Talk:English spelling reform/Archive1

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Mission

What does this have to do with any of our RW:MISSIONs? It's the same kind of content we've previously purged from a bunch of our articles (Japan, Korea, Germany) because it was just off-topic trivia. I think the same should apply here. RW is not an encyclopedia. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it does, mostly because it is a crank subject, albeit one for relatively harmless cranks. Hundreds of people over the years have developed hundreds of proposals that are all equally doomed. We do have an article on Esperanto; this is similar enough to warrant coverage here, I think. Will start compiling some of the more interesting proposals if it's decided that an article on the subject is wanted; thought I'd do something that covered the basics first. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Not seeing any links to big crankness. Also the objective of spelling reform isn't bad - it's just that there are insurmountable problems involved in getting from here to there. So I'm not seeing the mission. --Weirdstuff (talk) 20:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Esperanto covers a far different and much more hilarious thing and thus not at all related . Why do we have this, i feel like i just read wikipedia with less standards. --^Mikal_lakiM 20:54, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I suppose one could say it stretches the boundaries of "documenting the full range of crank ideas." (emph. added) As crankery goes, it's pretty tame stuff. I'm not feeling missionary about it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, these cranks aren't really harmful or dangerous; or at least aren't so long as no one takes them all that seriously. But they are cranks, working endlessly on doomed improvements and proposals. They espouse 'extremely unorthodox views' and typically exaggerate the inconveniences of traditional spelling and oversell the advantages of the changes they happen to favor. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 22:06, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

and? --^Mikal_lakiM 23:02, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

And crank topics are on-mission. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 00:11, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Thats wonderful but isn't really justifying why we need this. I talk upthe benefits of playing JRPG's while downplaying the benefits of playing western RPG's, shall we make an article about how im a crank for JRPG's? --^Mikal_lakiM 00:48, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Damn right we do, you damn Console playing pleb, denigrating the PC master race. --Revolverman (talk) 06:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Your user page: "JCDenton1o1 Via Skype." Niiiice. (dunno if Deus Ex can be classed as WRPG, probably can) Nullahnung (talk) 08:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

If crankery is the justification for this then the article should be about such cranks. Most of the article should be about them. Simply throwing the word "crank" into the first paragraph does not make the article on mission.--Weirdstuff (talk) 06:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, given the nature of the subject, it seemed more important to explain why spelling reformists are cranks -- why the strong, system-changing reforms they seek are inevitably idiosyncratic proposals, all unworkable, and will only make things worse -- and then start to give examples of some of the more interesting or historically significant proposals. I frankly don't see a strong difference between the reasons why Esperanto is slightly laughable and therefore belongs here, and the similarly laughable Shavian alphabet. Both Esperanto and spelling reform are manifestations of that pesky lust for Planning and System and Consistency. Advocates of both seem to have very similar grandiose ideas about what their proposed reforms will accomplish. Certainly the sections on individual reforms need to expand, but I do think that English spelling reform is just as on-mission as Esperanto. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:07, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I would also point out that being "wrong" or "misguided" is not the same as being a "crank".--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

What's a "crank", then? I must admit I've never even heard of the term until I came to RW. Nullahnung (talk) 11:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

See "Crank" I suppose :-) --Weirdstuff (talk) 11:21, 6 September 2013 (UTC).

Hmm, yes... dangerously fascinating. Nullahnung (talk) 11:29, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

One of the only areas I think this could possibly cross over into crankery is in the case of language or dialect superiority- people who discriminate against those who don't use 'proper English' such as AAVE and other dialects-- which crosses over into actually a lot of corporate hiring processes, making them in some ways racist and/or classist, and into educational settings where kids may hit language barriers because no bridges are built between academic English and the dialect they may use at home and have already learned. Anyone who says that informal English, AAVE, or regional dialects aren't moving or proper english needs to read some Junot Diaz and shut up, though it is important to learn formal english spelling and grammar, etc. But I don't think that's the focus of this article? I don't really know.±KnightOfTL;DR^{critical thinking is the key to success!} 14:33, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Teflpedia

I see that Weaseloid (below) has kindly suggested that this could be ported to Teflpedia. In fact, Teflpedia already has an article on spelling reform which sets out the arguments for and against at a level of brevity which I feel is appropriate for our audience.

