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thewayneIt would hurt my brain if everyone started spelling in print like the article discusses. I'm glad that I never had to correspond with Andrew Carnegie.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/07/06/ap/strange/d8im2s5o1.txt
(Full article under cut, apparently the URL is problematic:)
Push for Simpler Spelling Persists
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
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," says 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is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.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."
"Great changes have been made in the past. Systems can change," a hopeful Mole said.
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.
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."
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 1919, wel befor sel foenz. 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!"
On the Net:
American Literacy Council: http://www.americanliteracy.com
Simplified Spelling Society: http://www.spellingsociety.org
National Education Association: http://www.nea.org
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/07/06/ap/strange/d8im2s5o1.txt
(Full article under cut, apparently the URL is problematic:)
Push for Simpler Spelling Persists
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
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," says 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."
"Great changes have been made in the past. Systems can change," a hopeful Mole said.
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.
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."
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 1919, wel befor sel foenz. 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!"
On the Net:
American Literacy Council: http://www.americanliteracy.com
Simplified Spelling Society: http://www.spellingsociety.org
National Education Association: http://www.nea.org
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 04:28 pm (UTC)But - why is this newspaper called Bismarck?! O.o''
no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 08:16 pm (UTC)Besides, let's face it. Most people are fairly lazy. Re-tooling the spelling of English would require EVERYONE to learn the new spellings, some group of people to decide on what they're supposed to be, creation of a shitload of new text books and educational programs, changing just about every written document, etc. Now who's really willing to go to all that time (and expense!)?
Besides, would you really want legal documents indicating the charjus uv mulestashun uv a mienur wer dropt doo too lak uv evidens and the dufendunt alowd too goe free with hiz recurd unblemisht, and egzurpz uvailubl frum thu publik rekerds ofus? Or heer thu prezudent duklard war on Eerak too thwort thu tererist thret too ower grate nayshun and protekt thu freedums uv ol pees-luving peepls in thu werld? ;}
I suddenly find myself in need of about 40 Tylenol for some reason....
no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 06:04 pm (UTC)Kan u smell the stoopid?
Date: 2006-07-07 06:13 pm (UTC)Other than that, I have no use for free-for-all shorthand and spelling.
Once again, it appears that we all (U.S.) believe it is more difficult to train people to vault the bar, and it is far easier and lazier to just lower the bar.
That statement about German is total bullshit. It is not a phonetic language, it is a _logical_ language. Germans kids learn quicker because they are taught to speak and spell their language, they are not taught to make shit up from thin air.
Re: Kan u smell the stoopid?
Date: 2006-07-07 06:34 pm (UTC)Re: Kan u smell the stoopid?
Date: 2006-07-08 12:23 pm (UTC)Every language has irregular verbs, verbs that require different cases as would be intuitive, and sentence order is the least logical thing you can find in any language (just to name a few).
As for the phonetics: There are languages with more corrspondence between phonems and graphems, and then there are languages which have close to no correspondence between them. I just say French... It's a bitch to learn French spelling, English spelling is quite structured in comparison. ;)
The closest phonem-graphem correspondence I've found so far is in Finnish. Even as a beginner you can depend on the spelling showing the pronounciation, only thing you have to know that double-letters are pronounced that way (because they are distinctive features).
Re: Kan u smell the stoopid?
Date: 2006-07-08 02:21 pm (UTC)Re: Kan u smell the stoopid?
Date: 2006-07-08 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 02:57 am (UTC)Some of the changes they cite as switches to simpler spelling (notably the changes from the British spellings of colour, theatre, etc.) were actually made long ago by Noah Webster, and they were made only in part to simplify spelling; he also wanted just to have a spelling system distinct from the Brits' spelling. I could say more, but really it will just irritate me.
Of course, I have a spelling bee trophy that stands over half my height, so maybe I'm just biased.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 02:25 pm (UTC)German is on my list to learn if we stay here, we have a large German presence because you have an air force base here attached to give your pilots good flying conditions under much different terrain. LOTS of German students at the uni where I currently work.
Spelling
Date: 2006-07-08 08:37 pm (UTC)What we have is bad enough.