Merkins

[Tom Zurinskas]

I don't think changing traditional spelling (tradspel) is doable.  Ted
Roosevelt in consort with Andrew Carnegie tried and couldn't change a word,
even through an executive order.  Webster was the last success, at least in
USA.

So the only thing possible to influence is pronunciation, keeping it
consistent with tradspel to help learners by maintaining letter sound
correspondance.  But I see no mechanism to do that except for our schools.
Now that "phonemic awareness" (Stanovich) is seen to be the "single most
important attribute exhibited by successful readers" (to paraphrase), there
may be more action in that area.  I think the trend away from phonics in the
past for early reading teachers has fostered disparate pronunciations.  I
advocate for USA English the Writing to Read approach by IBM of the 80's,
only using truespel, which has no special symbols.

"Merkins".  Is that an Ausy term?

Tom Z


>From: RonButters at AOL.COM
>
>Do you advocate, then, quite different spelling conventions (more than
>the=20
>trivial differences that we now see) for the England, Scotland, Wales,
>Irela=
>nd,=20
>Jamaica, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc.? Or should they
>a=
>ll=20
>have to speak Merkin? It seems to me that this would make English a MUCH
>mor=
>e=20
>DIFFICULT language to learn as a 2nd language.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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