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Isaac Asimov, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and many many other famous public intellectuals have argued for the simplification of English spelling. Many f
by ideonexus 11y ago
Isaac Asimov, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and many many other famous public intellectuals have argued for the simplification of English spelling. Many frame it as an ethical issue, arguing that our complex nonsensical spelling rules contribute to illiteracy. As the father of a three-year-old, I can attest that our illogical and inconsistent application of phonemes puts up uneccessary obstacles to my child's ability to read. Unfortunately, any time the suggestion that we simplify spelling is put forth, it gets waved away because the older generations think the new way "looks funny."
http://mxplx.com/schema/4/ http://mxplx.com/schema/4/
- Paul_S 11y agoLearning inconsistent/inefficient languages doesn't stifle literacy - just look at Asian languages. The problem with reform is that you'd be fine with it except if they decided on something you didn't agree with. Multiple by millions of speakers and any committee decision is laughed off the pages of public discourse. I remember the case of some place name being standardised a decade ago, and I guess they won the edit war on wikipedia but no normal person uses that pronunciation and they are just making it more difficult to find (although google's fuzzy matching can figure it out).
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago> and inconsistent application of phonemes Do you mean graphemes?
- nosuchthing 11y agoWe're sorta shifting that way with txt lingo slang. If an official shift were made to simplify spelling, we would lose out on literacy for all work not translated to the new system.