LL-L "Orthography" 2005.12.26 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 26 December 2005 * Volume 04
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From: "Sandy Fleming" <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.21 (03) [E]

> From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: LL-L Phonology
>
> I would also argue this case with the 'could of/have'
> debate. Sticking to 'could have' is sticking to a
> written form, as if this is sacrosanct, whereas a
> written form should portray the way a language is
> spoken and not the other way round.

I really don't think a written form can portray the way a language is
spoken - it's just impossible for writers to get it right. Even writers
who do this, meaning dialect writers, only  partially succeed with it.
Dialect writings are usually done as literature so the writers are
usually taking plenty of time to pore over it and polish it, what chance
do journalists, technical writers and casual writers have?

At the same time, I think it's a mistake to treat the usual written
forms of the language as sacrosanct or "standard", because there are
often gross inconsistencies and inefficiencies in them due to the
difficulty in persuading people to allow them to evolve. The problems in
English orthography are particularly bad.

This is why I think objecting to an oft-used variation such as "would
of" is such a bad thing. If people, especially educators, are getting
worked up about trivia like this, what are our hopes for doing anything
about the more serious problems in the current writing system?

Having said that, the writing system in English does keep evolving, just
very slowly. Maybe that's good but I do think it would be better to
raise the temperature* a little.

*In genetic algorithms, the "temperature" is a constant defining the
amount of change involved in a single evolutionary step. The higher the
temperature, the greater the changes in the system over time due to
being able to take larger steps and cross barriers which couldn't be
crossed at lower temperatures. American orthography seems a little
"warmer" than British, but still isn't hot enough to allow many kinds of
changes!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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