Spelling is ruining the English language

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Brianna

why is phonics spelled p h o n i c s and not fonix?

Good one. Why do we spell anything phonemically? Well, the sober answer is etymological reasons, and etymology itself is at least as fascinating a hobby as entomology. <--"Eek! A big bug!"

And 'onanism' doesn't mean what you think it means, either.

Inasmuch as usually when we do it we're not spooging on the ground after coitus interruptus, no. Nobody knows why, but it seems Onan really didn't like his sister-in-law. Well, soon enough, she didn't have to deal with him.

There are two accepted pronunciations of Uranus -- and you can make a shitty or a pissy pun with either. Unhappy planet! (Probably not as depressed as downwardly mobile Pluto, though.)

Dude, that's [hacienda] not even an English word.

It was probably some English professor whose name is unfortunately lost to history who woke up a freshman-English class with, "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them on the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

Memorable if not fully descriptive; we've been cross-pollinating other languages for decades if not centuries. For about a millennium English was half French; now French borrows Englishisms right and left. Russian had been tentatively sipping at English words -- often for Communist Party doings, of all things -- and with Communism's fall the floodgates are open -- kompakt disk isn't even Russified with prefixes and suffixes in a manner hitherto quite typical. A foreign root-word might be accepted into general Russian use after being buffered, bracketed fore and aft, with a Russian prefix and a suffix. The suffix is at least understandable as a linguistic adapter to fit an alien word into Russian grammar easily; the frequent use of a prefix is less easily explained. A vivid example: Russian has the word park as a city park, right enough. Russian émigrés in America, getting around to owning cars after leaving Soviet privation, coined zaPARKovat' as the verb for to park their car. Verb prefix za (which can mean a bunch of things depending entirely on the verb -- long story) plus the foreign root-word, plus the addition of one of the less usual verb endings and its associated conjugation! What's more, I think that's the imperfective aspect of the verb. Oy. Gev. Alt. Because I'm not sure of the perfective form. Zaparkat'? Some other verb prefix?! Mustn't tear my hear... not that much left.

[DanaC]

It was probably some English professor whose name is unfortunately lost to history who woke up a freshman-English class with, "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them on the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

I love that. That's brilliant.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And dreadfully characteristic of a language that doesn't much esteem some abstract ideal of linguistic order.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I don't know how you pronounce "Minuscule", but the way I pronounce it would make "Miniscule" phonetically incorrect, compounding the problem you're complaining about.

How do you propose to phoneticize the spellings of words that are pronounced differently in different parts of the country? Will you go by majority rule, and add an "R" to "Wash"? How will you spell "Warm"; "Warm", "Werm", or "Wuorm"?

The other day, on my board, I mentioned that I was building a pullet brooder, and my friend from Michigan asked me what a pullet is, and whether it rhymes with "Mullet" or "Bullet".

As far as I know, pullet, mullet, and bullet all rhyme. But in her region, apparently they don't.

How do you spell to solve for regional variations, if you're spelling phonetically?

Phonetic spelling runs into trouble with regional variations, as you correctly point out. It is easy to find spellings that would be one word for a particular regional accent and a different word for another.

Some examples:
* The British English pronunciation of "heart" is very close to the American English pronunciation of "hot".
* The Scottish English pronunciation of "stir" sounds like the American English pronunciation of "steer" (if it wasn't for the rolled Scottish R, the pronunciations would be very similar).

There are many regional variations, and England has even more regional variation than the USA. In some parts of England, words like toe and tow are pronounced differently, and in other parts of England bail and bale are pronounced differently.

A reasonable approach is not to worry about how individual groups pronounce a word, but instead look to the body of speakers as a whole and identify where the consensus among the different accents shows a spelling to be flawed. Everyone would agree that from an orthographical point of view the i in friend is redundant. (Whether they would choose to do something about it is another matter.) On the other hand, hoarse must remain distinctly spelt from horse because some people pronounce these differently.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It was probably some English professor whose name is unfortunately lost to history who woke up a freshman-English class with, "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them on the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

Is this the quotation you're after?

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
James Nicoll, 1990

[DanaC]

Brilliant! I'm gonna remember that one.

