4 ms·

Reminds me always of Mark Twain’s hilarious Plan for improvement of English spelling. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html https://faculty.george

Reminds me always of Mark Twain’s hilarious Plan for improvement of English spelling. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html

rmk 4y ago
I could barely understand the last sentence! Thank you for this hilarious passage.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Me neither. Thankfully, technology to the rescue: > What does this mean? > Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. >> This text seems to be an example of a proposed spelling reform for the English language. The author has purposefully misspelled words to demonstrate how this reform would change the current spelling system. Here is a translation of the text into standard English: >> "Finally, then, after some 20 years of orthographic reform, we would have a logical, coherent spelling in use throughout the English-speaking world." >> The text suggests that after 20 years of implementing changes to the spelling system, the English-speaking world would have a more logical and coherent spelling system.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Why, that looks suspiciously like Dutch.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Missing þ and ð honestly. Stop 'x' abuse, it has like five different meanings at least. Edit: wow, over twenty actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X#Other_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X#Other_languages
- csa 4y ago
  I’m not sure whether I’m proud or embarrassed that I didn’t need to slow down for that part. linguistics nerd flex
- drowsspa 4y ago
  Funnily enough it was pretty easy for me as a native Portuguese speaker
  - riffraff 4y ago
    Same as an Italian, perhaps because it normalized vowels to a sane system, which is pretty far from the English one.
AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
I wonder if he wrote that before or after studying German. His famous essay on it actually noted its phonetic spelling as a pro. [0] [0] https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
- dang 4y ago
  Uh oh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587507 (it actually originates in a 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Sometimes the truth is stranger than astounding science fiction)
  - svat 4y ago
    To be clear: the essay “The Awful German Language” is indeed by Mark Twain, while the short note “A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling” is not.
kibwen 4y ago
And this more recent version of the joke, "English to become official language of the EU": https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_become_official_language_of_the_eu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_be...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 4y ago
Reminds me of the English word "gaol".
- phillc73 4y ago
  Which is perfectly fine, when considered in the context of other words like “giant” and “geranium.”
  - _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
    And "gif".
    - euroderf 4y ago
      The peanut butter
panzi 4y ago
Did they back then pronounce i and y the same way? Or do I mispronounce year and it should sound like eear?
- Falkon1313 4y ago
  As the saying goes, "Y is a crooked letter and can't be made straight.", although that has totally different meaning. Similarly, the y in 'finally' makes an i sound (as in the i in 'machine'), while the y in 'tyrant' makes a different i sound (as in the i in 'finally'), and of course the y in 'year' makes yet another totally different sound. And then of course you have 'lye' and 'lie', which sound the same but with very different meanings. That is what these jokes were about, simplifying so that each letter has only one sound and a spoken word can only be spelled one way while a written word can only be pronounced one way. It doesn't work and is silly because letters take their sounds from context, combination, and position, as does the y in 'year'. And there aren't enough letters for all the sounds in English.
  - panzi 4y ago
    Well, one could use IPA. :P
smoyer 4y ago
My grandmother introduced me to this when I was in elementary school - https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/exhibits/ladle/ https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/exhibits/ladle/
Chinjut 4y ago
As with so many things attributed to Mark Twain, this was not written by Mark Twain. According to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain: Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.
sph 4y ago
Fixing English consonants is the easy part. The hard part is consolidating the 25 or so different vowel sounds that exists in English. Given that we only have 5 vowel characters, this improved English would need a lot of vowel digraphs and/or accents.

Reminds me always of Mark Twain’s hilarious Plan for improvement of English spelling. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html

rmk 4y ago

I could barely understand the last sentence! Thank you for this hilarious passage.

capableweb 4y ago
Me neither. Thankfully, technology to the rescue: > What does this mean? > Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. >> This text seems to be an example of a proposed spelling reform for the English language. The author has purposefully misspelled words to demonstrate how this reform would change the current spelling system. Here is a translation of the text into standard English: >> "Finally, then, after some 20 years of orthographic reform, we would have a logical, coherent spelling in use throughout the English-speaking world." >> The text suggests that after 20 years of implementing changes to the spelling system, the English-speaking world would have a more logical and coherent spelling system.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Why, that looks suspiciously like Dutch.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Missing þ and ð honestly. Stop 'x' abuse, it has like five different meanings at least. Edit: wow, over twenty actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X#Other_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X#Other_languages
csa 4y ago
I’m not sure whether I’m proud or embarrassed that I didn’t need to slow down for that part. linguistics nerd flex
drowsspa 4y ago
Funnily enough it was pretty easy for me as a native Portuguese speaker
- riffraff 4y ago
  Same as an Italian, perhaps because it normalized vowels to a sane system, which is pretty far from the English one.

AdmiralAsshat 4y ago

I wonder if he wrote that before or after studying German. His famous essay on it actually noted its phonetic spelling as a pro. [0] [0] https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html

dang 4y ago
Uh oh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587507 (it actually originates in a 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Sometimes the truth is stranger than astounding science fiction)
- svat 4y ago
  To be clear: the essay “The Awful German Language” is indeed by Mark Twain, while the short note “A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling” is not.

kibwen 4y ago

And this more recent version of the joke, "English to become official language of the EU": https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_become_official_language_of_the_eu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_be...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dheera 4y ago

Reminds me of the English word "gaol".

phillc73 4y ago
Which is perfectly fine, when considered in the context of other words like “giant” and “geranium.”
- _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
  And "gif".
  - euroderf 4y ago
    The peanut butter

panzi 4y ago

Did they back then pronounce i and y the same way? Or do I mispronounce year and it should sound like eear?

Falkon1313 4y ago
As the saying goes, "Y is a crooked letter and can't be made straight.", although that has totally different meaning. Similarly, the y in 'finally' makes an i sound (as in the i in 'machine'), while the y in 'tyrant' makes a different i sound (as in the i in 'finally'), and of course the y in 'year' makes yet another totally different sound. And then of course you have 'lye' and 'lie', which sound the same but with very different meanings. That is what these jokes were about, simplifying so that each letter has only one sound and a spoken word can only be spelled one way while a written word can only be pronounced one way. It doesn't work and is silly because letters take their sounds from context, combination, and position, as does the y in 'year'. And there aren't enough letters for all the sounds in English.
- panzi 4y ago
  Well, one could use IPA. :P

smoyer 4y ago

My grandmother introduced me to this when I was in elementary school - https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/exhibits/ladle/ https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/exhibits/ladle/

Chinjut 4y ago

As with so many things attributed to Mark Twain, this was not written by Mark Twain. According to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain: Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

sph 4y ago

Fixing English consonants is the easy part. The hard part is consolidating the 25 or so different vowel sounds that exists in English. Given that we only have 5 vowel characters, this improved English would need a lot of vowel digraphs and/or accents.