Bee Season: The annual spelling bee brings out protesters as well as nerds

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

Bee Season:  The annual spelling bee brings out protesters as well as  
nerds

This week protesters from the American Literacy Society and London’s  
Simplified Spelling Society picketed outside Washington D. C.’s Grand  
Hyatt Hotel, while inside, 286 students in grades 5 through 8  
competed in the 80th annual Scripps Spelling Bee.

Protesters carried signs reading “Let’s End the I in Friend” and  
“Enuf is Enuf,” hoping to draw attention to their cause, the reform  
of English spelling.



It’s a good cause, though hopeless.  The history of the spelling- 
reform movement is long, distinguished, and totally ineffectual.   
Reforms popped up as early as the 12th century and they’ve continued  
through the present, though until recently spelling reformers didn’t  
take to the streets to get their point across.

read the rest at

the Web of Language
www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage


Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org