It is evident that Smerdis is quite knowledgeable on the subject and if he wishes to create some associated articles on the history of English spelling on Teflpedia he would be more than welcome.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 17:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Votes

Delete

• Move to essay or delete. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:33, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Or ask Bob M if there might be a place for any of it at Teflpedia. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

• no real justification on why e need it besides "cranks!" --^Mikal_lakiM 04:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Essay or delete.--Weirdstuff (talk) 06:16, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep

• There's something I'm not getting here, it seems. We already have articles on auxiliary languages and gender-neutral pronouns and other unworkable proposals to improve language; also phonics versus whole language, which strikes me as a closely related subject, one for which an article discussing the oddness of English spelling is needful background. This is an old debate; but we have important figures like Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken weighing in on why this doesn't work; I'd have thought their names would carry some weight here. I know the page is a bit didactic; I'd rather explain why these systems don't work, and that requires a bit of background. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I've expanded the article a bit, and removed some background. I do think that the subject itself is on-mission as a mildly interesting example of vain endeavor. It's a bit of old-fashioned nuttery that was a bigger deal a hundred years ago; then again, so was phrenology. It isn't that English spelling isn't problematic; it's rather that the radical changes that would be needed to restore the "alphabetic principle" are all tilting at windmills. It may yet be too didactic and not quite snarky enough, but I do think it's more clearly on-mission. If you choose to delete it, please kick it to a user page first.
  
  Written language will always be remarkably conservative. They wrote hieroglyphics in Cleopatra's day the same way they did 1500 years before. It took the Roman Catholic Church until after the year 800 that they realized that Latin sermons were unintelligible. Before then, there was no "Latin language", or rather there was, and it was what every speaker of a Romance language spoke. The written language was not a separate language, it was grammatica - the rules of grammar, how to write correctly. When you read it aloud you jiggered it in the direction of the local dialect so it would be partially comprehensible. During Charlemagne's time, it was discovered that this no longer worked as well as it ought; only then did "Latin" become a separate language. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm gonna change to Keep based on the substantial additions in this now-thorough article. If you don't think the argument "fixing English spelling will bring about world peace!" is crankery, you must have some weird definition of that word. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 05:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Goat

• Half of this article is background and the other half dismisses arguments we never even hear. Until the article actually explains what reformers advocate, it doesn't belong here and doesn't even live up to its title. I'm leaning towards delete, but at the same time I do want to learn more about this, so I'm abstaining until Smerdis fills in the gaps. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 06:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think you have a point. The article at present more or less concedes that English spelling is chaotic. Complicated spelling systems apparently do have an established link with dyslexia. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

• Me too. Let's give the creator a chance to whip it into shape before we delete. Why don't we reopen the vote in a week? --Damo^Hi 07:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Seems like a perfect candidate for user space while being hammered into shape. There, it will still be visible to RC watchers (who may wish to contribute,) and this discussion can be revisited as appropriate. I'd like to see more about "that pesky lust for Planning and System and Consistency," which is a perfect fit with the authoritarian branch of the mission. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

What about...

... the French language - where there is even less connection between the written and spoken words?

There is a 'spelling reform shaggy dog story' which ends up with the text being in German - does anyone have a reference?

Perhaps there should also be a reference to Newspeak? 171.33.222.26 (talk) 15:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see your 7point about French. Its spelling is much less irregular than in English. Once you've learned the basics of pronunciation, you can tell how pretty much any French word is pronounced. I doubt there are many (if any) languages with as many irregularities of spelling/pronunciation as English. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel}

In some ways French is worse than English; French has grammar that exists only in the writing system. Written French contains verb and noun endings that never make a difference in the pronunciation. In some registers, it has an complete, highly irregular verb tense that only figures in writing. It too is based largely on Middle French. English at least escapes that. On the other hand, written French has always been focused on a single dialect of a single place, and that place is Paris. The phonetic changes that have been imposed on it have been substantial, but have all been generated by a single set of rules. By contrast, English contains an admixture of multiple dialects. London straddled the border between two major Middle English dialect areas, and has a large admixture from more northern varieties also. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Pourquoi les pompiers portent-ils les bretelles rouges?

