atw: Re: Irregular English spelling should be scrapped...
- From: Ken Randall <kenneth_james_randall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:07:23 -0700 (PDT)
Yes, to some degree, but different people perceive the sounds
of different words differently, and hence even with phonetic
spelling there would be variations and absurdities in spelling.
The situation mentioned below used to apply - everyone chose
their own spelling - and there were problems with
comprehensibility.
--- On Tue, 9/9/08, Stephen Nason <snason@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Stephen Nason <snason@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Irregular English spelling should be scrapped...
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Received: Tuesday, 9 September, 2008, 4:44 PM
Thort this mite interest...
Regards,
Steve
'Telegraph' newspaper (London, 9 Sep 2008)
By Jon Swaine
[Headline:] Irregular English spelling should be scrapped, says leading
academic
Irregular English spellings hold back schoolchildren and should be abandoned, a
leading academic has said.
Spelling should be "freed up" and the apostrophe scrapped, according to John
Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London.
He proposes turning "give" into "giv", "river" into "rivver" and embracing
Americanisms such as "organize" with a "z".
In a speech to the centenary dinner of the Spelling Society, of which he is
president, Prof Wells will blame the country's literacy problems on the
"burden" the English spelling system places on children.
"It seems to be a great pity that English-speaking countries are holding back
children in this way," Prof Wells will say.
"In Finnish, once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it
would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain
it's similar.
"But with English it's not phonetic, and there are just so many
irregularities.".
In a statement bound to bring him into direct confrontation with
traditionalists, Prof Wells will say that abbreviations commonly used in text
messaging should be used more widely.
"Text messaging, email and internet chat rooms are showing us the way forward
for English."
"Let's allow people greater freedom to spell logically. It's time to remove the
fetish that says that correct spelling is a principal (principle?) mark of
being educated," Prof Wells will say.
Prof Wells will also claim the apostrophe causes unnecessary linguistic
barriers.
"Instead of an apostrophe," he will say, "we could just leave it out (it's
could become its) or leave a space (so we'll would become we ll). Have we
really nothing better to do with our lives than fret about the apostrophe?"
[ends]
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