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Originally Posted by Jill
Seriously? I mean really. When was the last time you read a book or an article where a violist was mentioned and a) there was no context, or b) the story was compromised by the omission of same?
What do you propose calling one who plays the viola that would be different from the word used to describe one who plays the viol? A change that involves spelling one differently from the other, not a whole separate, new word.
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The word "viola" (the musical instrument) has two consecutive vowels, ee and oh (long E and long O). In some other words the same sequence of sounds is spelt with eo: Leo, geode, geopolitics, etc. If we spelt to this pattern, the musical instrument would be spelt "veola". There is nothing wrong with this spelling except for tradition dictating that it must be spelt as "viola" exactly as it was spelt in Italian, even though this spelling causes confusion with another English word "viola" (the plant) with different roots (pardon the unintended pun).
If viola (the instrument) was respelt as veola, a player of this instrument could then be a veolist. Of course that would probably be unsatisfactory to those who favor traditional spelling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jill
Just going along with your complaint here, let's try the words 'read' and 'read'. Let's distinguish them by spelling the first one 'reed' and the second one 'red'. Oops, those are already other words with completely different meanings. Ok, how about 'rede' and 'rehd'. Hmmm, now there are unnecessary silent letters that I'm pretty sure you'd be complaining about. And again, one of them is already a word with a different meaning.
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The read-read example you cited above is an interesting example that is discussed from time to time among those who favour spelling reform. Despite your assertion to the contrary that this word must be spelt differently from the colour red, spelling the past tense as "red" will not cause issues. The words occupy different part of speech, so context is quite sufficient to convey meaning.
This is nothing new in English. The dictionary has many words with identical spellings and pronunciations but different meanings, derivations and etymologies. These words do not cause problems because they are classified in different parts of speech and cannot be confused. Examples of such words: cuff, list, might, pink, pound, soil, stalk. We also have such words that do occupy the same part of speech but again we can work out the meaning. Examples: graze, light, hard, sole. These words do not cause problems either. Thus, a respelling of the past tense and past participle of the verb "to read" as "red" should not cause comprehension problems and a separate spelling is not necessary to convey meaning.