Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Asimov, Isaac (1983), "A Question of Spelling" The Roving Mind, Prometheus Books, page 340, Retrieved on 2008-11-30
Folksonomies: phonetics

Memes

30 NOV -0001

 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...
Folksonomies: phonetics
Folksonomies: phonetics
  1  notes
If 87 percent of English words are spelled phonetically, then that means more than one in 10 is not, further explaining high levels of illiteracy in our culture.
30 NOV -0001

 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," "...
Folksonomies: phonetics
Folksonomies: phonetics
  1  notes
Words that rhyme, but are spelled in a wide variety of ways. We see the fact that children instinctively spell phonetically as childish, but it actually demonstrates that such a method of spelling is more natural.

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