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To: MissouriConservative

Spelling phonetically introduces all sorts of problems into the written language such as phonetic “accents” and slang pronunciations. It’s hard enough to understand everyone in our society as it is, to further dumb things down on a written level as well is not a good idea.


13 posted on 05/30/2008 7:40:53 AM PDT by contemplator (Capitalism gets no Rock Concerts)
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To: contemplator
The "hip" thing now is to be cryptic. Even Hollyweird is into this game making movie titles like "Th13rteen Ghosts" and "Lucky Number S7even".

Those numbers ARE part of the title. Copyright and all.

And the other product of "Hollywood", pop music, also plays, er playz dis gaym with band and song names like Twizted, Linkin Park, and "creative" spelling of a name like Antoine as Antwon.

I'd just take a red pen to such spellings and write "See Me" in a red circle at the top of the page.

17 posted on 05/30/2008 7:46:24 AM PDT by weegee (We cant keep our homes on 72 at all times & just expect that other countries are going to say OK -BO)
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To: contemplator

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


27 posted on 05/30/2008 8:06:15 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ("Don't touch that thing")
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To: contemplator
Spelling phonetically introduces all sorts of problems into the written language such as phonetic “accents” and slang pronunciations.

While I agree, the problem is that the standard English spellings started to get fixed while people were still speaking Middle English rather than Modern English and while people writing grammar and spelling books spoke Latin and introduced forced Latinisms into English grammar and spelling. There is a good overview of the effects on spelling here. For example, "A gentle knight was once a gentleh kanicht." "But once upon a time (tim), some was pronounced som-eh." "Doute was not allowed to stand since in Latin it was dubitum; so it became doubt."

So I think it would make some sense to reform English spelling to remove the letters that nobody pronounces any longer (and in some cases never pronounced in English) and get rid of the silly grammar rules grafted on from Latin (e.g., the idea that splitting infinitives is wrong because you can't in Latin) and then go from there.

89 posted on 05/30/2008 10:08:00 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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