From: utzoo!watmath!rvpalliende
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Re: Laissez-Faire spelling reform
Article-I.D.: watmath.3199
Posted: Wed Aug  4 14:01:13 1982
Received: Wed Aug  4 23:30:13 1982
References: pyuxcc.334


Spelling has to do with culture, not with language.
In languages whose spelling is clearly related to the pronunciation
spelling must be changed every 100 years or so, and foreign words
must be respelled, and everyone feels that that is the correct thing to do.
In English, on the other hand, spelling has for
so long being different from pronunciation, that any reform that renders
the spelling phonetic would change almost all existing words.
There are at least two solution for the problem:
a) Laissez-faire, ie, don't worry if people "misspell" a word. Suppress
the word "misspell" from the vocabulary, and let evriwun spel the weigh
they feel, eeven if thai ar inconsistont.
b) Introduce small changes in spelling (cut the dog's tail in small amounts,
as some opposers to this idea say)
Examples: change "our" for "or", in colour, behaviour. (I live in Canada)
change "re" for "er", in theatre, centre, etc.
change "ise" for "ize", in civilise, organise, (surprise?)
Suppress useless endings, as "me" in programme, or "ue" in dialogue.
Suppress mute letters, as the "o" in "oecology".
Suppress mute "e" when it serves no purpose as in judgement.
If all those changes (and others)  were implemented (every 10 years or so), but
letting people to use the older spellings if they wish, I think
that English would be able to have a reasonable spelling in 100 or 200 more
years. By the way, it has been said that the extra money spent in teaching
children how to spell English (as compared with a phonetic alphabet) is
around 10^9 dollars per year.

As a special deference to people who don't want a spelling reform I
refrained from using the spelling "ov" in all this article
so that their eyes aren't offended.
Anyway, I will continue to spell "ov", in the belief that it's
better to cut the dog's tail in many steps, and that spelling
reform is both desirable and attainable.

Pablo Alliende, University of Waterloo