for everyday life in China. Applying these considerations to English, English-speaking countries have already achieved high literacy levels without modifying the written language. As far as English for non-native speakers is concerned, something like Basic English, in which the more esoteric and archaic elements of the language are discouraged (avoided completely), is more important. In the context of today’s article, for instance, there is no reason for “insipient” (the archaic) word to appear in a modern document. Even the word “moot” might be restricted to legal contexts. The element lacking for English, compared to Chinese or Japanese, is the lack of any authoritative body to compile any well-accepted lists of common words. OED might do this de facto by simply estimating which words are more common and publishing lists of the 10,000 most common words. Of course English, being a common medium of many countries, is well-past the stage where any country or institution can or should control it unilaterally. Even Chinese “reforms” are not well-accepted in overseas Chinese communities or Taiwan (they are accepted in Singapore).

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