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From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Spelling Reform
Message-ID: <1303@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Oct-84 23:55:41 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.1303
Posted: Sun Oct 28 23:55:41 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 00:34:18 EST
References: <179@scc.UUCP> <2696@ncsu.UUCP> <4483@fortune.UUCP>, <2701@ncsu.UUCP>, <1287@ihuxq.UUCP>, <2709@ncsuRe: Spelling Reform
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 39

--
>> The problem with spelling reform proposals is similar to the problem
>> with FORTRAN reform proposals: they suggest superficial fixes.  If
>> superficial fixes are to be applied, then I favor a conservative
>> approach: fix only the few worst offenders.  What is needed (if
>> anything is needed) is not a simple, phonetic approach,
>> but a sweeping, phonemic approach.  A really good orthography would have
>> words that sound similar being spelling similarly, and words that are
>> structurally related being spelled similarly.  Thus, if you see a word
>> written, you know how to pronounce it;  if you know how to pronounce a
>> word, and how it relates to other words in the language (not to other
>> languages) then you know how to spell it.  Logical, consistent, useful
>> and no one would go for it because it would be too radical.

>> Jon Mauney

And he'd be right.  Why play with English spelling?  The only reason
--and it underlies the whole "plain English" movement--is that so many
people are so bad at it.  Well, that's what happens when you don't get
enough practice.  The truly logical solution is to teach kids how to
write.  Of course, there's no telling where that might lead--it could
topple the very pillars of our mindless consumerist society.

But I digress.  I state that spelling is easy *IF* you just practice it.
Look at the bizarre grammars of other languages, which even their
respective national idiots master--because they speak it.  English is
quite simple in comparison to Russian, or Icelandic.  You could claim
that English spelling is really worse than convoluted European grammars
because it's so arbitrary.  But so is life.  Our arcane orthography
serves as a silent sentinel (you know, like the "m" in "mnemonic")
against the most invidious threat to American democracy--the one Thomas
Jefferson saw when he proposed free public education--illiteracy.
-- 
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