LL-L "Orthography" 2002.04.23 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: kcaldwell31 at comcast.net
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2002.04.22 (04) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
> Subject: "Orthography"
>
> But I think it's also fair to say from the above that the
> problems with English spelling are excessive, and it's no
> wonder that attempts are made to improve the situation. An
> example of an overloaded phoneme is /i/ as in, for example:
> seem, team, convene, sardine, protein, fiend, people, he, key,
> ski, debris, quay.

I've heard, in some old movies, "protein" pronounced as three syllables:
PRO-tee-in.  Does anyone still pronounce it this way?

> Such words seem to be pronounced about the
> same in all accents, ie the multiple-accent objection doesn't
> apply, so the usual objection to changing these is that they
> preserve etymological information, although this isn't just
> English-language etymology - it's also an awful lot of
> information about the foreign languages from which some of
> the words have been borrowed. Does it make any sense to
> preserve this information? Well, it's certainly true that
> while the entire Anglophonie is forced to absorb all this
> vestigial information, no attempt is ever made to teach
> etymology along with it.

I wouldn't say that.  I had a class on etymology as an English elective
in high school over 20 years ago (the school I attended required juniors
and seniors to take a different English elective each quarter, rather
than having one English class all year long).

> These projects seem to have had no impact on British spellings
> of English. Spelling reforms in the US, by contrast, are much
> less heavy-handed (in fact "reform" is probably too strong a
> word to describe American spelling simplifications) and yet
> much more successful. In the US, optional spelling simplifications
> are recommended,

by whom?

> and, perhaps because writers and publishers are
> allowed to decide for themselves and because the changes are light
> enough not to make the spelling look too unfamiliar, the
> recommendations almost always make headway into everyday American
> spellings. The following ten proposals have been made:
>
> 1. "-our" to "-or"
> 2. "-re" to "-er"
> 3. dropping final "k" in "publick," etc.
> 4. changing "-ence" to "-ense" in "defence," etc.
> 5. use single "l" in inflected forms, e.g. "traveled"

This one is not so successful.  I often find myself using the double
"l", and then stopping to look it up.

> 6. use double "l" in words like "fulfill"
> 7. use "-or" for "-er" where done so in
> Latin, e.g. "instructor," "visitor"

But "advisor" seems to lose out to "adviser" most of the time.

> 8. drop final "e" to give: ax, determin, definit, infinit,
> envelop, medicin, opposit, famin, (others)

I've never heard of this one, except as applied to "axe/ax".  "Envelop"
and "envelope" are different words.  The former is a verb with the
stress on the second syllable, and the latter is noun with the stress on
the first syllable (and there are two possible pronunciations of the
first syllable).

> 9. use single "f" at end of words like "pontif," "plaintif"

I've never heard of this one either.  It's always "pontiff,"
"plaintiff," bailiff," and "sheriff."

> 10. change "-ise" to "-ize" wherever this can be traced
> back to Latin and Greek (where a "z"/zeta *was* used
> in the spellings) or a more recent coining which
> uses the suffix "-ize" (from Greek "-izein")
>
> And all except number 8 have gradually been gradually adopted,
> to some extent even influencing spellings in the UK.

You forgot the dropping of "-ue" from words like "catalog" and "dialog",
although we tend to keep it in "monologue", "prologue" and "epilogue."
This one is more widely perceived as optional.

> I think quite a lot can be learned from this:
>
> 1. English spelling is very bad (read the Science Daily report
>    at the link above for repercussions on literacy);
> 2. People reject heavy-handed attempts at reform such as has
>    been attempted in the UK;
> 3. Optional spelling simplifications that don't make reading
>    too awkward are gradually adopted by the populace.

I think Americans would reject large-scale spelling reforms the same way
they have rejected the metric system.  Besides, a more sensible and
consistent orthography would eliminate that venerable institution, the
spelling bee.

Kevin Caldwell

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