Spelling is ruining the English language

[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.

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.

Seems like you're going to have to create a whole new language if you want it to be spelled the way you think it should, based on how it sounds.