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From: comm@zeus.bris.ac.uk (M. Murray)
Subject: Re: Anounsing a nu Ingglish spelling
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Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 11:16:40 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:70188 sci.lang.translation:12335

Tom Wier (Tomaso.Houston@postoffice.worldnet.att.net) wrote:

: 
: It would take quite a while to write even a single sentence were I to
: have to use a dictionary to find exactly how most people pronounce it,
: wouldn't it? Yes, I just went ahead and used my own sense of how it is
: pronounced, whether that means that my sentence is highly tainted by my
: own dialect or not (Yes, I do  pronounce it that way).  As I have said
: before, this could be simply solved by creating a special commission to
: come up with a rather universally acceptable orthography.  Both the
: Americans and the British (the two largest dialects) would have to give
: and take, but I believe it fair to simply determine what the most common
: world pronunciation is and use that (this of course means that the
: American dialect would have a heavy influence on the spelling, but this
: is not absolutely necessary). 

"Simply solved" ? Dream on. The idea of getting three Americans to agree 
on a spelling remotely related to their pronunciation is enough of a 
nightmare. And isn't it surprising that a member of "the most common 
pronunciation group" thinks it is "fair" that that pronunciation should 
be used as the basis ?

When will these spelling reformers realise that 
1) History cannot be changed. We are stuck with it, and the problems of
changing often outweigh the supposed benefits. 
2) The ability of the English language to absorb foreign words, acronyms,
and new words is largely based on its non-phonetic spelling. 
3) For word pairs (or groups) which are pronounced the same in some
accents, but differently in others (e.g. cot and caught, con and Khan,
floor and flaw) it is really beneficial to have different spellings. 
4) The different accents of English usually lack certain sounds. For
example, I speak non-rhotic English, so pronounce father and farther just
the same. Tom wouldn't like me to propose they're both spelt fahdher. Tom
as an American probably can't pronounce a short o, so probably pronounces
bother to rhyme with father. In my accent they're quite distinct. Some
American here recently couldn't even conceive of a possible difference.
That's why we must retain as many different spellings as possible. The 
last thing we want is separate English and American spelling (and we in 
that sentence applies to all English speaking people.

: Tom Wier
-- 
Martin Murray :: School of Chemistry, Bristol University, BS8 1TS, England
