Comments on: Is it time to make English eezier?

By: language of babies

language of babies — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:13:35 +0000

language of babies…

…

By: Vark

Vark — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:29:02 +0000

Let’s bring back the pound, shilling & pence currency system - remember that? And while we are about it why not bring back Roman Numerals? We got rid of these for the simplified dumbed down systems that we have now that just any old lazy person can use. Gad zooks!

What I don’t understand is: why people don’t want bring back these ornaments to our culture?

I shaul taketh tvngue aut ovf cheake, herewith.

By: N J H

N J H — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:07:56 +0000

English is dumbed down already - consider the spelling of the words: dumb, rum, comb, tomb.
The panic reaction to the thought of upgrading our antique spelling system is that we are going to damage the language - when these are two different things.
Most European languages have had regular and planned repairs. They are not dumb & do not have the costly illiteracy problems that the English speaking world have. We simply can not afford to run a system that excludes so many. Truly, we are being dum.

Oh, in case people think there was a golden age of good spelling: there never was. It has been chaotic for centuries. And don’t forget Shakespeare spelled his own name 10 different ways.

By: Steve Bett

Steve Bett — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:04:42 +0000

J Cross, Changing the spelling of English to something closer to a dictionary key has no impact on the spoken language.

“Cood I hav a liter plees” represents a regularization of your sample phrase. “cud aI hæv @ laIt@`pli:z” is a dictionary key spelling.

LJ, We don’t preserve the works of Shakespeare in the original spelling. The spelling has little to do with the greatness of a literary work.

The spelling reformers just want a standard that is easier to teach and learn.

The new standard would be used by dictionaries, newspapers, and schools. People could continue to spell the way they pleased. Outside of school and the preferences of your boss, there are no spelling police.

The new spelling would represent the major broadcast dialects. Where pronunciation differed, a world English commission would have to come up with a compromise.

A typical compromise would be to keep the old spelling if it represented the way the word was spoken in one major broadcast dialects. The commission would not keep “rough” because every newsreader pronounces the word “ruf”

By: Masha Bell

Masha Bell — Sat, 17 May 2008 06:20:09 +0000

Perhaps more people should take a few minutes to visit http://www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk to see what the worst aspects of English spelling are?
It shows what children are up against and why all English-speaking countries have to spend vastly bigger sums than others on teaching reading and writing, and also on the problems which stem from failing to acquire those skills: unemployment, poorer health, costs of more crime and imprisonment, teenage pregnancies. One dyslexia support group estimates those to cost nearly two billion pounds per year in the UK alone.
U don’t get hardly any dyslexia in Finnish, Italian and Korean.

By: Theo Halladay

Theo Halladay — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:10:11 +0000

Allan is rite. it surprises me to reed such a barage [rimes with garage] of objections to updating the way inglish is speld. Wy in the world shudnt we update it? Is the riters’ negativity sum sort of sycological defense mecanism? This antidiluvian traditionalism is laffable. I can only think of it as a game, or a form of mental illness, or an animalistic snarl agenst those who ar trying to make reeding and riting inglish eesier. ”Keep it hard!” is their wor cry. ”Grind down the little brats! Make life harder for the teachers, for the taxpayers, for the immigrants, for EVRYBODY!” They call us reformers names. We can call them a few things…

By: Allan

Allan — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:32:37 +0000

Menny of the comments on this article bemone a threttend change of the language. No one is proposing such a corse. Language evolves naturally. Spelling is an unnatural human-made convention to record the language.
English is rich, taking words from menny sorces. In doing so it has unfortunatly not automatically anglicized their spellings to fit English conventions.
When other languages adopt English words, they usually adapt them to their own spelling conventions; eg, ‘football’ becums ‘futbol’, ‘futebol’, etc. We hav faled to do this in English, and now our spelling is a dogs brekfast.
If that wer all, we could cope. But the unpredictability and unreliability of our spelling ’sistem’ throws all sorts of problems at children lerning to reed and rite. Most eventually mannage. Menny dont.
Hence we hav a ratio of one in evry five English speekers being functionally illitrat. Worldwide. No exeptions. Irrespectiv of teeching resorces or methods.
Is hanging on to our outdated, outmoded, past-its-use-by-date spelling caos worth all this?

By: Bounty Killa

Bounty Killa — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:27:45 +0000

I would like to give the explanation for a Rass Clat but it keeps getting taken off by the moderator. It is the same as a bumba clat or a blood clat or a batti rider.

By: Orange of Greenwich

Orange of Greenwich — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:47:43 +0000

And what is a rass clat? Is that cockney, like “apples and pears’ for up the stairs? Class rat?

By: Orange of Greenwich

Orange of Greenwich — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:44:17 +0000

Oh, and if the SSS is just ‘SS’ now, how is it possible that they could be marking their 100th year? Did they not rename themselves? Or did I miss something simple?