If it's proper English you're after, you'd best go to Huddersfield.

There is a shaggy dog story about German genders by Mark Twain, but that may not be the one that anon.171 had in mind. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Non-identity between the spoken and written word is probably an issue with most languages with several parents/dialects, multiple, imported (which language had a problem with insufficient 'n's in the printing press set?) or non-alphabetical scripts - and there are always import words (Karol Woytyla and Lech Walesa - English letter use, Polish pronounciation)

The German shaggy dog story: the text starts off in ordinary English, various spellings are gradually 'rationalised' and the end text is German 171.33.222.26 (talk) 15:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The one I've seen seems to be a parody of the Mark Twain bit that's already in the article. I've found one version that goes:

“”Directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler have announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility. As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan. In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Also, the hard "c" will be replased with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but komputers have one less letter. There will be growing kompany enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter. In the third year, DaimlerKhrysler akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. DaimlerKhrysler will enkourage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"'s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" by "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be droped from vords kontaining "o", and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis, and employes vil find it ezi to kommunikat viz eash ozer. Ov kors al supliers vil be expekted to us zis for all busines komunikation via DaimlerKhrysler. Ze drem vil finali kum tru …. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas. If zis mad yu smil, plez pas on to oza pepl.

[1] I think I've seen another version that credits the changes to the EU rather than Daimler / Chrysler. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The story I saw was something similar. Are there equivalents in other languages? 171.33.222.26 (talk) 16:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

This satire is not by Mark Twain – see The Spelling Society's website. I've seen a German version of this one, too: see here. As for French, it is different from English that pronunciation is at least predictable from the written form, while English is predictable in neither direction. So the orthography of French is more regular, actually. Of course, it's still a mess. --84.151.165.59 (talk) 22:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Reopening debate

Smerdis has massively expanded this article, and I now believe it's well worth keeping, as I indicated above – yet since his additions there has been little attention paid to it, other than from Smerdis himself. I hate seeing "possible deletion candidate" templates without any discussion actually going on, so the way I see it there are two options: reopen debate, or just remove the templates and let it stay. In deference to those who voted to delete last time, I'm taking the former measure, but if there's no further attention paid to it soon I'll just remove the templates. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 07:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem with removing the template is that the vote is presently 3 to 2 in favour of delete. The template has been up for some time so anybody could delete the article at any moment. In other words it's the article not the template which should be at risk of deletion.--Weirdstuff (talk) 16:27, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep

• The article now clearly lays out why many of the reformers are cranks. It's well researched and very much on mission. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 07:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Delete

• Not a fan of this. It just doesn't look it belongs at this site: it's way too long for something that barely touches our missions, if at all, and as I pointed out above this kind of content has been cut from several articles as needless cruft (rightly so IMO). It doesn't relate to other RW articles or categories, isn't written in much of a RW style, and contains more (hidden) links to Wikipedia and Wiktionary than it does links to other RW content. If it was cut down to few short paragraphs summarising the movement, without all those encyclopedia links & background exposition, it might fit in better. Otherwise it looks like it belongs somewhere else, like in essayspace or at a different wiki. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• Question. I just recently added a bunch of Wiktionary links. I did it mostly to verify that when I was talking about etymologies and pronunciations, I wasn't just making it up. I can easily revert them. If there's a specific reason why this is a Bad Thing, I'm not certain I understand it, again. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Primarily because they're external links disguised as internal links. Readers should know where a link is going to take them before clicking/hovering on it. Also, I don't see what any of those etymologies have to do with reform. This seems to be an article about English spelling & its origins; nothing to do with our missions. The "cranks" you're using to justify its existence here barely get a mention. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:36, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• Indeed. And the earlier vote in favour of delete needs to be carried out.--Weirdstuff (talk) 18:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment

