Arguments for English Spelling Reform
This schema is a collection of arguments about how proper grammar, with its illogical and inconsistently applied rules, is used by academics and intellectuals to create a privileged class of people who's ideas deserve considering because they have successfully learned the irrational system.
Folksonomies: phonetics grammar
Memes
Evolution of French Prescriptivism
Prescriptive attitudes to language seem to be more deeply engrained in France than in many other speech-communities. This article traces their development between the sixteenth century and the present day within the model of language standardization proposed by E. Haugen and in the light of the notion of ‘standard ideology’ proposed by J. and L. Milroy. It will be argued that early definitions of what was considered ‘the best French’ were based simply on the observed usage of ‘the b...Sounds as though it has often been used for discrimination.
Spelling and Grammar is Ancestor Worship
The fetishization of "correct" English -- which is to say, white, wealthy English -- is in direct opposition to everything that makes English such a glorious drunkard's debauch of a language.
English came to us from the inventive malapropism and linguistic entrepreneurship of its speakers: from Shakespeare, who coined words wholesale; to the working-class streets with their heterodox cursing and rhyming slangs.
To demand the immobilization of this restless, incontinent language is a form of b...
Filters on Text and Perception
Many of us are used to having incoming email filtered, decrypted, formatted, and shown in our favorite colors and fonts. These techniques can be taken further. Customization of spelling (e.g., American to British or archaic to modern) would be a straightforward process. Relatively simple conversions could also let you see any text with your favorite date and time formats, use metric or imperial measures, implement obscenity filters, abbreviate or expand acronyms, omit or include technical for...From Alexander “Sasha” Chislenko's "Intelligent Information Filters and Enhanced Reality"
The Importance of Comparative Alphabets
But when I had grasped the facts that spellings are often false, that words can be invented,
and that explanations are often wrong, I found that worse remained behind. The science of phi-
lology is comparatively modern, so that our earlier writers had no means of ascertaining principles
that are now well established, and, instead of proceeding by rule, had to go blindly by guesswork, thus
sowing crops of errors which have sprung up and multiplied till it requires very careful investigatio...
Children of the Code
None of us like to engage in activities that cause us to feel ashamed of ourselves. So what happens to children who feel ashamed of themselves when learning to read? They are in serious danger. The shame they feel not only motivates them to avoid reading, it also fosters self-dis-esteem and undermines the cognitive capacities they need to learn to read in the first place. Millions of children are caught in this learning-disabling downward spiral. Not only are they in danger of being poor re...Interesting website, the idea that children feel shame for not learning spelling and reading. While, when considering the waste of mindshare that goes into learning spelling.
See also mind-shame.
Benjamin Franklin's Reformed Alphabet
Placeholder for schema.
Orthography Must be Balanced
The orthography of our language is extremely irregular; and many fruitless attempts have been made to reform it. The utility and expedience of such reform have been controverted, and both side of the question have been maintained with no inconsiderable zeal.
On this subject, as on most others which divide the opinions of men, parties seem to have erred by running into extremes. The friends of a reform maintain that our alphabet should be rendered perfectly regular, by rejecting superfluous c...
With Obtuse Spelling Rules, Pronunciation Becomes Reliant...
Since our current orthografy bears no real relation
to the present pronunciation, but is at best an imperfect attempt to represent that of the Elizabethan
period, English pronunciation has become almost entirely a matter of oral tradition as unsafe a gide in
regard to correctness in speech as it is in regard to
correctness in history. We learn to talk, and continue
to talk, entirely "by ear," and with the same tendency
to uncertainty and variation as do those who play music
by ear. The...
The Ability to Spell Correctly Should Not be Valued
Because the absurdities and intricacies of our pres-
ent spelling hav made a mastery of them the most dif-
ficult and long-continued task of the average student,
a false value has been placed on spelling ability. "Cor-
rectness" in reality, mere conformity in spelling
is too generally assumed to be an indication of su-
perior education, whereas as has been shown it
is only evidence of a natural or a specially traind
eye-memory.
Inconsistent Spelling-to-Pronunciation Rules Inhibit Educ...
Since the bulk of human knowledge is recorded in
books, one of the first steps in the education of the
child is to teach him to read. Told that each separate
letter, or group of letters, printed in his primer or
reader represents a spoken word, the child, being
gifted with reason, expects to find an invariable re- lationship between the sound of any given word and
the letters composing it. He soon discovers, to his dis-
may, that no such invariable relationship exists.
