Posted on 06/29/2004 8:21:41 PM PDT by Spellfix
I am new to your forum, a spelling bee protester just getting around to answering some comments posted June 3 here: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1146693/post My actual remarks are under Comment. Please email me if I'm putting the comment where the thread should be or vice versa. ramole@aol.com
I can't fully back your plan, though. Modern English spelling has a few benefits you may be overlooking.
These aren't knock-out reasons, but they're food for thought before any major, government-mandated spelling reform.
(It may make you feel better to know that the language is evolving -- when I was in the spelling bee lo those many years ago, 'dialog' was accepted, and both spellings of 'judgment' seem kosher.)
I don't use the spelling chicken too often.
Some of my posts are more amusing with teh typos in tehm.
It would be a hugh misteak to relie on that spelling thing.
Are you saying (or is it "Ar yue saeing...") that illiteracy can only be mitigated by spelling reform and not by better education efforts? Some of our public schools (or is it "publik skuuls") are pretty lousy.
>>I'm sure the States is similar. I'm curious as to how you would work out which particular accent to base your phonetic spelling on?
Probably whichever one the UN tells him to use.
Another thing: while this sounds like a neat idea whose time, for all I know, may be well overdue, doesn't it sound like an insult to people's intelligence to "dumb down" the spelling system to accomodate our society's more unfortunate members, rather than inspiring them to overcome (or is it "ovrkum") their situation and learn the sophisticated system of spelling that we currently consider "proper?"
Only if they can watch 26 hours a day. Otherwise forget it. Won't do them any good at all.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
You miss the entire point of the Spelling Bee. It's not to teach the masses spelling, it's to reward exceptional individuals who have gone above and beyond what is expected.
Soundz series.
I mite give it a trie.
"4. "Everyone can learn to spell!" Yes -- in Germany. But here literally ten million children compete in the Bee and 9,999,999 misspell a word and drop out, before one is declared champion. If you think one in ten million is everyone you must have taken New Math."
The logic here is dizzingly stupid. You're pointing to a system that is designed to single out one person out of ten million, and saying that it's success means that spelling in too hard. That's like saying we should reform the presidential election system because only one man out of all of the nominees and candidates succeeds in becoming president.
Re "60% of prisoners are illiterate" and your reply "and 100% have committed crimes", even if you hate the prisoners and are glad they committed crimes so they could go to jail, don't you realize how many victims have been harmed? I've read the average criminal commits 240 crimes a year. You, your loved ones, I, and our fellow citizens can be hurt badly by criminals. It is strongly in our self interest to have as few people go bad as possible. And a man who can read and get a decent job is far less likely to decide to sell drugs on the street corner, join a gang or rob you, than someone who sees no other choice.
As I explained, spelling is not grammar. But you are right, we no longer use archaic grammar. Dost thou not think, then, that we should not use archaic spellings such as "knight", "know" and "sword", which no longer describe the sounds of those words?
"It's easy to lower the illiteracy rate if you merely lower the bar at which it's judged."
Literacy means being able to communicate, to read and write. People in countries with reformed spelling systems can do that. So can those in countries with orthographies that were self-consistent to start with. (e.g. Italy, Spain) They can read a newspaper article and tell you what it was about, so we say they are literate. That is the bar at which it is judged. Whether they use an ancient spelling system or a reformed one has nothing to do with whether they are literate.
More people in English speaking countries cannot read and write than in those countries. And our spelling *is* the bar over which they trip.
BTW, we in America already use a partially-reformed spelling system, courtesy of Noah Webster. He reformed hundreds of words, e.g. "honor" VS British "honour", plow for plough and jail for gaol. Do you suppose we are less literate than the Brits because they struggle with even more crazy spellings than we do?
Although it was meant as a satire, it contains good arguments for reform. And it's pretty amazing the way you can read the final sentences, isn't it? Real reforms are much easier tho. ("Tho", BTW, is one of our few successes. It has made it into the dictionaries as an alternate, acceptable spelling. Ditto "thru".)
Actually the rate is just slightly lower in Canada and New Zealand, with far fewer minorities etc. Around 17% at best. And they don't use Whole Word.
You are right that Phonics helps. Whole Word was partly a reaction to the lack of logic in our spelling. Countries with self-consistent spelling would never think of adopting anything so crazy. They learn the shapes and sounds of the letters and thereafter have little trouble, just as we learn the shapes and sounds of the numerals, plus a few rules, and have no trouble counting or reading "2004".
We try to teach the rules, such as "magic e" on the end of a word makes the preceding vowell long, as in "The brave save the cave and then behave." But then the student says "have" must be spelled "hav" because otherwise it would rhyme with "behave", right? And we tell him it is not a misspelling, just an exception (which isn't an answer just a cop-out) and he'll just have to memorize it. And thousands of other words, which is why it takes us two years to learn and others two weeks.
But that is no reason to go totally mad and stop teaching the whole basis of reading! Phonics is good.
That said, our spelling is not good and we adults should fix it and stop blaming kids. They don't blame kids in Norway, because when the system is honest nobody makes mistakes.
If 22% of the patients died of infections, I guess we would reform our hospitals. When a system is bad, fix it. We have not reformed English spelling to match pronunciation for a thousand years. Whereas during that time we have changed medicine considerably, and live a lot longer as a result. Or do you prefer leaches and bloodletting?
Spelling is not culture. Homer is culture, but he was blind and composed hundreds of years before the Greeks had writing. For both reasons he did not write. Yet the Odyssey is culture.
English spelling was as-you-like it until around 1780, when popularity of Johnson's dictionary standardized it. But Shakespeare was cultured.
Spelling is a code, a method for conveying information, nothing more. It did not come down on golden tablets, nor was it a work of genius like the Declaration of Independence. Our spelling just happened by accident, and looks that way.
A code should be efficient. Ours is not, and should be fixed.
As for dumbing down, that would not be possible. Our spelling is as dumb as it gets. (Imagine pronouncing these words as they are written: write, know, have, done, thought, though, through, cough, tough, gnaw, knight, night...)
Fear not, no one is going to creep into your library one night and respell all your books.
Ebook readers are getting better, and will progress like all electronics until paper books are as obsolete as vinyl records. This will probably happen within ten years -- a really good one with "electronic ink" is due out in November.
Then almost all books will just be downloaded in electronic form. Once you have downloaded a book you will be able to click an icon and in seconds have it in reformed spelling. (See http://www.ententetranslator.com/ISS.HTM for a free program that does this already.)So *you* will select the books to translate. And translation can go either way, so you will be able to convert books in reformed spelling into your preferred Traditional Orthography. And, no, it does not censor them.
Here is your post, translated. Is it censored?
Hoo is going to translaet all th buuks in a liebrairy?
If th next jeneraeshun can oenly reed and riet in this "nue" method, all th curent buuks printed in whut is now standard English wuud be a forin langgwej. Ar all th buuks going to be translaeted? Or, just a select fue? Sinss thae wuud hav to be translaeted, perhaps thae cuud be modified a litl, U noe, get rid of things peepl shuud not reealy noe.
If I was parranoid, I wuud think U and yur groop had uther moetivs.
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