View Single Post
Old 05-14-2009, 12:04 AM   #159
Cyber Wolf
As stable as a ring of PU-239
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: On a huge rock covered in water, highly advanced moss and 7 billion parasites
Posts: 1,264
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingswood View Post
Now, why must we endure that kind of rigmarole? Why must we keep resorting to context in this manner just because some stuffy old pedants won't allow any needed changes to be introduced? If we cut the totally useless silent e from live (the verb; the silent e in live the adjective is OK because it marks the long vowel), then we wouldn't need any context to identify the shade of meaning of the word when given in isolation, as it is in the article.
I have to ask...

Aside from your wanting it to be so, what's to stop 'liv' from being pronounced with a drawn 'i', similar to the word 'leave'? The standard issue vowel 'i' has the potential for three sounds. This allows for your commuted 'live' to have three forms: 'liv' as in 'I live in the US.', 'leeve' as in "We leave in 10 minutes." and 'live' as in "Saturday Night Live". Does your rule bank on the fact that we currently use the 'ea' to create the 'ee' sound in 'leave' to remove that sound from the list of possibilities? Do you have a rule in your New Spelling Order transform 'leave' into 'leev' to fix that problem?
__________________
"I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then getting' upset 'cos they act like people." ~Adam Young, Good Omens

"I don't see why it matters what is written. Not when it's about people. It can always be crossed out." ~Adam Young, Good Omens
Cyber Wolf is offline   Reply With Quote