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From: Darrin Edwards <edwards@noise.bsd.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Anounsing a nu Ingglish spelling
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Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 16:24:49 GMT
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:67929 sci.lang.translation:11502

Tom Wier <Tomaso.Houston@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:

> The idea that phoneticization is bad is simply without merit.  Plans could be
> set down whereby the present material would be transscribed slowly over a period
> of years (and, no, Mr. Darrin Edwards, this would NOT be changing the meaning
> -- just the spelling) so that after that period all who went to school would have
> a MUCH simpler time. 

I disagree with "simply without merit."  Here's an argument from those
who presumably know a good deal more about the subject than I do:

  "The spelling of English words is not fixed and invariable, nor does it
depend on any other authority than general agreement.  At the present day
there is practically unanimous agreement as to the spelling of most words.
...At any given moment, however, a relatively small number of words may be
spelled in more than one way.  Gradually, as a rule, one of these forms
comes to be generally preferred, and the less customary form comes to look
obsolete and is discarded.  From time to time new forms, mostly
simplifications, are introduced by innovators, and either win their place
or die of neglect.
  "The practical objection to unaccepted and oversimplified spellings
is the disfavor by which they are received by the reader.  They distract
his attention and exhaust his patience.  He reads the form _though_
automatically, without thought of its needless complexity; he reads the
abbreviation _tho_ and mentally supplies the missing letters, at the
cost of a fraction of his attention.  The writer has defeated his
own purpose."
		--William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, _The Elements of
		   Style_, Allyn & Bacon 1979, pp. 74-75.

The example given of Mark Twain's famous essay was particularly pithy.
How many, like me, found themselves breezing through the first few
sentences, then gradually slowing down until by the end they were
staring at each word three or four times?  How many claim that the
last few sentences were the ones much easier to read?

"Lite Beer" is ugly (the word, I make no argument about the beverage :)).
"BIG SALE THRU SATURDAY" is ugly.

Rewriting Shakespeare in the language of Madison Avenue and athletic shoe
commercials _will_ change its meaning, in unfortunate and unpredictable
ways.

Cheers,
Darrin
