miker@sri-unix (07/27/82)
Re: . . .watmath!rvpalliende, "Rational spelling" Why do people think that changing spelling means having phonetic spelling? Good point. As has been pointed out by several people, we might have rational spelling but it could not be phonetic. Anyway, all people who object phonetic spelling because ov the problems that homonyms would generate never complain about homographs, like read (reed, red), tear (tir, ter), record (rekerd, rikurd), etc. Other problems include accents. My high school English teacher always used to say "We will re'cess for recess'" (or was it the other way around). There is also rec'ord and record'. However, no one seems to have thought that homonyms can be distinguished even in a phonetic spelling system by having more than one spelling pronounced the same way. On the other hand, although there are some reasons not to have a (completely) phonetic spelling, there is no reason not to make spelling more rational. If we can't even get people to use the metric system, which is about as rational as you can get, how easy do you think it would be to get everyone to change spelling? And who would do it? We don't have an organisation that sets language standards like the Academie Francaise. There is nothing to stop you spelling words however you like, as you have already shown. The following variants are in current use today: catalogue catalog centre center defence defense colour color sceptical skeptical None ov the spellings in the right hand side is "phonetic", but they are better than the ones in the left hand side. I don't see that the right side is all that much better. The final e in "centre" is not pronounced anyway, so where you put it is largely irrelevant. "Defense" looks to me as if it should be pronounced "defenz". All you are really saying is that you prefer American spellings. In view of the vast morass of spelling irregularities, this is like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon. I prefer to use English spellings simply to retain some small portion of my life which is not dominated by Americans-- there isn't too much left these days. Why can't more variants ov this form be in effect? They probably will be, judging by the spelling standard exhibited by most Americans. The latest one seems to be the strange habit of forming plural's of word's with apostrophe's. Note that backwards compatibility isn't the source ov all spelling difficulties. <I forget his given name> Johnson and other no too learned scholars are responsible for respelling: ache It was thought that "ake" derived from Greek. island It was thought that "iland" derived from "insula". This word was actually respelled, to make it more "etymological". Actually the spelling ILAND is correct (although not socially accepted) sovereign People thought that it had something to do with Latin "regnus". Therefore, the etymological argument is unsound as a reason to leave spelling the way it is now. Just because some errors occur in the application of a method it is not necessary to discard it entirely. This is what is generally called "throwing the baby out with the bath water". Surely the correct spelling is the one that most people use, since there is no clearcut method of deriving a correct spelling. "Iland" was correct in the fifteenth century (as much as anything was) but it is not correct now, because it is not socially acceptable. Double consonants were introduced in a frustrated attempt ov indicating the length ov a vowel. "Latter" and "later" are good examples where this works. But the rule isn't used in all English words. If we had the pair ov words "finite" and "infinnit" probably nobody would pronounce in-fie-nite (Webster records the latter pronunciation as a variant, which I'm certain, was developed due to the spelling) But as well as obscuring the relationship, you would probably have people pronouncing it "infinn'it" on the basis of the spelling. Actually, in-fie-nite is a more "rational" pronunciation. Perhaps we ought to encourage its use. In fact, maybe we could solve the whole problem by getting people to pronounce words the way they are spelled instead of vice versa. "ch" instead ov "k", "ph" instead ov "f", and "y" instead ov "i" were introduced in Latin for phonetic reasons. "ch" attempted to represent a hard "h" sound (as "Kh" in Khomeini or "J" in La Jolla) "ph" was the Greek "f" which used both lips instead ov only the upper lip and the lower teeth (I can't hear the difference, but it seems that Romans could) I can hear the difference. It's just one of those things like r and l in Japanese. Why are the phonetic reasons the Romans had, more important than the ones that people ov today may have? One reason for retaining Roman spelling is that it makes it considerably easier to learn French, Spanish, Italian, Portugese and Rumanian. To finish this a simple statistic: children taught to read in a phonetic alphabet acquire 5th grade proficiency (by English standards) by the middle ov grade 2. If a rational (and international) spelling were adopted, this could be worsened, but probably not too much. Which children where? I have a friend who was taught phonetic spelling in grade school. His reading proficiency and general educational background is about the same as anyone else, but his spelling is TERRIBLE. I learned most of my spelling not from spelling classes, but from reading a lot and becoming accustomed to the way words look. Michael Robinson P.S. Some of my best friends are Americans!
rvpalliende (07/30/82)
Just a few comments: The children I mentioned reading in grade 2 (it actually was grade 1) like five graders were reading phonetic spelling. It turns out that switching to normal spelling is easy, and children taught in phonetic spelling actually are like everybody else, despite the "handicap" ov being taught two spellings instead ov one. It's easier to learn French, Spanish, French, Italian and Roumanian? (What about Catalan?) Compare: English French Spanish Italian Portuguese philosophy philosophie filosifi'a filosofia filosofia chemistry chimie qui'mica chimica qui'mica(?) chorus choeur coro coro coro analysis analyse ana'lisis ?? ana'lisis(?) It turns out that Latin spelling for Greek words is used only in French (whose spelling is about as bad as English's) I've thought that people should pronounce the way they spell. But then: Have you ever said "kat-as-troaf" instead ov "kat-as-tro-fy"?. I have, and people react as surprised as when they see the spelling "ov". Other time I said "im-MAE-cher" and was corrected: "im-ma-CHOOR". People get more annoyed at strange pronunciation than at strange spelling. (Who can spell now, anyway?)