4 ms·

It would be nice to revive all of the Old English letters (well, except for the wynn Ƿ because it's so easily confused with P). "æ" even has the same obvious s

It would be nice to revive all of the Old English letters (well, except for the wynn Ƿ because it's so easily confused with P). "æ" even has the same obvious sound value still, it can even keep the name "ash" "þ" and "ð" for the two th-sounds (the former unvoiced, the latter voiced). And if "ᵹ" is readmitted specifically in its affricate capacity, i.e. for "g" in "gem" etc, then "j" could instead be used with the value it has in French, i.e. used to spell words like "measure" - this is one of the few English phonemes that doesn't have a definitive letter associated with it right now. Always use "k" for that sound and repurpose c/q/x for something else, and we could ditch the digraphs completely.

petercooper 1y ago
And if "ᵹ" is readmitted specifically in its affricate capacity, i.e. for "g" in "gem" etc I'm in. It would also clear up some ambiguity over the pronunciation of "gif" ;-)
- bregma 1y ago
  There is no ambiguity in the pronunciation of "GIF". The "g" is pronounced just like the the "g" in "garage".
  - dcminter 1y ago
    Not like the g in jraphics then? :D
  - int_19h 1y ago
    It's in quantum superposition. Actually speaking it collapses the wavefunction around that particular speaker, although some prefer to believe instead that reality forks. ~
    - Xorakios 1y ago
      omg. fell down laughing. perfect comment
  - cenamus 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_G
    - xorbax 1y ago
      Pronounce the g in garage
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  I'm more interested in the pronunciation of "jpeg"... you're all saying jay-pezh properly, aren't you?
  - fragmede 1y ago
    It's pronounced gee-pejh. "J as in jif"-p-e-"g as in gif" Get it right you people!
  - Magnap 1y ago
    By the "g as in graphics" logic for "gif", for "jpeg" we have "j as in joint", "p as in photographic", "e as in experts", and "g as in group", so "je-feck"?
aduty 1y ago
I don't know how many of you need to read this but no one is stopping you from doing any of this. Putting aside cultural friction and being thought a bunch of quacks, you could just start doing these things. There's no real authority telling anyone that they can't despite what some people believe. Just do it!
- HPsquared 1y ago
  Exactly. What are we, French?!
  - librasteve 1y ago
    or American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board
pnathan 1y ago
It would be good to see the old english letters brought in. I particularly enjoy thorn.
groovy2shoes 1y ago
i am inclined to agree on all points, and while the second parenthetical would be useful in Contemporary English, i cannot help but note that "þ" and "ð" in Old English both represented the same phoneme (unlike in, say, Icelandic). all of the OE fricatives (/s/, /f/, /þ/) had predictable phonetic voicing depending on environment (voiced intervocalically, unvoiced elsewhere), but no phonemic distinction. in extant MSS, <þ> and <ð> are completely interchangable, mere stylistic variants of writing the phoneme, and even texts written by a single scribe will often have the same word written with both letters. some older MSS will use a plain <d> for the voiced sound (and a plain <b> for the voiced /f/). i've seen at least one MS that used <th>. in Latinized versions of OE names, it's not uncommon to see <th> or <d>, but Classical OE spelling didn't generally distinguish the voiced or unvoiced. even in Contemporary OE, there are very few minimal pairs between /þ/ and /ð/ ("thigh" vs. "thy" comes to mind, but not much else apart from rare noun/verb combos like "loath" vs. "loathe"). it could be argued that we don't really need both, but the (surely obvious by now) pedant in me desires both. saying "boð" rather than "boþ" doesn't strictly change the meaning, and is not likely to cause confusion, but it sure sounds off!
- int_19h 1y ago
  Well, we get those two letters "for free" anyway, and the phonemes are distinct in modern English, so let's use them! "ð" also has the nice property of being sufficiently similar in looks to "d" that someone reading it and not familiar with the letter might pronounce it as "d" and thereby make a decent approximation. Unfortunately that's not the case with "þ" though. If we ignored the historical letters and instead just picked something reasonably sensible, I'd probably go with "đ" and "ŧ" for this reason.
  - groovy2shoes 1y ago
    i've had people mistake "ð" for an "o" with a diacritic, but presumably that's a typeface problem. whatever we choose, i insist that we drop the names and call them "eþþ" and "ðee", by analogy with our other fricatives ;)