Unreason in Sp...
Phonetic Orthography in Spain and Italy
Fonetic spelling, in one form or another, has been,
and is now, used by progressiv teachers in England
and America as an introduction and an aid to the
study of the current orthografy. Their experience is
that children can spel correctly that is, fonetically
the words they ar able to pronounce, as soon as
they hav learnd the alfabet employd, and the principle
of combining letters into sillables.
In languages such as Italian and Spanish, that hav
approximately fonetic alfabets, appro...There is a cost savings that comes with reducing the number of years spent teaching spelling.
Phonetic Spelling Saves Time and Effort Through Fewer Let...
Simplified spelling means shorter spelling. Of the
32 Rules printed in Part 3 of this Handbook, 27 drop
letters from words as now speld; 3 involv trans-
positions of letters to reconcile conflicting analogies;
and 2 involv substitutions of one letter for another,
with the same object. In no instance has the Board
recommended a change involving the addition of a let-
ter to a word. Further simplifications wil result in fur-
ther abbreviations. A completely fonetic sistem of
notation, ...
Simplified Spelling is Good for Americanization of the World
Foreners, when brought into personal association
with those who speak English, easily learn to speak
English themselvs. Its grammar is simple. It has
great flexibility, due to its richness in terminology and
its abundance of sinonims. It has an unsurpast litera-
ture, making a knowledge of it desirable by those who
hav no call to speak it. In every respect, except one,
it is best fitted to be the language of sience, commerce,
and international communication.
The desirability of havi...
Changing Spelling has Happened in the Past
Objection to simplified spelling has been made on the
supposition that it "wil cut us off from the literature
of the past," meaning that those taught in the new way
wil be unable to read the books red today. This can
not be so, because the present spelling wil be no more
difficult to read by one who has learnd to spel the new
way, than is the new spelling by one who has learnd
the old way. Children who hav learnd to spel in the
simplified way wil, in fact, read the books printed
toda...Technology, translation services, will make migration even easier.
Changing Spelling Removes Word Associations
Take the word ghost, for example. Always having
seen it speld in this way, we hav come to associate the
feelings arousd by the idea ghost with its accustomd
form of visual representation. To meet the word in
our reading instantly and instinctivly excites those
feelings in our minds. To meet the same word speld
gost, shorn of its familiar h, shocks us, and causes a
temporary mental inhibition of the idea. The word
seems to hav lost, with the missing letter, something
of the wierdness ...
Spelling Reform Requires Competition of Spelling Options
The first condition of rational progress in spelling
reform is that persons who know, or who think they
know, how words should be speld, should recover some-
thing of their former freedom to spel in accordance
with individual judgment. Only in that way can there
be a wholesome rivalry of forms with ultimate survival
of the best.
The Board does not expect any one to adopt a spelling
that, to him, suggests a pronunciation at variance with
his usage.
Those whose temper moves them to ...Not everyone hears or speaks words the same way. Let variances of spelling propagate and have the public adopt that which seems correct by consensus.
Spelling is an Invention, and May be Modified
Spelling was invented by man and, like other human
inventions, is capable of development and improve-
ment by man in the direction of simplicity, economy,
and efficiency. Its true function is to represent as
accurately as possible by means of simbols (letters)
the sounds of the spoken (i. e. the living) language,
and thus incidentally to record its history. Its prov-
ince is not, as is often mistakenly supposed, to indicate
the derivations of words from sources that ar in-
accessible...Note the intentional use of simplified spelling in the text.
The Many Ways of Representing Sounds in English Spelling
English spelling, owing to the conditions that gov-
ernd the growth of the English language, now presents
many anomalies. The same letter, or combination of
letters, often represents many different sounds; while
the same sound is often represented by many different
letters, or combinations of letters.
The combination ough, for example, represents at
least 9 different sounds in the words cough, rough,
though, through, plough, hough, thorough, thought,
hiccough; and the sound of e in ...