I have moved this to an essay. If it finds favor it can always be moved back. Thank you for your consideration. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 00:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Mashabell's objection to this essay

I find the introductory sentence "English spelling reform is a perennial favorite subject for the more harmless variety of cranks." extremely biassed, ignorant and offensive. My name is Masha Bell and I advocate spelling reform because of the very clear evidence that this could make learning to read and write English much easier and less time-consuming than it currently is. I have explained this in more detail here: http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/why-english-spelling-needs-modernising.html ^{— Unsigned, by: Mashabell / talk / contribs}

Reformed English would, indeed, be simpler to learn for people whose dialect and accent are the ones used to standardize the spelling of English. Now, which native English-speaking community's dialect and accent do you propose we so privilege, and why should the other native English-speaking communities accept that decision?

Furthermore, when that community's accent changes again (as it surely will, because the accents of living language communities change over time, even when the cold dead hand of academe tries to impose a standard), do you propose that we restandardize the spelling again?

(Also, why does the text of your blog not make at least a token effort in the direction it suggests?) Hydrogen and Time (talk) 12:54, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Who wishes to write Geordie, Brummie, Glaswegian... How will Scone/scone, Nice biscuits/nice biscuits, Polish polish be rectified? The advantages of the present English spelling is that 'all regional spoken variants' can complain equally about it. There would also be the same problem as with 'reform of the keyboard layout' and 'switching from base 10 to base 12' - most of the population are familiar with the old system, and 'all the books and computer spellchecks' would have to be rewritten. 171.33.222.26 (talk) 15:19, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Phenomes, you pillocks. Every accent and dialect uses the same fucking phenome set because it's the same fucking language. There's different mergers and splits in different places but you can leave them all separate in the spelling. Plenty of room for "bat" and "Bart" and "balm" even if your dialect treats them as homophones. Spelling genuine word changes differently is something authors do all the time now. Ain't it, wot.

Rewrites? Fucking computers, people, it's 2014. Word to word, quicker than reading it from storage. Can't read it? One click, now you can.

Dhy artikl duz sym to feyl from dhu perspektifh of a nywtrul poynt ofh fhyw. Dhejrz nov nyd to rwjn dhu upijrjnc of movst smvl werx (dhov it helps), spejr letjrz ar ubundjnt withavt adiq mor (inklwdiq ekstrjh fhavlz from klasikly ywsljs j, v, w, and y), fhery fyw werx yfhjn chaynxh leqth or sheyp upryshijbly; dispayt triks layk the arkeyik “t+s” and “d+z” fynovmz (mor komjn in Eyzhjh) byiq intruxhwst in dhejr raytful c and x form (tw halp kyp ch and th and sh natvjrjl, ey, plus cwnarmy iz spelt lyk army, wich iz fun, and it stil lvks rayt if yw skip dhu "t" bit). Yjh kan yfhjn fukiq wel swejr yj hed of and wd eny kokend sy tw kompleyn? Ay dovt it. Bit ofh a dogz brekfjst, but wot ar yjh gunjh dw? Grab u short blak, u cumfy chejr, and pop yjh fyt on u worm spot, I rekjn.

Nov wun menshuns dhu dilayt fovnd in raymz byiq spelt ulayk. Meyk a feyk keyk for dhu weyk, but dovnt breyk it byfor yw teyk it: and fiksiq dhat "ough" shit with: thrw, dhov, thort, thurov, tuf, and trof. Kvd kyp the "g+h" for enythiq nydiq dhat sovnd sumwejr, layk logh for the skots. --203.167.164.107 (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Phenomes or phonemes? Or pheromones? Ro Thorpe (talk) 19:28, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

If it's "phonemes", that isn't true. Some UK dialects have a set of phonemes /a ɒ ɔ/ that in mine all get swept into the wide net of /ɑ/: I have one vowel in father, bother, and law. This is one pitfall Americans run into trying to imitate British speech; they can learn to hear the distinctions between those three sounds fairly easily, but I would have no idea which goes where. I can hear a subtle difference between British pronunciations of last and lost, but without context they still sound like the same word to me. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 01:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. You say 'some UK dialects', but the example you give of those three phonemes is standard British English (or received pronunciation, as it used to be called). Ro Thorpe (talk) 04:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The Noble Truths

