The Lexicographer's Rules

Any advocate of drastic spelling reform must have an insufficient understanding of just how differently English is spoken in the various groups that contribute to our various American English dialects. Which is why stories like this are such howlers: those paragraphs written in “simpler” spelling simply do not work in whole swaths of America. First, because they’re nightmares of craptastic phonetic transcription; second, because not everyone pronounces every word the same.

Slippery-slope logic suggests that after we have spelling reform, we’d have vocabulary reform, with one word for every thing, idea, or action, and only one thing, idea, or action per word. Imagine the naming committees getting together trying to figure out which bird species, exactly, is the robin, to the exclusion of all others.

But the first test of the self-appointed spelling reformers should be to decide whether cater-corner, catty cornered, or kitty corner is the preferred spelling. That’d keep them busy and out of further mischief for a few decades.

They also need to decide who’s going to produce new versions of all the books out there which the children will no longer be able to read - all the centuries’ worth of literature, religion, science, poetry… Otherwise, we’ll just have two classes of people, those who have access to everything and those who don’t. Which we kind of have now, no? So what would be the point again?

Grant Barrett wrote:

“Any advocate of drastic spelling reform must have an insufficient understanding of just how differently English is spoken in the various groups that contribute to our various American English dialects.”

Surely anyone with a basic knowledge of descriptive linguistics must know that this is a red herring? All major languages have significant differences in local pronunciation, yet all the languages of Europe are substantially easier to learn to read than is English. A good orthography represents a *possible* pronunciation, even if it is not the one use in some locations. English orthography often does not do that, which is why it doubles and triples the time needed to acquire basic literacy.

Well, no. Despite the star attractions in the spelling reform circus, the irregular spellings still follow patterns. English may be more difficult than some languages but the barriers are very low. The current system is simple enough that ten-year-olds can master it.  (I would argue, anyway, that French is another major European language in which orthography does not accurately represent the spoken language--anyone who’s ever done dictée could tell you that.)

Spelling reform is one of those ideas that works neither in theory nor in practice.

Grant Barret wrote:

>Spelling reform is one of those ideas that works neither in theory nor in practice.

How can anyone working in linguistics say such a thing? English is almost unique in not having done a reform in the last 150 years. It is possible to do a reform badly, as the Germans just illustrated (and don’t get me started on Mainland Chinese). However, the assertion that spelling reform is either unusal or difficult to implement is simply counterfactual.

The point about dictation in French is well taken, but consider: that is the only other instance I am aware of a competitive exercise that approaches an English spelling bee.

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