English Spelling Risks Becoming Like Chinese Ideograms
Indeed, the present tendency in the scools is to dis-
regard the fonetic basis of English spelling, and to
treat the written and printed words as ideografs like
Chinese the pupils being taught to recognize a word
by its appearance as a whole, rather than by a f util
attempt to analize the supposed sounds of the letters
composing it. Vast amounts of mony and incalculable
years hav been spent in efforts, never wholly success-
ful, to teach children to memorize the intricate and
unreaso...
The Printing Press and Dictionaries Crystallized Spelling
English spelling was at first practically fonetic, like
the spelling of Latin, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and
most other languages, and changed as pronunciation
changed. In its case, however, various causes com-
bined to interfere with this orderly process. Among
them wer the variations in the early dialects, the dif-
ferent spelling sistems of the Norman conquerors, the
later different spelling sistem of the imported Dutch
printers, the bungling attempts during the Renaissance
to mak...
Prescriptivism and Descriptivism
So, you seem to be at an impasse. On the one hand, you have generations of grade school English teachers rightly warning their pupils that people might chuckle at them if they use the word ‘irregardless’. On the other hand, you have the scientific rigor of the modern linguistic community touting descriptivism as the torch-bearer of truth and enlightenment. Are you doomed to choose between a democracy of solecisms and a library of thousand-page tomes of writer’s regulations? Are things r...
The Futility of Linguistic Prescription
When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear ...
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue...Mark Twain's clever observation of how to simplify English spelling.
Pro-Arguments for Simplified Chinese Characters
Proponents feel that simplified characters having fewer strokes makes it easier to learn.[7] Literacy rates have risen steadily in rural and urban areas since the simplification of the Chinese characters, while this trend was hardly seen during 30 years of Kuomintang (KMT) rule and 250 years of Manchurian rule before them, when the traditional writing system was dominant, though this rise in literacy may not necessarily be due to simplification alone.
Although Taiwan, which uses traditio...A list of bullet points from wikipedia on how simplified chinese characters improve literacy and alleviate social oppression.
Common Spelling/Grammar Mistakes
To lay is to place something or put something down, and it must be followed by a noun or pronoun, a thing; to lie is to recline. A lie is an untruth, and to lie also means "to tell an untruth." Examples: Lay that package on the mantel, will you please? Bridgette would like to lie in the hammock near the pool. Sometimes it's tempting to lie when you're in trouble, but a lie only makes things worse. (Hint:Lay sounds like place; lie sounds like recline. But be careful: lay ...These examples are not on pedantic, but further demonstrate the nonsensical nature of English spelling, so convoluted as to turn people away from the lexicon.
Eccentric English Spelling is the Result of Dictionaries
The eccentric spelling of the English language is preserved because of a pervasive meme that there are right and wrong ways to spell words. This meme has all kinds of support, including dictionaries, computer spell-checkers, and children's spelling bees. But before the Use a dictionary strategy-meme became prevalent during the 18th and 19th centuries, people spelled words any way they wanted. It's not True that there's one and only one correct way to spell a word-it's just a meme. As Mark Twa...Spelling could evolve naturally before we started referencing dictionaries for a correct way of spelling words that don't sound like how they are spelled anymore.
Defending the Purity of the English Language
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.A classic quote from SF reviewer James Nicoll.
How do We Fix Spelling?
...it can be argued, perhaps, if they wish, that it's a question of style and beauty in the language, and that to make new words and new parts of speech might destroy that. But they cannot argue that respelling the words would have anything to do with the style. There's no form of art form or literary form, with the sole exception of crossword puzzles, in which the spelling makes a bit of difference to the style. And even crossword puzzles can be made with a different spelling. And if it's no...If we can write words with letters from the English alphabet to phonetically reproduce words in other languages, like Mandarin or ARabic, then why can we not rearrange the letters in our own words to phonetically match the way they sound when we speak them?
Should Spelling be Modernized?
The time taken to teach the decimalised system for currency, temperature, weights and distances is far shorter and more certain than when 240 pence equalled a pound, 32 degrees Fahrenheit equalled the temperature of ice and pounds and ounces were taught. Already there is a generation that was spared these ancient measurements.
To improve literacy in the general population, modernisation of the spelling system will bring similar benefits to what decimalisation brought.
The Tyranny of the Written Word
Nevertheless, almost everybody speaks better than he writes. (This also applies to authors.) Writing is a highly formalized technique which, in purely physiological terms, demands a peculiarly rigid bodily posture. To this there corresponds the high degree of social specialization that it demands. Professional writers have always tended to think in caste terms. The class character of their work is unquestionable, even in the age of universal compulsory education. The whole process is extraord...