Good essay and good talk: glad it still exist on RW. Still this is what I get from it, as well as my expansion:

1. Those who try to reform languages, such as English, or create new and improved artificial languages are doomed to failure due to history (as mentioned in the essay), practicality (learn Esperanto and you might, just might, be able to speak to 1 million people—prolly not; learn inferior (i.e. less logical) English and you have up to 1 billion customers), and uncertainties in the studies of linguistics (i.e. reformers several decades ago didn't take into account things that are obvious to us now—as such was for so many other utopian schemes); so why even bother. You are doomed to failure, as those who attempt things like calendar reform (note to reformers, things don't fit so easily in nature), keyboard reform (perhaps Qwerty will remain the standard for another century—and thus be even that more established), number base reform (yeah righ: (1E₁₂)⁶ = x₁₂, what is x?), or trying metrify the US (or even Britain—quick Brits, or Britains, or Bretons, or Britishers, or whatever-you-call-youselves: what's your height and weight—in feet, inches, and pounds; or centimeters/centrimetres and kilograms; or stones and hundredweights? By the way, what is a £ worth in real money? (and WTF is a "euro" anyway?)   ;-)   ). Moreover, reforms, such as they are, only work if people are forced, because people, particularly we first-worlders, are generally lazy.
2. As English keeps expanding, the reason to learn foreign languages lessens, so why even bother in that. Why bother learning even Russian or Spanish when many of the people who matter in those countries speak English, and many natives might laugh at your pathetic attempts, as they might be doing in Japan or France—perhaps they might regard you not only as a fool for your inability to speak such languages well, but also might be wondering why would you do something so stupid as waste 100's likely 1000's of hours of your time learning their less-spoken languages. Cochon! Is there anything that can be expressed in these less successful languages that can't be expressed in our stupendously successful English, which might also be called "Terran," "Earthish?" What do ya'll think?
3. Notice how English is tops in all Wikimedia projects and the varying RationalWiki languages. Hah hah hah, French language: French Wikipedia is about 1/3rd as successful as English Wikipedia, French is even less successful in Canada. Chances are many of the articles in those languages are translations from English. Perhaps the greatest growth in these lesser languages will be by computers as they increasing make human intelligence less, even far less, necessary. So why learn, say, German, when in, say, 20, maybe 10 years, your iPhone (and it will be an iPhone because everyone save a few losers on 4chan thinks Apple is soooo coool) will speak it better. Just talk into some "app" and it will talk to the foreigner-who-has-yet-to-learn-the-superior-language in his own moribund language (and I don't say "his/her moribund," "their moribund," or "her moribund" because that would be an attempt at reform by the politically correct, this is just as bad as those who want to neuter the Canadian anthem).
4. Perhaps the most successful artificial languages are those that are copyrighted, such as Klingon^© or Elvish^©, because aside from Wikipedia (and lesser extent, RationalWiki), at least for now, the most successful intellectual projects of this sorts is by mega-million/billion-dollar-corporations. After all, governments waste tax-payers' money and force people to do things, and voluntary socialism generally fails (perhaps because it's idealistic and presumes that humanity isn't a bunch of selfish bastards). Mind you, a lot of what corporations invest in results in crap being sold. So unless you're a hardcore trekkie or Tolkein fan, you won't likely learn it—I understand many of the actors who play Klingons really don't. Think of Klingon^© speakers as some stupidly-super-hot-chili eating show-offs who like to eat to show how tough, how much a warrior they are, Qa pla!!, or Elvish^© to show how sophisticated-in-a-fantasy-sort-of-way the speakers are, like over-priced chocolates, or having features that indicate racial superiority like long blond straight hair, long digits, long ears, long noses, violet irises with complimentary-coloured/colored scleras, unlike the negroid-looking orcs, etc.

