Is Simplified Spelling Worth Reform?

digitalhermit writes "I guess many folks are of very little brain, and big words bother them... There's a push for simpler spelling. Instead of 'weigh' it would be 'way.' 'Dictionary' would be 'dikshunery' and so forth. Dunno if it's a joke, but it seems in earnest. Mark Twain must be spinning around somewhere." Twain is often credited with the satirical call for spelling reform called "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling," though according to Wikipedia, Twain was "actually a supporter of reform," and the piece may have been written by M.J. Shields. Benjamin Franklin was another champion of spelling reform, and even came up with a phonetic alphabet to implement such reform.

Comments

nothing?

[IAmTheDave]

Nuthing fore u tu see here. Pleez mov alon.

Re:Never going to happen

[js3]

brilliant idea. Lets take a fairly easy to grasp language and turn in into japanese for people who can't spell.

Re:Never going to happen

[Waffle Iron]

Well, we could always overload words the way a C programmer would:

way -> way
weigh -> way1
whey -> way2

Although introducing namespaces would be more clear to the reader:

way -> Directions::way
weigh -> Measurements::way
whey -> Foodstuffs::way

But since we're talking about text documents in general, maybe we should base a new simplified spelling scheme on XML:

way -> <spelling:overloaded_word category="directions"> way </spelling:overloaded_word>
weigh -> <spelling:overloaded_word category="measurements"> way </spelling:overloaded_word>
whey -> <spelling:overloaded_word category="foodstuffs"> way </spelling:overloaded_word>

Re:Simple solution

[iminplaya]

It's called SCHOOL.

In the US, we say "escuela".

Re:Most other countries did it two centuries ago

[Inda]

The only person who has the right to change English is The Queen. The Queen's English belongs to the Queen and we should all be thankful that she lets us use it.

God bless The Queen and the British Empire!