Spelling is the Problem
Now let me get to a lower level still in this question. And that is, all the time you hear the
question, "why can't Johnny read?" And the answer is, because of the spelling. The
Phoenicians, 2000, more, 3000, 4000 years ago, somewhere around there, were able to
figure out from their language a scheme of describing the sounds with symbols. It was
very simple. Each sound had a corresponding symbol, and each symbol, a corresponding
sound. So that when you could see what the symbols' sounds w...Putting letters together into words is one of the most basic skills required for literacy. If this basic skill is so hard for so many people to grasp, then, Feynman argues, there is a problem with the way words are spelled.
Benjamin Franklin's Strategy for a Phonetic American Alph...
The alphabet can be found here.
13 Percent of the English Language is Not Spelled Phoneti...
I received a letter today from the "Reading Reform Foundation," which tells me that "23 million (American) adults are functionally illiterate, unable to read an advertisement, a job application, directions on a medicine bottle." They say "30 percent of all schoolchildren have serious reading difficulties."
I rather believe this, judging from my own limited experience with people. But why is this?
Can it be that part of the reason is the matter of English spelling? The letter tells me that "87...
Benjamin Franklin's Reasons for Reforming the Alphabet
Franklin's own impulse in creating the alphabet was quite different. He was a man who looked closely and with curiosity at the world around him, seeking ways to improve it wherever he saw the opportunity. His alphabet was conceived in the same spirit as his less smoky, more fuel-efficient house-heating stove, or his more easily cleaned and repaired street lamp. The alphabet, for Franklin, was not unlike a household tool, something to repair, rewire, and update. Improving the writing system wo...
Examples of Phonetic Spelling Failures in English
With spelling erratic, many English words become ideograms that must be learned as a whole, with its parts giving no clue or, worse yet, false clues. If you don't know in advance and just judge by the letters, can you know that "through," "coo," "do," "true," "knew," and "queue" all rhyme? If you don't know in advance and just judge by the letters, can you know that "gnaw," kneel," "mnemonic" and "note" all start with the same consonant sound?
Why can't we say "throo," "koo," "doo," "troo," "...
How a Lack of Vocabulary Can Turn a Child Off to a Subject
Consider the case of a child I observed through his eighth and ninth years. Jim was a highly verbal and mathophobic child from a professional family. His love for words and for talking showed itself very early, long before he went to school. The mathophobia developed at school. My theory is that it came as a direct result of his verbal precocity. I learned from his parents that Jim had developed an early habit of describing in words, often aloud, whatever he was doing as he did it. This habit...
The Costs of Our Complicated Spelling System
A short list of the problems caused by the irregularity of English spelling starts with children being taught the alphabet and finding that it is a poor guide on how to reliably pronounce the written form or reproducing spoken words in writing.
This leads inevitably to poor results in other areas of learning, as without literacy competency, no child can master other subjects.
Apart from the loss in terms of peoples? working lives there are other costs associated with remedial classes, addit...
The English Alphabet will Become Like Chinese as We Lose ...
i ui iu to knsider is Alfabet, and giv mi Instanses f st Ili Urds and Sunds az iu mee ink kannt perfektli bi eksprest bi it. i am persueeded it mee bi kmplited bi iur help. i greeter difiklti uil bi to bri it into ius. Huevr, if Amendments eer nevr atemted, and is kntinu to gro urs and urs, ee mst km to bi in a reted Kndin at last; st indiid i ink ur Alfabet and Riti lredi in; bt if ui go n az ui hev dn e fiu Senturiz lnger, ur urds uil graduali siis to ekspres Sunds, ee uil onli stand fr is,...References
Authority, prescriptivism abd the French standard language
Barbaric, backwards ancestor worship
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The Transhumanist Reader
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An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
Children of the Code
Scheme for a New Alphabet and Reformed Mode of Spelling
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language
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Handbook of Simplified Spelling
Prescriptivism and Descriptivism
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Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language
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Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays: 1852-1890
Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters -...
Common Grammar Mistakes
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Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
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"A Question of Spelling" The Roving Mind
"Benjamin Franklin to Mary Stevenson" Papers of Benjamin ...
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