Push for simpler spelling persists By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 5, 5:23 PM ET 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is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.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!" I think we Czechs should remember Jan Hus today and thank him for our phonetic spelling!
Really interesting. I like Czech phonetic spelling but I have difficulties with this English one (yes, I know it is because I learned written English before the spoken form). But I apprehend that phonetic spelling results in separation into regional languages, is it desirable?
In fact the Czech spelling is not phonetic, but rather ethymologic (sometimes even historical). Many words are spelled phonetically, of course. It is not so easy to spell such words like: dětský, zpěv, sbor, být, ... You must learn it as well.
Of course, Zeisig, imagine we all wrote "more phonetic" instead of "phonetic" :wink:. This English reform reminds some Czech tendencies (fruitless I hope) to not to differentiate between "i" and "y".
Very good article Jana. This reminds me of Mark Twain's "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling".
Ahoj That is a strange idea to me. Simplifying the language to pure phonetics. Seems that would be even more confusing. That might work with speaking, of course, that's all just sound, but what about reading? Lots of words are are based on root words. Meanings could be lost in just a bunch of letters. Those examples in that article of such "fonetik"(what's that mean?-oh yea, phonetic) writing only seemed to make things worse. There are many instances in the english language where silent, (ignored) letters are very archaic. They were probably pronounced at some point in the history of the language, but no longer. might--pronounced mite-but see, in this example, even though the E at the end of the word is not pronouced, it lets us know that the I is a "long I"(in your phonetics "majt" not "myt"). Confusing right? Did that esperanzo thing ever catch on? Remember that attempt to sort of create a kind of international language? Otazka vas prosim o ceskem jazyce. Snazim se naucit jak se tvori vety v cestine. In english I have decided to try to learn Czech. This sentence has three reflexive verbs, all demanding "se". This is how I would try to put that into Czech. Rozhodl jsem se snazit ucit se cesky. Prosim vas jeste jednou I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Preju si, abys to mohla nalezet v srdce odpustit me? Diky predem
A couple more things----what about words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, and have completely different meanings? cell-------sell ant--------aunt (this can be regional "ahnt" in the north "ant" in the south. weighed------wade wood-----would mood----mooed---(the cow mooed because he was hungry) board------bored course-----coarse ruff--------rough threw-----through And the list goes on.
and in Czech we have for example "pil" = "he drank", "pyl" = "pollen" and "pil" is also plural genitive of the word "pila" = "saw"
wow... 42 sounds spelled 400 different ways?! growing up here i really never realized how hard English is to learn.. thanks for the great post Jana... btw you have the same name is my girlfriend's mom.. and that's a lovely name.
