Time to change how we spell wurdz?

Group wants Americans to adopt phonetic spelling

The Associated Press

 

 

Updated: 11:34 a.m. ET July 5, 2006

WASHINGTON - When “say,” “they” and “weigh” rhyme, but “bomb,” “comb” and “tomb” don’t, wuudn’t it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

 

Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing.

 

Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

 

It’s been 100 years since Andrew Carnegie helped create the Simplified Spelling Board to promote a retooling of written English and President Theodore Roosevelt tried to force the government to use simplified spelling in its publications. But advocates aren’t giving up.

 

They even picket the national spelling bee finals, held every year in Washington, costumed as bumble bees and hoisting signs that say “Enuf is enuf but enough is too much” or “I’m thru with through.”

 

Thae sae th bee selebraets th ability of a fue stoodents to master a dificult sistem that stumps meny utherz hoo cuud do just as wel if speling were simpler.

 

“It’s a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this,” acknowledges Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council, which favors an end to “illogical spelling.” The group says English has 42 sounds spelled in a bewildering 400 ways.

 

Americans doen’t aulwaez go for whut’s eezy — witnes th faeluer of th metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues.

 

Doughnut also is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British “u” and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.

 

“The kinds of progress that we’re seeing are that someone will spell night ’nite’ and someone will spell through ’thru,”’ Mole said. “We try to show where these spellings are used and to show dictionary makers that they are used so they will include them as alternate spellings.”

 

Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic, he sed.

 

In languages with phonetically spelled words, like German or Spanish, children learn to spell in weeks instead of months or years as is sometimes the case with English, Mole said.

 

 

Simpler is harder?

But education professor Donald Bear said to simplify spelling would probably make it more difficult because words get meaning from their prefixes, suffixes and roots.

 

“Students come to understand how meaning is preserved in the way words are spelled,” said Bear, director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno.

 

Th cuntry’s larjest teecherz uennyon, wuns a suporter, aulso objects.

 

Michael Marks, a member of the National Education Association’s executive committee, said learning would be disrupted if children had to switch to a different spelling system. “It may be more trouble than it’s worth,” said Marks, a debate and theater teacher at Hattiesburg High School in Mississippi.

 

E-mail and text messages are exerting a similar tug on the language, sharing some elements with the simplified spelling movement while differing in other ways. Electronic communications stress shortcuts like “u” more than phonetics. Simplified spelling is not always shorter than regular spelling — sistem instead of system, hoep instead of hope.

 

Carnegie tried to moov thingz along in 1906 when he helpt establish and fund th speling bord. He aulso uezd simplified speling in his correspondens, and askt enywun hoo reported to him to do the saem.

 

A filanthropist, he becaem pashunet about th ishoo after speeking with Melvil Dewey, a speling reform activist and Dewey Desimal sistem inventor hoo simplified his furst naem bi droping “le” frum Melville.

 

Roosevelt tried to get the government to adopt simpler spellings for 300 words but Congress blocked him. He used simple spellings in all White House memos, pressing forward his effort to “make our spelling a little less foolish and fantastic.”

 

Newspaper's 40-year experiment

The Chicago Tribune aulso got into th act, uezing simpler spelingz in th nuezpaeper for about 40 years, ending in 1975. Plae-riet George Bernard Shaw, hoo roet moest of his mateerial in shorthand, left muny in his wil for th development of a nue English alfabet.

 

Carnegie, Dewey, Roosevelt and Shaw’s work followed attempts by Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain to advance simpler spelling. Twain lobbied The Associated Press at its 1906 annual meeting to “adopt and use our simplified forms and spread them to the ends of the earth.” AP declined.

 

But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn’t captivaet the masez then — or now.

 

“I think that the average person simply did not see this as a needed change or a necessary change or something that was ... going to change their lives for the better,” said Marilyn Cocchiola Holt, manager of the Pennsylvania department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

 

Carnegie, hoo embraest teknolojy, died in in 1919, wel befor sel foenz went maenstreem. Had he livd, he probably wuud hav bin pleezd to no that milyonz of peepl send text and instant mesejez evry dae uezing thair oen formz of simplified speling: “Hav a gr8 day!”

.

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13716134/?GT1=8307

 

--this is a horrible idea!! Have we gotten this lazy!?

yo homes dis sounds tha shizzle

don't even play yourself in making this about ebonics... because its not. Its about all that texting short biz.... people forget how to write and what not... its absurd. I don't see how this would lower illiteracy rates... how? By making everyone else illiterate???

 

this is just stupid.

There are also groups that want to ban well known books like Tom Sawyer from libraries for "offensive material". They haven't gotten very far either. :dozey:

 

Language is a living, organic thing. You can't just have a commitee that decides to change it, anymore than the prudes who complain about a lack of respect for standard spelling are ever going to get their way. Sure, some of the changes might stick if they tried, but it would be in the form of hybrid or inconsitant spellings and more illogic. (I'm not any sort of an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but philology is a bit of a facination of mine. Thank J.R.R. Tolkien)

 

Really what they're doing is blaming the spelling for the schools not having the resources to teach. Chinese is pure rote memorization and it works.