Further, why are we wasting our time and talents on things like RationalWiki when we can be stupid, or cultivating and profiting from stupidity? Fun:Starting a new religion really should be expanded, with it's own category.Talk to Civic Cat 00:49, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Scientific nomenclature

It's interesting that many sciences have such formally-defined nomenclature that it really ceases to be English and becomes a different language that just happens to use some English phonemes.

At least, I find it interesting. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Many words I've come to use quite regularly as part of my daily conversations with other physicists are continually marked out as "incorrect" by various spell check programs. Given that many physics terms are borrowed from other languages as well (ansatz being a very prominent example), sometimes my conversations are rife with red underlines. - GrantC (talk) 02:02, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

This is one of the points of the essay. All the names being generated for chemicals by IUPAC are strings rather than words; they generate a string of characters and numbers that goes into the journal article, but it's up to the language they'll ultimately be read in as to how they will be realized in speech, and many seldom or never are. They don't even work well in English; my own speech would have to violate its usual rules to create an artificial distinction between ethanol and ethanal. (I.e. I'd only say them different if I already knew there were a difference.) So long as the spelling is unphonetic, the distinction is safe. The IUPAC nomenclature is linguistically rather interesting; various natural languages like Yupik, German, and Sanskrit have gone crazy with compound word building, but this goes beyond anything they attempt. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 06:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Most of my NMR research was done on a compound convenient as a three-qubit system: tris(trimethylsilyl)silane-acetylene. Say that one three times fast. - GrantC (talk) 15:02, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Basically, these are highly restricted and strictly defined Latin/Greek-based auxlangs/loglangs, because the nomenclature is largely international and systematic (more so than any natural language; in the case of chemistry, even extremely so). IUPAC-speak is a wonderful loglang, or at least the lexical/derivational part of one. But then, formal languages (which include programming languages, Lambda calculus, and even mathematical notation in general) are essentially loglangs. I've come to the realisation than conlanging (bits of it, at least) is far more frequent than we realise. Every standardisation and Ausbau of a written language amounts to conlanging to a certain extent. It's a more creative activity than usually realised. --84.151.165.59 (talk) 23:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Mark Twain satire

According to this, the quote at the end of the article is not actually by Mark Twain.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 13:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It's fixed. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:45, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Back to mainspace.

I moved this back to mainspace. I believe, in light of some recent, fairly extensive discussions about the scope of our mission, that this article is indeed on topic, and maybe is an example of the sort of work we should be doing. Seriously. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:03, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

A modest proposal.

If I were to set out to reform English spelling, I'd stårt wiþ changes þæt would ædd to, ræþer þæn subtræct from, the esþetic quålities of þe længwidge. It's not sò much about chenging the parts that aren't broken, but insted reversing a hændful of the bæd decisions made in þe history of þe længwidge ænd its spelling. In þis sæmple, more letters are disæmbiguated þan åltered. A småll hændful of diacritical marks gôes a long way toards making þe spelling træck the sounds more closely. Not many words here hæve æctually been respelled. I hæve of course taken þe liberty of restoring þe letters 'þ' (þorn) and æ (æsh), and introducing 'å' (å æs in låw). It was a mistake to ever hæve dropped þem. Þis reform woud not create large ishues in understænding texts ritten in þe old ôrthografy, I don't þink. Ænd it tries to keep faiþ wiþ þe history of English, a consideration more planned reforms offen fail to consider. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

...the esþetic quålities... Meþinks ȝou meant to spell ðat "æsþetic." ListenerX^TalkerX 05:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Nô, þere is some sistem hyre. "Æsþetic" would yield current "ass-thetic"; 'æ' is 'a' as in 'cæt, bæg, bæþ'. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:39, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

And that's where it starts to go wrong. You spell bæþ using what I consider the northern pronunciation. As far as I am concerned the 'a' in cat is a completely different sound to the 'a' in bath. And that's still keeping to the mainstream accents. Try telling a Jordy that the water foul doesn't rhyme with 'book'. If phonetic spelling is to be consistent then accents need to be consistent and they clearly aren't. Placeholder (talk) 09:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

