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From: mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Spelling Reform
Message-ID: <2709@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Oct-84 10:24:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2709
Posted: Wed Oct 24 10:24:01 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Oct-84 04:03:02 EDT
References: <179@scc.UUCP> <2696@ncsu.UUCP> <4483@fortune.UUCP>, <2701@ncsu.UUCP>, <1287@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 32

> Some of these seemingly random spellings, though, are not.  Many of the
> -ance/-ence and -ant/-ent words reflect the Latin conjugation their root
> verbs came from (-are/-ere).
> ... 
> A better answer is an educational system that
> stresses reading, writing, and Classical languages--not a band-aid (tm)
> to cover the festering sore of American illiteracy.  Anyone who's had
> enough practice at it can spell.

Most if not all of English's bizarre spellings have good historical
reasons.  I like it that way, and I don't have much trouble with spelling.
But it is unreasonable to expect the average person to study Latin, Greek,
French and German, just so they can write in English.  One might argue
that there would be fewer illiterates if the written language made sense.

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.
-- 

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Jon Mauney    mcnc!ncsu!mauney    C.S. Dept, North Carolina State University