 

And for the record, I still spell it honour, labour, colour, theatre, and centre, because Canadians are just confused- and proud of it. :D

There are also groups that want to ban well known books like Tom Sawyer from libraries for "offensive material". They haven't gotten very far either. :dozey:

 

Language is a living, organic thing. You can't just have a commitee that decides to change it, anymore than the prudes who complain about a lack of respect for standard spelling are ever going to get their way. Sure, some of the changes might stick if they tried, but it would be in the form of hybrid or inconsitant spellings and more illogic. (I'm not any sort of an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but philology is a bit of a facination of mine. Thank J.R.R. Tolkien)

 

Really what they're doing is blaming the spelling for the schools not having the resources to teach. Chinese is pure rote memorization and it works.

 

And for the record, I still spell it honour, labour, colour, theatre, and centre, because Canadians are just confused- and proud of it. :D

 

And there is nothing wrong with spelling "honour, labour, colour, theatre, and centre" like that. thats understandable.

I kant blive it, ar they fo reel?

I know America is a country of free speach(that's what they say anyway), but this is just stupid thing to tolerate, and a lot harder to understand.Since that article is on msnbc, I reckon some people are rather serious about it.And than all the yanks get insulted about "stupid american" stereotype.

Stupid americans trying to take over the world.

And there is nothing wrong with spelling "honour' date=' labour, colour, theatre, and centre" like that. thats understandable.[/quote']

 

 

^ well this is the way they were intended. We 'Americanized' those words.. but in case you forgot... Great Britain is the 'Mother' country..... we did get pur speech from them. ;)

 

edit: I just realized I had spelt 'Britain' wrong.... :blush: in a thread about spelling!! lol

Yes English is English, why not use the spellings correctly!

Oh, I say, what a jolly idea........

 

 

....game of cricket?

Indeed mr watson.

 

Fancy some gin and tonic with that?

Good jolly, lucky thing that we learn british english in school.

Well,no need to worry...one guy from my class really does write English as it is spoken.

Yeah...

That guy's a bum.

I don't wanna be like him...

So, long live spelling-as-we-know-it!

^ well this is the way they were intended. We 'Americanized' those words.. but in case you forgot... Great Britain is the 'Mother' country..... we did get pur speech from them. ;)

 

edit: I just realized I had spelt 'Britain' wrong.... :blush: in a thread about spelling!! lol

 

Thank you captain obvious. Did you also know the world is round?

Thank you captain obvious. Did you also know the world is round?

 

 

tis?!?!?! Crikey!

tis?!?!?! Crikey!

 

Like i said, you're not fooling anyone.

This would be completely stupid... if anything, it would cause MORE confusion to the people who spell correctly! It will never happen, and if it does, I will leave this country.

Like i said' date=' you're not fooling anyone.[/quote']

 

 

you're a nob you know that? I'm not trying to fool anyone lol everyone knows I'm an Anglophile!! lol :P

 

 

anyhoo.. you so obviously missed the humor in that comment as well... :rolleyes: don't bother!

 

 

 

BACK TO TOPIC!!!

 

I hope we're not even really entertaining this idea.... this would be sooooo stupid. We haven't even adapted the metric system!!

you're a nob you know that? I'm not trying to fool anyone lol everyone knows I'm an Anglophile!! lol :P

 

 

anyhoo.. you so obviously missed the humor in that comment as well... :rolleyes: don't bother!

 

 

 

BACK TO TOPIC!!!

 

I hope we're not even really entertaining this idea.... this would be sooooo stupid. We haven't even adapted the metric system!!

 

Knob? who the fuck talks like that?

:mellow: I said nob not "knob"... thats what you'd fine on a door. :lol:

Is this all a plan to help Dubya??:rolleyes:

:mellow: I said nob not "knob"... thats what you'd fine on a door. :lol:

 

Hahahaha go act your country. people like you annoy me, act who you are, not who you wish you were.

you're a nob you know that? I'm not trying to fool anyone lol everyone knows I'm an Anglophile!! lol :P

 

 

anyhoo.. you so obviously missed the humor in that comment as well... :rolleyes: don't bother!

Anglophile you say, eh?

:wink3: ^ yessssss.. yes I am... lol

 

oh look.. the flags are back!!!!! :nice:

<---

 

Hahahaha go act your country. people like you annoy me, act who you are, not who you wish you were.

 

 

uh.. its a free country.. I can act how I wanna act and be who I wanna be... and I choose to be a Hispanic American with Anglo tendencies.... :P

:wink3: ^ yessssss.. yes I am... lol

 

oh look.. the flags are back!!!!! :nice:

<---

 

 

 

 

uh.. its a free country.. I can act how I wanna act and be who I wanna be... and I choose to be a Hispanic American with Anglo tendencies.... :P

 

No, you think europeans are cool and try to act like them. i think they are too, but i also think johnny depp is but i dont try to act like peopel i think are cool. i try to be my damn self, you should try it.