My language has a phonetic orthography and a "literary norm", but this hasn't obliterated completely regional variations. Much to the annoyance of schoolkids when they study spelling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_border --ZooGuard (talk) 10:44, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Exactly; which is why spelling reform proposals have struggled for acceptance. English now has multiple competing prestige pronunciations that vary widely in the way vowels are realized. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, Smerdis, we agree about "åw", at least: [2]. Though admittedly, my system is about making the existing spellings a little easier to handle. Ro Thorpe (talk) 22:24, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Can we at least bring back þe þorn? Þere was no good reason to do away with a useful letter and replace it with a digraph. Metz77 (talk) 02:20, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Only if we bring back ðe eð as well. Ðere is no reason to keep eiðer one as a digraph, now ðat I þink of it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 02:32, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

And there is no reason to reintroduce either. One looks too much like a d, the other too much like a p; th does an excellent job for both. Ro Thorpe (talk) 12:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

And every single keyboard on every single device would have to be changed. Oh, yeah, that'll work. I assume you weren't computing in Europe when the Euro came in. Cloud Yeller (talk) 12:35, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

We should bring back ſ, that thing was badass. King Skeleton (talk) 21:47, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

(reset) The linguistic areas of the UK are so diverse as to make spelling-localism impossible (book and us or buuk and uz etc - and there are regular complaints about 'persons from locality X' being automatically subtitled on appearing on TV. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

True. Of course, UK English being the source of the others, it has greater variations in the source material than either North American or Australian English. NAm at its source had strong inputs from northern and Scottish dialects from the UK, while Australian starts from a more urbanized and Irish base. But they both represent deliberate mainstreaming of the shared features of the source material, and start off with less underlying variation. Regional dialects in NAm are an east coast phenomenon; on the other side, essentially a single pattern dominates from San Diego to Anchorage. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 21:40, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, an older version of British English is the source of all current dialects, modern BritEng included. Which is why you get the Shakespearean 'trash' in NAm, despite it having fallen out of favour in Blighty. All language changes with time, which is why you have to be a total Cnut to adhere to a prescriptive approach. My favourite nugget of English trivia is that Blake's Tyger Tyger actually rhymes if you speak it with a Black Country accent. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 16:58, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

For non-Brits - the two pairs of words indicate the southern and northern variants of English (which reflect in part different dialects).

The impact of the printing press and the railways on spelling standardization should be noted - and previous spelling reforms put the 'b' into debt and other words. Other influences include 'linguistic inertia', 'underlying grammar' and, strangely, 'being able to communicate whatever the other person's accent.'

Is there a similar grammatical reform movement - why should the child's 'doed' and 'goed' not be adopted? (I know it is to do with strong and weak verbs). (As for the split infinitive - would the TV series have survived with 'To gob oldly'? ) In the debate between 'good grammar' and 'sounds better'/perceived as being subversive etc the latter will always win). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Gobbing oldly, that's what we aged punks do, innit? Ro Thorpe (talk) 21:07, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing grammatically incorrect about the split infinitive. No one but the worst pedants object and their objections are based on a fallacy. English is not Latin and does not need to follow Latin rules. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps we also need a page about canards in prescriptive English grammar. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 05:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, Enterprise retconned it so that character originally said "to go boldly" and we all know how that worked out... King Skeleton (talk) 06:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Just using 'the classical example of misapplied grammatical pedantry' to show why 'grammatical reform that seems to operate against common sense/general usage' is unlikely to work innit (and the child using doed and goed is applying a grammatical rule).

As they say Dinnae fash youself with spelling reform: there will be another suggestion coming along soon. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC) And where would all the regional and local dialects, and distinctive voices fit in - RP, Glaswegian, Scouse, Cockney, glo'al stops and all? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Spellcheckers

What would become of Titivillus [3] and computer spell-checks? How would the tonal aspects of English be catered for (where one means #the exact opposite# of what one says - or raise up and raze to the ground. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Dialects

If a spelling reform does not take into account at least 80% of differences between dialects, and does not allow leeway for different pronunciations of the same word, then in my opinion, it has failed. 184.23.19.62 (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2015 (UTC) Eamon Bohan

Sounds

I read once that there were 42 sounds in the English language: there are only 26 letters, 'plus a number of diphthongs' and a varying range of tones ('Yes mate' and 'Watch it mate'; 'That is a really clever thing to say') and sounds which do not have letters (the proverbial glottal stop).

