Enuff iz Enuff

[modeski]

www.startribune.com/389/story/534351.html

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is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.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

Bloody hell this makes me angry. Wouldn't it be more productive to teach people how to speak and write the proper way? You know, rather than reverse the knowledge of a couple of billion people?

I'm rotten at maths, but have never advocated simplifying it just so I felt less dumb. Jesus.

[HStorm]

I'm also against this, mainly for practical reasons, but I do confess that the argument against it is on shakier ground than you might imagine.

Your Maths comparison, Mod, is not completely valid. The distinction between Languages and Maths is that Maths on the whole can't really be simplified. I know you can switch bases to binary or what-not (although I reckon that that only adds to the complications really), but in the end 2+2 will always make 4. There's no getting away from that, it's part of the way reality works.

Whereas we have to remember that languages are a completely different concept. They are not one of the building blocks on which the physical universe is built or measured, but simply a form of communication. And as with all forms of communication, languages do not follow strict laws, no matter what the stuffed shirts of the Queen's English Society want to believe. Languages are just a matter of custom, tradition, even habit. This includes all 'rules' of spelling, punctuation and even pronunciation; hence why Australian English and American English are no more or less 'definitive' than British English.

Pompous windbags like Julian Fellowes may enjoy imagining that they are on the high ground and that they have got the language right, and therefore laughingly look down on people who talk in Geordie, Scouse, Cockney or Glaswegian, but in truth, it is Fellowes and his cohorts who are the deluded ones; the 'rules' that they claim to be trying to uphold do not in fact exist, because language has no rules at all, only tendencies. (Otherwise there'd be no such things as irregular verbs, or spelling variations of the same word e.g 'hiccup/hiccough', 'octogenarian/octagenarian', 'manoeuvre/maneuver' etc.)

Having said that, as I say, I'm against this idea, mainly because the motivation behind it is not about flexibility. Instead it's just the usual, blatant dumbing down, designed to allow a small number of people to delude themselves into thinking that they're good at something they're pretty bad at, because otherwise they might feel embarrassed.

While it is neither necessary to have rules on spelling, nor sinful to do without them, they are useful, and the system should therefore only be changed if more can be gained from it than would be lost. Improving the average scores in spelling bees is certainly not worth remotely the trouble of confusing the great majority who have mastered current ways, nor the workload involved in translating every single book that has ever been published to this point.

This doesn't even go into the issue that, for the system to work properly, every country in the English-speaking world would have to join in, which is something the USA can't insist on, no matter what it thinks it can do.

[Naselus]

Do these half-wits not realise that the standardisation of spelling was one of the greatest leaps forward in communication since the abandonment of Latin?

Language and spelling do indeed evolve, and the rules are easier to bend than a more solid subject like Maths (though much of maths and physics can be twisted if need be; i.e. imaginary numbers, algebra...), but the process moves at the rate of a country's, rather than a human's, lifetime. Attempting to alter the fundamental rules of language and go back to the Olde Anglishe methode would clearly be absolute idiocy.

Generally, I see the direction language is moving in to be a good thing. I know that some people go on about the excellence of Dickensian, or even Chaucerian English, but those people are quite simply wrong. Language has grown increasingly efficient, following a normal evolutionary arms-race pattern. This is the fundamental reason Latin died - it was cumbersomeand too heavily influenced by meaningless rules.

However, efficiency is all to often confused with simplicity. Let's use a language-based example to replace Mod's Mathamatical idea. To start, let's admit that some simplification is a good idea, such as non-gender specification in inanimate objects. There is no good reason to have to remember that the table is male and the chair is female.

But let's take that to what the ALC would clearly look at as the logical conclusion - the total removal of all gender-specific words. There would be no quick way to convey the sex of a person/animal being referred to. This is obviously much less efficient than, just for example, the words 'he', and 'she'.

Look at all the other possibilities for the ALC to target. The letter 'x', for example, could be replaced entirely by the much simpler 'ecks', opening the door for the former to become the sole preserve of the pornography industry. Why have 'k' and 'c'? One would do! 'y' can be done away with by using 'u' or 'i' depending on where they fall in the word. That'd make the alphabet so much simpler for children to remember!

what this current set of anti-spellers have in common with the likes of Franklin, Carnegie and Roosevelt is insignificant compared to where they differ. Franklin wanted to do away with unneeded 'u's, 'gh's and the like, which is reasonably fair. He was not in any way in favour of completely re-jigging the language; neither was Roosevelt. Carnegie may have been, but he was borderline illiterate and has no business criticising that which he couldn't understand. I can't read ASCII formatted text documents, but they make my e-mail work.

Is it just me, or is another example of the way many Americans seem to long to live in the middle ages? Seeking to unite church and state, remove spelling conventions, and go on Crusades against the Arabs?

