jon (07/04/82)
Let's go around again, stating our positions without modification. A string of letters is a word only if the community of language users agrees that it is a word. "Ov" falls not into the class of "words" nor into the class of "nonsense strings" but into the class of "misspelled words." (I confess I haven't made a scientific study of this particular question.) The fact that a string of letters or syllables is understandable doesn't prove that string is a word. Jon Mauney (By the way, many people have suggested revisions of English orthography. Their efforts have been more thorough, more consistent, more amusing, and equally doomed to failure. I suggest that Mr. Alliende switch to an endeavor where his contribution is likely to be noticed.)
mem (07/05/82)
c A reason for having a defined language is to have everyone who uses that language be able to communicate to each other. While the rules may be broken without loss of understanding (and in English, the rules may be kept WITH such loss), it's nice to go by the definitions. One definition is that the word that sounds like "uv" is spelled "of".