Spelling is meant to make reading and writing easier to learn and master. So it should be logical, regular, predictable. It's not, because Dr Johnson, in compiling his dictionary 256 years ago, was more interested in etymology, of interest to the aficionados, than in designing a sharp well honed tool. A pity! But more's the pity that we dont seem to want to repair his contraption! Why?Why are people not convinced that our spelling is dysfunctional and needs to be upgraded?
everyone drop everything
dr. wholplentz stop that vital heart surgery
lawyer jones stop that vital court case deciding whether i dunno a dog can get married or some ****
joe bobblington stop wanking into that tube sock with the curtains drawn
spelling is the most important thing ever now didn't any of you hear about it dictionaries are the new bibles
Habit. The answer is simply habit, and a large carry-over from ancient spellings based on Old English and Middle English, not to mention the spellings of words imported from Italian, French, Spanish, Yiddish, etc., etc.
I don't know how familiar you are with old English playwrights. Have you ever heard of George Bernard Shaw? He wrote about 100 years ago and he would have agreed with you totally. He labored long and hard and devoted much of his considerable fortune to simplifying the spelling of the English language. All to no avail.Why are people not convinced that our spelling is dysfunctional and needs to be upgraded?
Spelling is not meant to make reading or writing easier; it is meant to approximate the spoken word, and it does. I'm sure a new, phonetic spelling system would confound you along with the rest of us.
Because conservatism, which is a disease, remains a fashionable/popular viewpoint in our sick society.Why are people not convinced that our spelling is dysfunctional and needs to be upgraded?
hell their is alot of things in this world that could be upgrade and spelling is not on the top of the list.
Lots of reasons, but the main one is probably that the people who would benefit most from improvements to English spelling are poor readers and even worse spellers. So they can鈥檛 give voice to their views, even in this communicative age.
Secondly, those who can read and write well had to spend a great deal of time and effort on learning those skills. They don鈥檛 like the idea of having to do again, not realising that improvements to English would involve very little relearning on their part.
Thirdly, they probably also don鈥檛 realise that the millions of functionally illiterate, poorly educated speakers of English affect their lives too. In today鈥檚 western world, the illiterate find it difficult to find employment and end up in all kind of trouble, including jail. They cost lots of tax money. I am not saying there is a direct link between illiteracy and criminality, but it clearly makes it easier to drop out of society. I think it鈥檚 quite likely that the high rates of functional illiteracy in the UK and US are substantially responsible for the UK having proportionately more people in jail than any other European country, and the US more than any other in the developed country.
Fourthly, most people don鈥檛 realise just how much harder it is to learn to read and write English, in comparison to other languages, how much longer it takes, how much more pressure and stress it puts on children, parents and teachers. English is all they have ever really learned to read and write.
Fifthly, they tend to be misinformed about why English spelling has ended up as irregular and learner-unfriendly as it is. They don鈥檛 know that it was messed up mainly by foreign printers during the bible wars of the 16th century, when the Church of England supported the Pope鈥檚 ban on translating the bible into English from Latin. So William Tyndale translated it while living in hiding in Germany, Holland and Belgium, where all the first English bibles were also printed, with more and more spelling errors, which then became enshrined in dictionaries and have been copied ever since.
Those five reasons are the main ones, but there are also people who resist all change, and those who simply don鈥檛 care that English spelling condemns many others to poorer and more brutish lives than they enjoy. There are even teachers who worry about how their jobs would change if teaching reading and writing took less time and effort.
In short, the main obstacles to improving English spelling are ignorance and indifference. If u want to shed yours, read my blogs http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com and http://www.improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com
Literat pepl put up with the difficulties of present spelling becaus they can use spellcheckers to correct their own efforts most of the time.
Advertisers use simpl spellings so that everyone can read their brands 鈥?like Weetbix and Kwikbru.
The main reason why English spelling remains difficult is that pepl think the alternativ is radical change which requires re-lerning and reprinting. But other languages just update.
For exampl, reading could be taut quickly like this:
1.Beginners start with a dictionary pronunciation spelling 鈥?like a modified BBC Text Pronunciation Gide.
Then they learn 35 common irregular words that make up 12% of everyday text. Keep the 35 most common iregular words, since they make up 12% of most running text - all almost always among as come some could should would half know of off one only once other pull push put they their two as was what want who why, and word-endings -ion/-tion/-sion/zion. These ar not too meny to lern.
2. Next comes grammar and units of meaning 鈥?like %26lt;s%26gt; for plurals and tenses, and consistent spellings for final vowels, and the 鈥榮ilent鈥?e tactic for long vowels A E I O U.
for an optional spelling system.
4. Allow up to 4 vairiant spellings for 9 vowels and 4 consonants, for spelling most pepl could read, like this. 149 less familiar spelling patterns would not need to be lernd.
5. Then present spelling can be readabl and spelling rules fit on one page.
Present users start by omitting surplus letters in wurds, like economy instead of oeconomy and program instead of programme.
This is a good question and I think that Masha has touched on most of the reasons why others are not convinced about the need for an upgrade to our spelling system. It might be that most people have mastered it an early age and have not thought about it since. We just do not know that it is that dysfunctional - we have been habituated to it, together with a lot of other givens, that we do not question. Changing things that we have internalised or been indoctrinated into from an early age (such as our religion, our diet or our understanding of the relationships between the sexes or the races) causes a similar response.
We do not know that there is a problem but when we learn that there is a proposal to make a change we fear that there will be terrible slippery slope. While we can, as individuals, always join another religion or change our diet or raise our conscience about gender equality (possibly with difficulty) we might think it is for "others" (ie the government) to do something about a societal problem such as our archaic spelling and a malaise sets in.
Our adherence to our spelling system is often massively emotional as if major features of our identity are being threatened.
A familiar objection to spelling reform is that it would change or dumb down our language as if the way we spell is the same as our language. I could recite to you, over the phone, a piece of Shakespeare and you would not know that I was reading a piece of braille, a text written in English English or American English or textese. A spelling system and a language are very different things, the first is a convention about how a set of symbols will represent the second, a spoken language. These conventions have changed throughout history but in English the major principles of the system have become corrupted. Most European languages have had planned reforms to their spelling systems.
So it could be that we are either blind to there being a problem or that we are frightened at the disruption it will bring into our lives should we make adjustments.
Either way we are saddled with a museum piece that causes huge problems to our learners.
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