National Spelling Bee Brings Out Protesters Who R Thru With Through

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 30, 2008 | Rebecca Dana

[Telepathic Intruder]

Spelling reform is currently enjoying a renaissance in the U.S. and Britain.

I could go along with that (if it had a chance in hell). Few people realize what a science phonetics is, and how badly English represents it. To most, each sound used to construct words seem random, but did you know that they can all be fitted neatly in a matrix and the exact relation between each one identified? The English alphabet doesn't account for this at all, is missing several sounds that require letter combinations instead, and has repetitious letters that aren't even needed (C, Q, and X specifically). Other sounds can't be represented at all, and must be assumed.

[bvw]

In the company of "loosers": Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, among other geniuses and great men and women. Ever since first Samuel Johnson and slightly later Noah Webster published a dictionary with regularized spelling. Initial pre-pub contract signed for same by Johnson on 18 June 1746.

1746. English, by the way is dated back to slightly prior to the first millennium, common era. So we enjoyed, roughly, 800 years without zealously "book-regularized" yet reckless phonetically spelling and spelling zealots, and have suffered only 250 or so years of these zealots of phonetically insane yet book-regularized spelling.

Count me with the "loosers" -- not totally, but we could use some serious realignment of many spellings.

[swampdweller]

ZOMG we all be teh 1337 h4x0rz nao.

Well said.

[weegee]

[Dante3]

Actually I see their point. How much easier to teach a child to read in many other languages than English.

[weegee]

Just think if “written English is too hard”, the written words of the founding fathers of this nation will be lost to all but the linguist experts.

The Supreme Court and Politicians won't have to pay attention to the language of our Constitution. That document can finally “grow”.

There is a reason for holding to such traditions as our written language.

Why not jettison the Chinese alphabet instead?

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

There, their, they’re! Don’t be, bee too, to, two upset!

[Telepathic Intruder]

Well you’re right of course, it just seems a shame that phonetics is lost in a jungle of a randomly-evolved alphabet. Not to mention that written language would be far easier to learn and use if there was some organization to it.

[NonValueAdded]

Just introduce the Decabet (hey, it’s metric!) /obscure

[VanShuyten]

For example, Spanish. That’s why virtually all of the illegal aliens here are literate </s>

[NonValueAdded]

Hangman!!! How DARE you? Halp, police! Someone has a noose, someone has a noose. Oh, the huge manatee.

[HamiltonJay]

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

[HamiltonJay]

...ours is a mongrel language which started with a child's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two hundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of the original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched from every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each individual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and preserving the memory of the revered crime.

- Mark Twain's Autobiography

[SmithL]

Are you series?

[weegee]

If anything, a better keyboard would be in order since we no longer have to worry about typewriter keys bashing into each other.

[weegee]

Makes me wonder if schools have a zero tolerance policy towards kids who take a sheet of paper out in study hall or at lunch and play hangman.

[GunRunner]

English phonetics is a discombobulated mess.

One of the things that amazed me when I took German was how almost every word is spelled exactly as it sounds.

I have a buddy who speaks three languages and competes in several adult spelling bees annually, and I asked him about this. He said that spelling bees are for the most part an English only event, since it wouldn't occur to non-English language speakers to make a contest out of spelling, since it is rarely challenging in any language other than English.

[boogerbear]

I don’t know about most celebrated. I think Jeopardy gets better ratings than the spelling bees.

[gura]

Here's the new dictionary for the National Spelling Bee:

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/

[SoldierDad]

Reformers, including Mark Twain, Charles Darwin and Theodore Roosevelt, argued that phonetic spellings would make it easier for children, foreigners and adults with learning disabilities to read and write.

This is simply not true. A large number of the children with learning disabilities that I work with have little to no phonics skills and are dependent upon the development of site word vocabulary to learn how to read and write. Using a phonics based system would not help, but would certainly hinder their progress.