Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


>
> There are people that have dropped the sound "awe" ~au completely out
> of their foenubet (set of sounds in a language - my word).  And if the
> trend continues, we're gonna lose that sound altogether in USA
English.
> This trend must stop.
>

I don't have a dog in this hunt, and I've mostly been a passive observer
to the discussion.  But . ..

Why must this trend stop?

Possible reasons:

The trend lessons the ability of people to communicate with specificity
and accuracy (is this a real concern?  Does data support it?)

The trend signifies, in very minor way, the loss of some part of our
culture (analogous to the loss that occurs when the last speaker of a
little-used language dies).

Am I missing something?  Is the coming and going of phonemes within a
language a bad thing?  I'm a native English speaker, but can use a few
phonemes from other languages if need be (as when using a German word
that expresses an idea for which there is no good English word).

I think, Tom, that one of the reasons that some on this list react so
negatively to your posts is that you make statements as dogma, with out
rigor to back them up.  "This trend must stop."  Why?  "Truespel must be
implemented because . . ."  Yes, there are problems that you say
Truespel will fix, but overhauling the spelling conventions of a
language used by a billion plus people ain't gonna happen.  If doing so
would make everyone a perfect speller overnight (the best possible
benefit, that I can see), that benefit isn't sufficient to outweigh the
cost of implementing it.  So why keep asking for it?


Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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