[HStorm]

Is it just me, or is another example of the way many Americans seem to long to live in the middle ages? Seeking to unite church and state, remove spelling conventions, and go on Crusades against the Arabs?

Heh, I like that one.


Actually, I've just thought of a likely way to make many of these people shudder at their own ideas; being Americans, they're not likely to enjoy seeing their ideas defacing the most celebrated passge from the USA's own Declaration Of Independence. Here are Thomas Jefferson's rather eloquent, poetic words in their original form; -


We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.[/b]


Now, let's read them in, more or less, the putative 'eezeereed' form; -


Wee hoeld zeez Troofs too bee sellf evvidunt, zatt awl Men ar cree-aytidd eek-wooll, zatt zay ar enn-dowd, bi zayr Cree-ayta, wivv surr-tun unn-ayllee-unibul ryts, zatt ammung zeez ar Lyf, Libbutee, and zer Perr-syuut ov Happeenus.

Zat too siccyu-er zeez Ryts, Guvumuntz ar inssta-tyutid ammung Men, diryving zayr just Pouerrz from zer Connsent ov zer Guvund, zat weneva enee Fawm ov Guvumunt bicumz distrucc-tiv ov zeez Endz, itt iz zer Ryt ov zer Peepul too ulta aw er-bollish itt, and too inssta-tyut nyu Guvumunt, laeing itz Foundayshun onn such Prinsipulz, and awgunyzing its Pouerrz inn such Fawm, az too zem shal seem moest lyklee too er-fect zayr Saef-tee and Happeenus.[/b]


Now I'm sure I'm just speaking as someone who's thoroughly versed in reading and writing in standard English (I'm resisting the very strong temptation to call it Oldspeak!), and in fact, I can imagine some dyslexics might find the new version easier to read than the original form. However, overall it would still take a lot of learning, including by literate people; at first glance, I wouldn't understand a word of it. A sign of literacy is instinctively being able to read something the instant you look at it, reading the words without having to stop and think about it.

Eventually you could learn to do that with the language of the transliterated passage. But would it really be that much easier for someone just starting out than it would be for them to learn standard English?

And would it be worth it? For one thing, loads of people round the world learn English as a second language - sorry, lann-gwidj - and often become more fluent in it than many an American or Briton. So even from the most awkward starting point it can be done to the highest standard.

On reflection, it's fair to say that this is because much of the spelling in the English lexicon does defy analysis (e.g. how can 'conscience' be pronounced "connshunse"?), and the transliteration is possibly how a dyslexic might assume the words of the Declaration were spelt. All of which makes it kind of plausible why this idea keeps rearing its head from time-to-time.

But there's something very weird about it, in that it seems to be saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" I thoroughly sympathise with the plight of the dyslexic, but I don't think dragging the rest of the English-speaking world towards the problem is a way to resolve it so much as to paper over it (not to mention the obvious point that you can't do it to suit every dyslexic as there's more than one way of mis-spelling most words). It just won't work.

But there's another reason why it's not worth it, and this is the reason I think the anti-spellers would be scared off if they saw the transliterated version of the Declaration. Just look at it. I don't mean read it, just look at it. It's one of the most famous, eloquent and inspiring declarations the English language had ever given the world to that point. Can you ever imagine a more messy, aimless, and above all ugly, hotch-potch form for the passage to appear in?

By highlighting the phonetics so exactly, by laying its shape and form so bare and so thorough, it's taken all the beauty, subtlety, and variation out of the written word. It is literature with the art taken out of it. This is because absolute phonetics are chains of written sounds, not language. Written sounds are generally crude, and the passage actually looks crude. It's unpleasant to look at, and miserable to read.

I daresay we could get used to it eventually, but getting used to something is not the same as enjoying it. Reading isn't just a task, it can and should be a pleasure as well. But any book written in such a manner would never be a pleasure to read, except perhaps appealing to our cheaper sense of irony.

No. It's sad that some people have trouble learning to read and write, but then that's life; everyone has their talents, and their flaws, and where they have flaws, they simply have to work harder to compensate for them, as well as accept that room for their development will reach a much shorter impasse. Trying to drag everyone else down instead is not the answer.

(Look at it this way; I was rubbish at football when I first started playing it when I was about 6, but I kept playing and playing for years, until eventually I developed my skill to the point that I was... not excruciatingly bad. I didn't ask my PE teacher to make everyone else play on their knees so at least I'd be as fast as them.)

No, putting a ceiling on high standards may close the door to humiliation, but it also destroys a world of possibility.

[Naselus]

It is, of course, even worse if you take accents into account. We'd have several thousand different variations on how to spell, and so the nonsensical phonetic system would fall to pieces.