Language & Grammar discussion
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The Simplified Spelling Board
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This is what makes language interesting,trying to decipher what we mean. I say tomato you say tomatoe
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It started in the early 1900's. Andrew Carnegie funded most of it. He was a notoriously bad speller which may be the reason.
English spelling is a bit like Chinese, in that speakers of different dialects can read it with their own pronunciation. You could eliminate the "ph" and "ough", but you'd lose etymological information. Try to reform a word like "wait" or "out," though, and you've got dialect trouble.
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In Antipodean, wouldn't it be more like the following?Woi' i' aeu' . . . i' wiw choinge.
This ere'z the wa'l
I''s the simbel ov our land.
You can pu' i' in a bo'l
You can owd i' in your and.
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Oi overstoited moi kice. Fuggedabadit.
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One of the few things I know about simplified spelling is that Rebecca Romijn's mother is a promoter of it. This just proves that I watch too many talk shows. http://www.spellingsociety.org/One of their proposals is something called cut spelling.
Efect of CS on readrs
Th foloing paragrafs sho CS in action. We first notice it is not hard to read, even without noing its rules, and with practis we read it as esily as traditionl spelng. Most words ar unchanjed (over 3/4 in th previus sentnce), and we hav th impression not of a totaly new riting systm, but of norml script with letrs misng here and ther. Th basic shape of most words, by wich we recognize them, is not fundmently altrd, and nearly al those that ar mor substantialy chanjed ar quikly decoded; very few ar truly puzlng. This means that, if al printd matr sudnly apeard in CS tomoro, peples readng ability wud not be seriusly afectd. Foren lernrs in particulr ar helpd by th clearr indication of pronunciation, as wen pairs like lo/cow, danjer/angr, undrmine/determn cese to look like ryms. With groing familiarity, users apreciate CS as a streamlined but mor acurat represntation of spoken english. Its novlty lies in th disapearnce of much of th arbitry clutr that makes ritn english so confusing and causes most of th mistakes peple now make.
Summer wrote: "One of the few things I know about simplified spelling is that Rebecca Romijn's mother is a promoter of it. This just proves that I watch too many talk shows. http://www.spellingsociety.org/One..."
I suppose our minds would adjust, but why? Everything is hurry up rush rush.
A bit of redundancy in a communication system is not a bad thing.W* c**ld *nd*rst*nd *ngl*sh w*th*t v*w*ls most of the time, as the Semites do, but should we?
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Hrbc hnd Hbrw ys cwnsnwnts fr lwng vwls, bt nt fwr shwrt wns. Th lwng vwl mhrkrs hr chlld "matres lectionis" yn Lhtn. Swmthms thy ys lyttl dhts fwr shwrt vhwlz.
Sych wrytng systms hr khlld "abjads."
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(Or: i euie aai oe a o o o.)
OK, I won't bad-mouth the vowels. Diphthongs on the other hand, are evil.
Debbie wrote: "!!"you are correct is the interpretation.
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This reminds me of when I gave a private English lesson to two Libyan sisters, aged 9 and 12. They always had problems with their spelling - always leaving out vowels or put them in the wrong order.They would write "taebl" or "ktchine."
Of course it took me a while until I realize that that's how they write in Arabic - no vowels.
Then, they seem to have problems remembering words with 'p' in it. Instinctively, they would write 'barty' instead of 'party.' And of course that is due to the fact that they don't have 'p' in Arabic and the closest sound to it is 'b.' I realized this a little quicker than the no-vowel problem... ;-)
Then of course, they have another problem. The younger one, many times would write 'on' instead of 'no.' And I think this next one is very cute. She also once wrote 'ooz' instead of 'zoo.' Knowing that they write from right to left, I understood immediately why she made the mistake.
I'm just glad that Indonesian (my native language) use alphabets, vowels, and write from left to right. Made it easier for me when I first learned English!
"The Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning,And the Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely frightening!"
Novi wrote: "This reminds me of when I gave a private English lesson to two Libyan sisters, aged 9 and 12. They always had problems with their spelling - always leaving out vowels or put them in the wrong order..."That is so cute and so funny. I didn't know that about Arabic so it makes it an "aw" moment.
You guys aught to take up 'texting' shorthand, it's about as bad as no vowels. Me - I like all of my letters, thank you very much.
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Heehee, David, did you write that?
It's from "My Fair Lady," Lerner-Loewe channelling Shaw.
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HOWARD:Angela. Angela, I'd like to just say this at this time, if I could, please. Really.
GRIM REAPER:
Be quiet!
HOWARD:
Can I just say this at this time, please?
GRIM REAPER:
Silence! I have come for you.
ANGELA:
You mean... to--
GRIM REAPER:
Take you away. That is my purpose. I am death.
GEOFFREY:
Well, that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?
HOWARD:
I don't see it that way, Geoff. [sniff:] Let me tell you what I think we're dealing with here: a potentially positive learning experience to get an--
GRIM REAPER:
Shut up! Shut up, you American.
You always talk, you Americans. You talk and you talk and say 'let me tell you something' and 'I just wanna say this'. Well, you're dead now, so shut up!
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One goal of the group was to replace words that started with "ph" with the letter "f".
Another (successful) goal was to incorporate the word "thru" into the English language.