petercooper 1y ago

And if "ᵹ" is readmitted specifically in its affricate capacity, i.e. for "g" in "gem" etc I'm in. It would also clear up some ambiguity over the pronunciation of "gif" ;-)

bregma 1y ago
There is no ambiguity in the pronunciation of "GIF". The "g" is pronounced just like the the "g" in "garage".
- dcminter 1y ago
  Not like the g in jraphics then? :D
- int_19h 1y ago
  It's in quantum superposition. Actually speaking it collapses the wavefunction around that particular speaker, although some prefer to believe instead that reality forks. ~
  - Xorakios 1y ago
    omg. fell down laughing. perfect comment
- cenamus 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_G
  - xorbax 1y ago
    Pronounce the g in garage
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
I'm more interested in the pronunciation of "jpeg"... you're all saying jay-pezh properly, aren't you?
- fragmede 1y ago
  It's pronounced gee-pejh. "J as in jif"-p-e-"g as in gif" Get it right you people!
- Magnap 1y ago
  By the "g as in graphics" logic for "gif", for "jpeg" we have "j as in joint", "p as in photographic", "e as in experts", and "g as in group", so "je-feck"?

aduty 1y ago

I don't know how many of you need to read this but no one is stopping you from doing any of this. Putting aside cultural friction and being thought a bunch of quacks, you could just start doing these things. There's no real authority telling anyone that they can't despite what some people believe. Just do it!

HPsquared 1y ago
Exactly. What are we, French?!
- librasteve 1y ago
  or American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board

pnathan 1y ago

It would be good to see the old english letters brought in. I particularly enjoy thorn.

groovy2shoes 1y ago

i am inclined to agree on all points, and while the second parenthetical would be useful in Contemporary English, i cannot help but note that "þ" and "ð" in Old English both represented the same phoneme (unlike in, say, Icelandic). all of the OE fricatives (/s/, /f/, /þ/) had predictable phonetic voicing depending on environment (voiced intervocalically, unvoiced elsewhere), but no phonemic distinction. in extant MSS, <þ> and <ð> are completely interchangable, mere stylistic variants of writing the phoneme, and even texts written by a single scribe will often have the same word written with both letters. some older MSS will use a plain <d> for the voiced sound (and a plain <b> for the voiced /f/). i've seen at least one MS that used <th>. in Latinized versions of OE names, it's not uncommon to see <th> or <d>, but Classical OE spelling didn't generally distinguish the voiced or unvoiced. even in Contemporary OE, there are very few minimal pairs between /þ/ and /ð/ ("thigh" vs. "thy" comes to mind, but not much else apart from rare noun/verb combos like "loath" vs. "loathe"). it could be argued that we don't really need both, but the (surely obvious by now) pedant in me desires both. saying "boð" rather than "boþ" doesn't strictly change the meaning, and is not likely to cause confusion, but it sure sounds off!

int_19h 1y ago
Well, we get those two letters "for free" anyway, and the phonemes are distinct in modern English, so let's use them! "ð" also has the nice property of being sufficiently similar in looks to "d" that someone reading it and not familiar with the letter might pronounce it as "d" and thereby make a decent approximation. Unfortunately that's not the case with "þ" though. If we ignored the historical letters and instead just picked something reasonably sensible, I'd probably go with "đ" and "ŧ" for this reason.
- groovy2shoes 1y ago
  i've had people mistake "ð" for an "o" with a diacritic, but presumably that's a typeface problem. whatever we choose, i insist that we drop the names and call them "eþþ" and "ðee", by analogy with our other fricatives ;)