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From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Credibility
Message-ID: <759@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 23:41:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.759
Posted: Mon Jul  1 23:41:03 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 07:21:50 EDT
References: <271@sri-arpa.ARPA>, <483@oliveb.UUCP>
Organization: U Chicago -- Linguistics Dept
Lines: 59

> 
> From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
> Subject: Re: Re: Credibility
> Message-ID: <483@oliveb.UUCP>
> Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 19:24:30 CDT
> 
> > From:  John H. Heimann 
> > 
> > 	I know this kind of discussion should be kept off the list,
> > but I can't resist the opportunity to respond.  The best reason that
> > I can think of not to change English spelling is that it reflects the rich
> > tradition of the language, which includes those of Celtic, Germanic, French,
> > Latin, and Greek (among others).  A succession of conquerers, first
> > Anglo-Saxon, then Roman, then Norman all had a profound influence on the
> > language that developed into modern day English, and added their own words and
> > spellings to the lexicon.  
...
> 
> I couldn't resist as this is one of my pet peeves.
> 
> Please explain how changing the spelling of words will damage their
> "expressive" or "lyrical" qualities.  Also explain how the written form
> of a language can have any "lyrical" qualities.  Remember that we are
> talking about changing marks on a piece of paper, not the spoken words
> those marks represent.  Is spelling "phone" as "fone" less expressive?
> If they are pronounced the same can one be less "lyrical"?
> 
> I am constantly finding people who take arms against any change of the
> written language.  I have always felt that the written language is
> primarily a representation of the spoken one.  
...

Then you should agree with the following point. 
Let's set aside (for now) questions about "Lyrical qualities" and also
the _historical_ side of etymology.  Look just at the synchronic side
of etymology, the expression of what words we take to be related.  Clearly
it's important to the way we use the language that we take certain words
to be related despite differences in form caused by inflection and
derivation.  One argument against most phonetic/phonemic spelling
schemes is that they obscure the relatedness.
      This argument says nothing against the suggestion that 'photo' should
be 'foto'.  But notice that a sound-spelling of 'photographic' might be
'fot@graefIk' , wher I'm using @ for reduced vowels like the schwa there,
and ae for what would be a single symbol.  Shouldn't the second vowel be
written the same in these two words, even though pronounced differently,
in order to maintain their relationship?  Similarly (I'm focussing on the
end of the word, and not trying for a good transcription at the beginning)
would it really make sense to spell 'elektrIk' but 'elektrIsitiy' [asking
about the s ~ k ]?  It's not just a weird peculiarity, or stumbling
block for spellers, that English writing has the letter 'c' with two
different sounds -- it developed exactly because we have so many sets
of related words where k sound alternates with s; letter 'c' gives a
uniform way of spelling these that alerts us to possible alternation.
The same consideration applies to the sound alternation recorded with
letter g.
-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar