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Tofugrl3
Citizen
Username: Tofugrl3
Post Number: 36
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 7:57 am: | 
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By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 5, 5:23 PM ET
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is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.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!" |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3481
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 9:58 am: |
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The English language started off as "ughs" and "grunts" in the Stone Age, evolved into a complex and beautiful language over the centuries, and is devolving back to "ughs" and "grunts" once again. |
cody
Citizen
Username: Cody
Post Number: 1041
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 10:03 am: |
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My goodness, I hope this concept dies a natural death! The American Literacy Council, hmm? I have to check this group out.
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Joan
Supporter
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 7757
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 10:34 am: |
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One of the reasons we have so many alternative spellings for the same sound set is that English is derived from both Germanic and Romance languages to which a rich mixture of words from still other language families has been added. Thus the language reflects our rich polyglot culture in this country. Do we want to lose that rich texture in the name of homogeneity?
How would the simplified spelling movement deal with homonyms (words which sound the same and are distinguished by their written appearance), especially in those situations where muliple meanings could result?
What would happen to words whose meanings are derived from literary references?
How would one possibly transliterate the poetry of E.E. Cummings?
Wouldn't it be simpler to issue everyone an electronic spell checker and spend classroom time on other mattters?
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Gregor Samsa
Citizen
Username: Oldsctls67
Post Number: 542
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 11:19 am: |
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OK, so how do we blame the Republicans for this? |
ess
Citizen
Username: Ess
Post Number: 2606
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 11:31 am: |
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What a horrendous concept.
In addition to losing the richness of the written language, as Joan alluded to, phonetic spelling would only increase spelling problems. Who's to say how a word should be spelled phonetically?
Further, reading that phonetically spelled text in the article above was akin to reading gibberish.
I, too, hope this idea just withers on the vine. Horrid. |
Glock 17
Citizen
Username: Glock17
Post Number: 1390
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 11:40 am: |
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Who cares? 1337 Is the wave of t3h futur3
411 H411 73H 1337 5P34K
Or more accurately
411 |-|411 73|-| 1337 5|>34|< |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 2935
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 11:47 am: |
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Must be a slow news period. The phonetic spelling idea resurfaces periodically, and once and awhile, Esperanto. Never comes to anything, and unlikely ever so to do. |
Glock 17
Citizen
Username: Glock17
Post Number: 1391
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 11:58 am: |
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Esperanto estas tres cool! |
Illuminated Radish
Citizen
Username: Umoja
Post Number: 12
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 12:11 pm: |
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Realistically, it doesn't matter.
People always talk about languages degenerating, but the article brings up the fact that the spelling of 'colour' or 'centre' didn't cause anyone to shed a tear. The only problem would be losing the root words in spelling, but even that doesn't really matter, I don't think most of our understanding of words comes soley from it's spelling.
Languages evolve over time anyway. We don't put 'f' at the end of words to make them plural anymore. It seems silly not to have spelling written phonetically. So along with my support of phonetic spelling, I give you the poem "English is Tough Stuff" Read it outloud.
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, •••, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
-- Author Unknown |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3485
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 2:21 pm: |
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Radish:
That is a wonderful word play--thanks for sharing it.
There is a difference between organic changes in a language and the wholesale "dumbing down" that is the way this thread started. The reason for the proposed change is because people do not want to learn how to spell, and do not appreciate the nuances of our language. And, as you say, a lot of good information will be lost if we do this massive shift. The language will continue to morph naturally, but this movement smacks of social engineering. |
Chris Prenovost
Citizen
Username: Chris_prenovost
Post Number: 986
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 3:32 pm: |
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Agreed. |
Ligeti Man Meat
Citizen
Username: Ligeti
Post Number: 733
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 5:06 pm: |
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One thing is for sure: chronic use of computers and text messaging encourages lazy grammar. Writing letters and homework assignments by hand encourages a more thoughtful approach to language. I'll concede it's not always practical. But the art of letter writing, for example -- and the use of descriptive prose it requires -- is a lost art today. Too many kids use technology as the basis for expressing ideas. |
Illuminated Radish
Citizen
Username: Umoja
Post Number: 15
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 5:55 pm: |
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Do you care more about aesthetics or practicallity is what it comes down to.
People are too quick to claim my generation aren't as eloquent, but I think people just refuse to see us being practical. Granted, I generally try not to be terse when I write, but I don't see it as a bad thing. |
Joan
Supporter
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 7761
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 - 8:15 pm: |
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The quill pen and the computer key board are both tools which enable us to express ourselves. The written word produced by either technique is limited only by the imagination of the person using it. Abbreviations, catch phrases and other forms of short hand were invented long before text messaging. If anything, instant messaging, e-mail and the like are encouraging written expression and the sharing of ideas -- not such a bad thing IMHO.
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themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 3073
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006 - 10:37 am: |
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We read by visual recognition, not by sounding out words, don't we? That's why you come to a full stop when you hit an unfamiliar medical term or something and have to switch to phonetics. There is something funny about the idea of devoting you life to something as stupid as phonetic spelling, esperanto, or libertarianism. It's like the very serious advocates of open marriage and spiritualism from the victorian era. Daft.
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Earlster
Supporter
Username: Earlster
Post Number: 1571
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006 - 4:15 pm: |
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They just something very similar with German, even made it the new 'standard', 2 years later they are trying to get it back to where it was before.
Spell like it's pronounced just doesn't work.
My 2ct |
Krista
Citizen
Username: Klt12275
Post Number: 25
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006 - 5:45 pm: |
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As a middle school English teacher, I have to say that there is an abundance of proposed curriculum programs that most definitely "dumb down" what our kids are learning. District curriculums, the NJ Core Content Standards, and the standardized tests our students take place little emphasis or importance on spelling and grammar. It does not make much sense to me that these skills are minimized when society is quick to judge someone who cannot spell, correctly punctuate, or put together a simple business letter as uneducated. It will not serve our kids well to send them into the world being able to come up with lots of great ideas, but not be able to communicate those ideas coherently to anyone. I am not suggesting that students should be drilled and killed with grammar and spelling lessons, but I feel I would be remiss in my responsibilities as an educator if I did not hold my students responsible for spelling and grammar. "Inventive" spelling promotes laziness (a trait that is already inherent in many students). Why don't we all just make up our own words and spellings for things?
As a side note, my students were very excited about this year's spelling bee, especially since the winner was from New Jersey. They were so into it that they talked me and my coworkers into having a grade level spelling bee and, on the day of the finals, were cheering for their homeroom representative as if they were at a Yankee game. It was nice to see them get that interested in an academic topic. |
Illuminated Radish
Citizen
Username: Umoja
Post Number: 16
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006 - 10:31 pm: |
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I was taught how to write a business letter in an elective class freshmen year. I don't recall much about that anymore.
I've started to discover one needs to be self-taught in a lot of things, schools provide very little information. It doesn't help that those older then myself (and by that I mean people born before us 80's kids), tend to say we don't know anything. Krista brought up a valid point, we don't get taught nearly enough in school! Why isn't education working for us? |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 3535
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 12:05 am: |
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Radish, just know you sound like every generation before you. And the generation ebfore you sounds like every generation before them. |
Illuminated Radish
Citizen
Username: Umoja
Post Number: 18
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 1:19 am: |
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And anyone who says our generation is being dumbed down sounds like the generation before them.
History repeats itself, I'm well aware. We're all just playing roles. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 3538
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - 12:11 pm: |
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Two songs come to mind...
Kids!
I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They are so ridiculous and immature!
I don't see why anybody wants 'em!
Just you wait and see
Kids!
Kids! They are just impossible to control!
(Soon you'll be old enough to be)
Kids! With their awful clothes and their rock an' roll!
(Another teenage delinquent)
Why can't they be like you were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids to--
Kids!
What the devil's wrong with these kids today?
Kids!
Who could guess the they would turn out that way!
Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids?
What's the matter with kids?
What's the matter with kids today?
and...
All the worlds indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each anothers audience
Outside the gilded cage |
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