Comments on: Metrik Spelling Now!

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 15:28:31 +0000

I was galled to learn Miles Davis is billed “Kilometer Davis” in Europe.

By: Patterico’s Pontifications » Steev and Cokee Robberts Cant Spel

Patterico’s Pontifications » Steev and Cokee Robberts Cant Spel — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 02:43:41 +0000

[...] d Joe “Leiberman.” I don’t know if Steve and Cokie would approve of the spelling reform noted earlier today by guest blogger See Dubya. But they need some kin [...]

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 00:30:59 +0000

Another still is that a purely phonemic writing system would mask morphological relationships between words, with the result that “new” words would be easier to sound out but their meanings harder to recognize. For example, from a phonetic standpoint it’s confusing to have the letter c sometimes pronounced like an s and sometimes like a k, but it’s easy for a person who knows the word elastic to figure out the meaning of elasticity the first time he sees it in print. It would be harder to do that if the two words were spelled “uhlastik” and “eelastissity,” respectively.

For an example of what a disaster spelling “reform” would be, see this letter by M.J. Shields. But see also this.

By: linda seebach

linda seebach — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 23:39:25 +0000

This is a perennial debate; George Bernard Shaw was an advocate of reformed spelling. But it’s not practical, for several reasons. One is that to standardize spelling you have to decide whose pronunciation is standard. Britain, America, Canada, Australia — or for that matter, India?

Another is that reform spelling would cut us off from much of what has been published in English over the past several centuries; depending on how radical the reform is, reading Melville would be like reading Chaucer, a specialized skill.

By: Dafydd

Dafydd — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 22:50:31 +0000

One of my favorite words has always been quotidian, which actually describes its polar opposite. It’s the reverse of a word like polysyllabic, which describes itself perfectly. I think there is a word that means “a word which describes itself,” such as stark or sibilant, and another which means “a word that is the opposite of its meaning,” such as monosyllabic or quotidian; and I think Richard Lederer revealed those words in one of his Anguished English books. But I’m too lazy to look it up.

Dafydd