Culture

'Simplfy English spellings' says British academic

by Yuliya Talmazan | September 8, 2008 at 03:44 pm

439 views | 10 Recommendations | 4 comments

Finally someone comes along and tells people to get rid of irregular English spelling. What is surprising is that someone is British and a prominent phonetics professor from University College London, one of Britain’s leading post-secondary institutions. To be honest, a British phonetics professor is the last person I would expect to rebel against classical English language rules. However, professor Wells, the Messiah of modern English language, insists on “freed up” spelling and the abolishment of an apostrophe.

He proposes turning "give" into "giv", "river" into "rivver" and embracing Americanisms such as "organize" with a "z".

Wells believes irregular spelling confuses school children, making their lives more complicated.

"It seems to be a great pity that English-speaking countries are holding back children in this way," Prof Wells will say.

"In Finnish, once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain it's similar.

"But with English it's not phonetic, and there are just so many irregularities.".

In a statement bound to bring him into direct confrontation with traditionalists, Prof Wells will say that abbreviations commonly used in text messaging should be used more widely.

"Text messaging, email and internet chat rooms are showing us the way forward for English."

"Let's allow people greater freedom to spell logically. It's time to remove the fetish that says that correct spelling is a principal (principle?) mark of being educated," Prof Wells will say.

Prof Wells will also claim the apostrophe causes unnecessary linguistic barriers.

"Instead of an apostrophe," he will say, "we could just leave it out (it's could become its) or leave a space (so we'll would become we ll).

Despite the fact that text message/ MSN English might be a lot more convenient and save me time, I would not want to read Shakespeare transcribed according to new spelling rules.

“2 b or not 2 b? That s a the qtn!”

Bizarre

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Yuliya Talmazan

at 07:23 on September 9th, 2008

Thanks, Johnny. Agreed. I do believe French could use some simplification as well actually.

Christina 123

at 12:15 on September 9th, 2008

Compleet nonsens - it wud akshully tayk longa to reed. Best way to lern is by reeding.

Christina 123

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 12:16 on September 9th, 2008

yuls.source, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Christina 123

at 14:41 on September 9th, 2008

[/q

"In Finnish, once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain it's similar. /q]

I am Fiinish speaking and I can assure you that although Finnish has fifteen different cases (compared to English three or four or whatever) , it is indeed phonetic, but even more rules-bound than English in that we have "vowel harmony" i.e., you may only use certain vowels with other vowels! Finnish is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world EVER. for foreigners to learn, so much for the theory that phonetic spelling=easy.

Finnish has the Swedish spelling pronunciation = not at all easy! Where "y" is pronounced "ugh!" But I fully agree spelling tests are a complete waste of time! Comprehension and vocabulary tests are better!