The present system works and adapts to change/occasional reform (program now is used in BritEnglish etc) - and anyone care to retranscribe 'RW, Wikipedia, and all the billions of books, magazines and newspapers into [4] and also [5]?. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:22, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

That's just the thing. Changing English spelling might be possible, but only if you limit your expectations to modest changes within the system and not impose some kind of heavy handed program. The fact that English spelling doesn't correspond to any one person's local dialect is a feature and not a bug. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 16:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

A very different proposal

Why not make the pronunciation fit the spelling, or something reasonably close?

Practically all silent letters would be pronounced to fit Caxton's spelling, and vowels would appear as they sounded before the Great Vowel Shift. Thus "Wednesday" would reappear as "Wed-ness-die". The only schwa would be "e". Exceptions among silent letters would be those that create severe difficulty (the "p" in psychology, the "k" in knight, the "b" in comb, and the "l" as in walk)

The infamous "gh" would be restored as a German-like "ch".

"ea" would be pronounced like "ea" as in "Reagan". "eu" and "ew" would become a sound like the u in French lune. (Really, the sound exists in the name Matthew).

....This would negate the need to rewrite so many books.

It might be tempting to replace y that is neither the semivowel (as in yes) and lacks a Greek etymology with "ie" if it was originally "ie" in French or "ia" in Latin (psychologie) ... or "ea" if it comes from the French é (libertea). But that is a different story.Pbrower2a (talk) 00:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

That, at least, would attack the problem by its soft underbelly rather than the hard places. What you'd get is an approximate restoration of the sound system of late Middle English, rather like this:

Might take some getting used to, though. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 02:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Those consonants that cause 'extreme difficulty' aren't so hard. Greek and the Romance languages have no problem with the P of 'psychology'; German similarly with the K ('Knecht', cognate with 'knight'); if 'talc', why not 'walk'? Even the B in 'comb', they're just habits that English has dropped, making them feel alien. Ro Thorpe (talk) 13:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Chinese and Japanese

... have more symbols than English - why not reform them?

And 'who does the reforming' - those who say 'buuk and uz' or 'book and us' - and how many people say 'the thin end of the wege for gun control' and similar? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:05, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Chinese script was reformed within the PRC: see Simplified Chinese. & Chinese/Japanese characters shouldn't be compared to the English alphabet as they don't serve the same linguistic function. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Even allowing for accents, class, fads and suchlike many of the spelling reforms seem to be 'one person's pet theory' and look 'too much like hard work' to the rest of us (and we can see the possibilities for confusion).

Some 'reforms and alterations# do work - the adoption of printing pseudo-Latin-linking of words such as 'debt' and the rest of the '16th and 17th centuries' section on the Wikipedia page; others happen as the language evolves - and, like the QWERTY board 'the present system works sufficiently well for the opportunity costs of the alternatives to be too high.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Why spelling reforms won't happen

The bakery product eaten with cream and jam is pronounced two different ways, and the place in Scotland from which the stone was taken has a third; 'you say tomayto I say tomato'; I say 'book, us and five' others in the UK say 'buuk, uz and faive.'

No doubt there was as much discussion on Spelling Reform when 'scholars, traders to towns outside the locality and others' communicated outside their localities - and when printing made general literacy practical. (And wasn't the reference in 1066 and All That to 'weeny, weedy and weakly' a reference to different pronunciation systems in Latin - which might have caused problems). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The existing system

Can have a certain logic to it (some of the prefixes, suffixes, verbal endings etc) which would be lost if the spelling were 'reformed.'

Quite a lot of puns and other humour, and other aspects would be lost (the Sherlock Holmes story where 'plow/plough' on a business card is a giveaway).

The peculiarities and paradoxes of English as it is can be used to confound malign computers (in the stories) and the spell check (in reality). Anna Livia (talk) 23:08, 13 December 2017 (UTC)