LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.23 (12) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Friedrich-Wilhelm Neumann <Friedrich-Wilhelm.Neumann at epost.de>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.23 (05) [E/LS]

Hi, all of You, in special Gabriele!

You wrote:
>
> From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.22 (12) [E]
>
> Weeeellllll...
>
> I haven't said anything so far since I had assumed that most people would
> agree with Criostóir which, surprisingly, they didn't. He is most
certainly
> right when he says that the spelling "judgment" is not "conventional" (I
> won't even try and touch "correct"). Without the silent "e" after the "g",
> this word is basically unpronounceable according to English and
> international spelling conventions. How would one pronounce words like
> "badg", "edg", "fudg" or "hedg", then? Or "jugment" in French?
>
> To me, this is a classic case where bad spellers have set enough
precedence
> that the, er, "unconventional" form has finally been accepted as
"correct".
> So I suppose that, along these lines, we can be looking forward to
> acceptable spellings like "wierd", "definately", "recieve", "shephard",
and
> "cemetary" in the not-too-distant future, since most native English
speakers
> posting on the Internet these days (sometimes even on this forum) seem to
> think that those are the correct forms.
>
> Which brings me to a favourite gripe - the recent German spelling reform.
> The official reason was that they wanted to make it easier for bad
spellers
> so they wouldn't feel discriminated against. They certainly achieved that,
> for now there are ONLY "bad" spellers left. I never, ever used to need to
> look up German words for their spelling until recently. Now I need my
> spelling dictionary in my translation work all the time, because I no
longer
> know which composite verbs are still one word these days, and which are
now
> two or more.
>
> Regards,
> Gabriele Kahn

Nothing more but: well done and written!
Bravo!

[BTW: Are we getting old? ;-)]

Kind regards

Fiete.

----------

From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Hi Everyone

Not posted for a while, but couldn't resist. I was
recently 'correcting' a paper written by a friend, and
one thing that I noticed was that she'd used '-ize'
and 'judgment', however forms such as 'travelling'.
Being British I changed the spellings of the former to
'-ise' and 'judgement' in the need to be consistent
with either British or American English. Forms with
-ize just look too American to me even though I'm
possibly being a bit pedantic.

We've also got to remember, though, that the spelling
of English is so erratic anyway that it probably
shouldn't make any difference as long as it's still
understandable. And as pointed out, the majority of
native speakers make 'mistakes' without losing
anything in meaning.

As to German spelling reforms, as a foreigner who
could never work out when it was meant to be ss or ß
beforehand, I'm quite happy - apart from 'Albtraum'
which to me makes less sense.

Gary

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Great to have you back, Gary!

> As to German spelling reforms, as a foreigner who
> could never work out when it was meant to be ss or ß
> beforehand, I'm quite happy - apart from 'Albtraum'
> which to me makes less sense.

That makes two of us, on both counts, given that the use of <ß> was
nonsensical, though native speakers had the advantage of knowing if a vowel
before it was short or long.  This also affects Lowlands Saxon (Low German),
as many people in Germany also use the <ß> when writing it, so far
irrespective of vowel length, as before the recent German spelling reform.
I avoid the use of <ß> in LS even when I follow German rules otherwise.  Of
course I'd love to get rid of noun-capitalization as well, but pushing the
envelop too far too soon would make too many heads spin out of control.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: Ian James Parsley <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Gabriele and Ron,

Ah yes - it is crucial that we define 'conventional'.

Maybe I hadn't been clear enough, but Ron is exactly
right - 'conventional' means to me simply that the
spelling is found quite regularly. Not wishing to
overstate it, but the UK Parliamentary Report
(Hansard), London broadsheets (including the Guardian)
etc etc all 'accept' and use _judgment_. It is
therefore, to me, established and conventional - that
is quite different, of course, from saying it is
logical.

I had thrown in _advisor_ as an example of a 'newly
established' American spelling which I personally
dislike (because to me it seems 'illogical') but many
now deem acceptable in British English. As an editor,
I would have some explaining to do if I 'corrected'
it.

My whole point is that, where there is no 'Academie
Anglaise', we cannot enforce our own preferences.
Gabriele makes a very good point about how <g> really
needs the <e> to 'soften' it, but then again the 'soft
g' is always troublesome in English (as Gabriele will
know from the German pronunciation of celebrities such
as 'Geri Halliwell' or 'Steve Gerrard' with a 'hard
g'). With English spelling, logic is far from decisive
on many occasions!

In the end, public use decides - much to my own
chagrin very often!

To turn the loop back to the original point, this
little exchange has illustrated very neatly the
problems facing Scots. My whole reasons for raising
this (and continuing it) was to illustrate that we
cannot just go around enforcing our own preferences -
however logical they may appear to us. If a certain
spelling is well enough established, we may have no
option but to accept it.

Not sure on _beeld_ though, Sandy!

=====
------------------
Ian James Parsley
www.ianjamesparsley.net
+44 (0)77 2095 1736
JOY - "Jesus, Others, You"

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