Simplified Spelling?

Spelling

Let me tell you something about English. It is not a difficult language to master. As you may or may not know, it is not my first language. I was born in Poland, and I learned to speak and write English by watching cartoon network, playing computer games, and reading Warhammer rulebooks. My spelling and grammar were a little shaky, but I was fluent enough to be placed in a regular high school English class when I moved to US my Junior year. Obviously, learning how to spell was not rocket science.

English is a beautiful language – elegant and yet flexible. Every language has some little peculiarities, and idiosyncrasies. English has a fair share of those, but they are really not that bad compared to some other languages.

It seems that some American “scholars” do not agree. Apparently there is a movement to simplify American English spelling. The idea is to reform the language so that it looks like this:

A filanthropist, he becaem pashunet about th ishoo after speeking with Melvil Dewey, a speling reform activist and Dewey Desimal sistem inventor hoo simplified his furst naem bi droping “le” frum Melville.

I see a few problems here . First, I can’t fucking read it. No one can! That sentence looks like it was written by a 12 year old in an AOL chatroom.

Second, English is currently the unofficial lingua franca of the world. The simplified spelling would simply create a bastardized, inbred, retard branch of the language that would be used to write Intelligent Design rulebooks for schools in backwater redneck enclaves. The rest of the world, and the educated part of the United States that actually considers itself part of “the world” would continue to use the standard American English dialect. In other words, “New English” would be about as successful as the “New Coke.”

You think that humor vs. humour thing is funny – imagine how awesome would it be to argue about attention vs attenshoon.

Lastly, the fact that American children don’t know how to spell in their native language, does not indicate that we need a spelling reform. It indicates that there is a problem with the education system. Las time I checked the immigrant kids, and people who who learn English as a second language usually have no big problems picking up the spelling.

How about do something about our educational system? Or would that make to much sense?

The article mentions that German is phonetically spelled language that is easy to learn. They kinda forget that German actually has a fairly complex grammar that involves stuff like verb inflection (which tends to confuse the living shit out of English speakers).

Could this simplified spelling movement be a ploy to introduce some sort Orwellian newspeak into the US? 8O

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3 Responses to Simplified Spelling?

  1. ZeWrestler UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    funny you should mention german. i learned more about english grammar in my german class, than i did in my english class.

    funnier than that, english is my moms second language, but she spells, and writes better than the 3 other people in my house who were born and raised into the language. irony is a bitch.

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  2. ZeWrestler UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    Speaking of english language, check out some of this years new words:
    http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044246,39373358,00.htm

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  3. Luke UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    Hehe… “Google it!” is my favorite phrase ever :) I usually say it like 5-6 times a day when people ask me retarded questions.

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