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It was probably some English professor whose name is unfortunately lost to history who woke up a freshman-English class with, "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them on the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

Memorable if not fully descriptive; we've been cross-pollinating other languages for decades if not centuries. For about a millennium English was half French; now French borrows Englishisms right and left. Russian had been tentatively sipping at English words -- often for Communist Party doings, of all things -- and with Communism's fall the floodgates are open -- kompakt disk isn't even Russified with prefixes and suffixes in a manner hitherto quite typical. A foreign root-word might be accepted into general Russian use after being buffered, bracketed fore and aft, with a Russian prefix and a suffix. The suffix is at least understandable as a linguistic adapter to fit an alien word into Russian grammar easily; the frequent use of a prefix is less easily explained. A vivid example: Russian has the word park as a city park, right enough. Russian émigrés in America, getting around to owning cars after leaving Soviet privation, coined zaPARKovat' as the verb for to park their car. Verb prefix za (which can mean a bunch of things depending entirely on the verb -- long story) plus the foreign root-word, plus the addition of one of the less usual verb endings and its associated conjugation! What's more, I think that's the imperfective aspect of the verb. Oy. Gev. Alt. Because I'm not sure of the perfective form. Zaparkat'? Some other verb prefix?! Mustn't tear my hear... not that much left.

Make no mistake -- the origin of the word is itself, or the fact that it was borrowed or stolen, is of no general concern to me. I was just pointing out the ridiculousness of using a wholly foreign word as evidence of how annoying the spelling rules are in the English language.

English did not create the construct of the 'cie' in the word 'hacienda'. It's therefore absurd to complain that it doesn't follow English spelling rules!

I personally find one of the most pleasing aspect of English the way it evolves so rapidly, both as spoken and as written. It is an exceedingly flexible language.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I personally find one of the most pleasing aspect of English the way it evolves so rapidly, both as spoken and as written. It is an exceedingly flexible language.

All natural language evolves similarly. It's quite beautiful.

Spelling and grammar prescriptivism are efforts to propagate what is most widely understood. It's a good idea to master the rules for those that want their ideas to be understood by the largest possible number of people.

If you want your children to have the most possible power over their destiny they should be taught these things to a high level of mastery.

The most beautiful thing about language is that efforts to codify the mainstream do not much hamper the natural evolution of the language. I'd say those efforts might even encourage it. Constraints fuel artfulness.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

All natural language evolves similarly. It's quite beautiful.

Except French. They have a Language Purity Committee to keep those awful cross-overs from destroying their language.

Why they need to say more than "Je me rends," I have no idea.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

All natural language evolves similarly. It's quite beautiful.

Spoken language does evolve. However, in English the spellings are not allowed to evolve to keep pace with changes to the spoken word. The result is a gradual divergence of spelling from pronunciation which in the case of the English language has diverged to the point where it is considered perfectly normal to consult a dictionary to find out how some words are pronounced.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Jill

Make no mistake -- the origin of the word is itself, or the fact that it was borrowed or stolen, is of no general concern to me. I was just pointing out the ridiculousness of using a wholly foreign word as evidence of how annoying the spelling rules are in the English language.

English did not create the construct of the 'cie' in the word 'hacienda'. It's therefore absurd to complain that it doesn't follow English spelling rules!

The only difference between a foreign word and a perfectly acceptable English word is about a century of use and its inclusion in a few editions of the major dictionaries. I could post some examples, but the quotations that Urbane Guerrilla and I posted about the purity of the English language should be enough to make my point.

Furthermore, your beef about the particular word "hacienda" being used as a counterexample does not in any way prove that the I before E except after C rule is actually useful enough to remember. Five root words, plus a couple of dozen words derived from these. That's all the rule is good for. FFS, it takes less time to remember these five root words than it takes to remember the full wording of I before E except after C rule.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by wolf

[all natural languages evolve] Except French. They have a Language Purity Committee to keep those awful cross-overs from destroying their language.

Why they need to say more than "Je me rends," I have no idea.

The French are quite parochial about their language and culture. It is not just their need to defend their language against invasion by foreign words. In France, all radio stations that play music are required by law to play a high percentage of songs by French artists.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Geez, it's up to 103 posts just because Kingswood refuses to learn how to spell.

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Geez, it's up to 103 posts just because Kingswood refuses to learn how to spell.

Why the ad hominem attack? The thread has a lot of posts because other people have posted in it too.

It's not wrong to question tradition. If a tradition is truly sound, it will stand up to scrutiny. However, the tradition of English spelling may not be one of these, and the pedants who believe that spellings are immutable don't like being told that.