new Russian orthography?

[Yoshimasa Tsuji]

Thank you, Patricia, for your exhaustive treatment of the matter.
Though I think you have left no room to fill, I would just like to
make two trivial points, if you allow me.

1. <pred"idushchij> is a very rightful spelling and is found in many
  dictionaries. Its exclusion is a relatively recent phenomenon.
     It is interesting that "y" is the only Russian character whose graphic
  representation clearly shows a disconnection of its components (I am saying
  ia and io are graphically connected), unambiguously showing that it stands
  for a hard sign plus i, though the first components misleadingly gives
  an impression of its being a soft sign.

2. In relation to the softening of <s"ezd> in rapid speech, I would
  like to put you a reverse case: uneducated people often spell
  <pod"otdel> which is faithful to careful pronunciation. I have noticed
   the i in <gorispolkom> is always pronounced "hard" however fast the
   speech may be.


Cheers,
Tsuji