fonetics

[deird1]

So – spelling ríform.
Wyl y am mostlí in févor of éh words spelling matching thí wéh it saunds, my mén ríaksion tú thí possibiliti of spelling ríform is… wel, dred.

Mehnlí this is bikoz y ríli don’t wont tú lern éh hol nu spelling sistem. But also… y lyk aur wírd and komplicéted spelling, and how strénj it is. Y lyk bíing ébl to sí orl thí words that ar klírli from Jerman, or Latin, or Old Inglish, and hau thér spelling stil riflekts that. It’s word gíkery at its fynest – and y don’t wont tú giv that up.

(Interestingli, aur komplicéted words sím tú bí spelled much mor akkuratli than aur simpul wuns. Hau od.)

Comments

[deird1]

It's actually fairly common. Most languages undergo spelling reform at some point - including English, which is why Americans spell it "colour" and "theater".

And England is definitely overdue for spelling reform - our spelling is around 400 years old, so it now bears little resemblance to the way we pronounce words. Bringing in reform would make our spelling actually look like what we say.

I tend to be gloomy about possible spelling reform, because I like our weird spelling, I don't want to learn a new spelling, and I really don't want the official new spelling to end up based on how the US pronounces their words rather than how I do...

[hickumu]

Hm. You know, I knew that Americans spelled things differently than British people, but I guess I never thought about why that was the case. I certainly never thought it was something people...decided on. Weird.

Basing it on pronunciation seems odd, though, since...well, even just using America as a reference, we have a minor war going between different states here on whether it's "peecahn" or "peekan".

[deird1]

*facepalm*

I just noticed that, even when I'm specifically writing about American spelling, I still manage to write "colour" without realising. Oops.

Definitely decided on, yes. And Australia nearly followed you. In fact, one of our main political parties is Labor (no "u") because they wanted to use the cool new spelling - and then no-one else changed over.

[hickumu]

XD No worries. I find myself including British spellings over American a lot. I attribute it to all my reading of Terry Pratchett and my writing of Giles fanfiction.

Well, even if it is decided non, I can see where it would take a while to change over. Reprinting different versions of all the spelling books and dictionaries and all that.