Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cepu.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!bmcg!cepu!scw
From: scw@cepu.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Spelling Reform
Message-ID: <407@cepu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Nov-84 12:04:02 EST
Article-I.D.: cepu.407
Posted: Wed Nov  7 12:04:02 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Nov-84 19:18:29 EST
References: <179@scc.UUCP> <2696@ncsu.UUCP> <4483@fortune.UUCP> <2701@ncsu.UUCP> <1287@ihuxq.UUCP> <2709@ncsuRe: Spelling Reform <1310@ihuxqWed, 7-Nov-84 09:04:02 PST
Reply-To: scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods)
Organization: VA Wadsworth Med. Center; LA CA
Lines: 59
Summary: 

In article <1310@ihuxq.UUCP> ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) writes:

Ken, when you include an article, Please trim it a bit.

>--
>[I said] 
>> ...  Why play with English spelling?  The only reason
>> --and it underlies the [..] free public education--illiteracy.
>
>[Mike Huybensz]
>>> Spelling IS easy if [...] It is inappropriate to compare the two in
>>> your argument.
>
>Not at all.  The tasks are indeed different, but the learning of both
>comes through practice.  [...]ng and writing.
>
>>> That life is arbitrary has nothing whatsoever to do with whether English
>>> spelling should be improved.  That's the "tu quoque" (sp?) fallacy of
>>> argument.
>
>It has a lot to do with it.  I refuse to call something bad just because
>it is difficult, or more to [...]rt with PI=3.14159... --which is awfully
>tricky--and simplify it to 3.14, or maybe an even 3.
>

Oh, come on now, PI is a physical constant like e, it is not a *VERY* arbitrary
descision on the part of Noah Webster (that is the correct Webster isn't it?)
that said sukses should be spelled success.  The reason that English spelling
is difficult is the fact that English is a mish-mash of many different languages
each with its own spelling rules, and all mutually incompatable.

You should try Russian some day, EVEN having to learn a different Alphabet,
and with regessive assimilation (following sounds affect preceding sounds),
it should take only about a week to learn to read (you might not understand
what you are reading, but a Russian speaker should if you're careful), and
to write anything that you hear (in Russian of course).

>>> I can only view difficult spellings as a means to discourage literacy.
>>> Using your metaphor, perhaps we should make our "sentinel" even sharper-
>>> eyed by making spelling still more difficult?  :-)
>
>Discourage literacy?  Hey, it's hard enough to read Shakespeare as it
>is, what with all those Elizabethan in-jokes, but it's clear at least
>what the words themselves are.  Get a new generation addicted to
>"nu-spel" and you can kiss literature goodbye.

People translate Old Norse and Sanskrit to English, there is no reason
that Shakespeare wouldn't cross the gap from Elizabethan to Nu-spel also.
In fact, I suspect that you'd find it very difficult to read Shakespeare
as it was printed then (the spellings of many words have changed GREATLY
since the 16th Century, not to mention world that have just plain vanished).

>
>"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." --Einstein
>[long .signature deleted]
-- 
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
uucp:	{ {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb}!cepu!scw
ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-cs location: N 34 3' 9.1" W 118 27' 4.3"