[pchelpers] Re: strange firefox (update) (OT)

Hi Pc

>> Here's counsel on your Java console, not counsel :-
> 
> Stupid spell check. I had it spelled console and spell check told me it 
> told me I was wrong.

The spell checker in Thunderbird recognises and accepts "console", but 
maybe you spelled it a bit differently and the checker stupidly only 
suggested "counsel" as an alternative.

> I'm a dyslexic and I depend on a spell checker to be sure I'm getting 
> things right.

Yes, if English weren't still insanely spelled the way it was pronounced 
many hundred years ago, even most dyslexics wouldn't normally need a 
spell checker (and these would work much better). Dyslexics have no 
problem speaking English, so if they have extreme problems spelling it 
(and children spend 5-10 years learning to spell English as well as 
Finnish in 1 year), the spelling "system" currently in use is just 
simply a very bad tool, which is not surprising considering it's a 
collection of such old and contradictory habits. Ever try using any 
other 500-year-old tool that's in daily use and that was never replaced 
and only very slightly changed?

Most people confuse the written language and the tool of spelling with 
the real, living, spoken language and think spelling reform is a bad 
thing. This is understandable because English spelling is now so far 
removed from a truly alphabetic system that even a small change in a 
rational direction seems drastic. Most people try to also resist changes 
in the spoken language even though it's impossible. We can spell English 
the way it was spoken hundreds of years ago, but we can't even speak it 
the way our great-grandparents did.

Another reason for resistance to spelling reform is probably because the 
printed word still has some of the authority it had when most people 
couldn't read or write and were scared and awed by the power that texts 
had over their lives.

Even worse, even today people who are masters at the nearly hieroglyphic 
English spelling system (in which most common words are pictures that 
use letters in violation of the basic principle of the alphabet) are 
considered very educated, when in fact most just have a good optical 
memory, and bad spellers are considered stupid, when most (and 
especially dyslexics) are in fact much more intelligent and creative 
than excellent spellers. It's insane how many employers even today use 
spelling abilities to choose employees and how many at least unknowingly 
prefer morons with robot brains that can spell to people who can come up 
with new ideas and solutions.

Because the older generations still keep resisting a sensible and 
gradual spelling reform, young people are in the process of instead 
carrying out a spelling revolution. They're essentially dumping 
everything and reinventing English spelling by writing English more and 
more the way it's spoken. The only problem is that because this spelling 
reform is not guided by experts, the results will be very chaotic and 
even less alphabetical for quite a while...



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