Peter,

You are entitled to your own opinion (paraphrased below):

All spelling reform advocates are crackpots
Prof. Upward was in a different class of crackpots
since he commanded the support of a 100 year old
organization. Like all crackpots, he did not
listen to reason.

Since there have been many successful spelling reforms, I suppose
that a crackpot spelling reform advocate is someone who has yet to
be successful.

Have I correctly characterized your position?

--Steve

P.S. Chris Upward died in 2002 at age 63. He was not the chairman
or president of the Spelling Society, he was the editor of their
Journal. He had the support of the majority of members who approved
the publication of his reform proposal: The Cut Spelling Handbook.

Cut spelling has some resemblance to speed writing but the 10%
reduction in word length is accidental. The point is simply to
remove redundant characters and to reduce irregularity.

Sped rytng: Cn u red ths? (short vowels left out)
Cut spelng: Can yu read this? (redundant letters left out)
Nu Speling: Kan yu reed dhis? (vowels are regularized)

The spelling society advocates a reform that will accelerate
literacy. There are differences of opinion as to how much reform is
required to achieve this goal. There are also differences of opinion
as to how much change the general public would tolerate.

The general trend seems to have been from a highly phonemic notation
(New Spelling) which would respell about 60% of the words in the
dictionary to bring them in line with dictionary key spelling to a
milder reform that would change only about 10% of the words.

-Steve

---- Peter T. Daniels wrote:

Mr. Upward is a spelling reform fanatic and does not listen to
reason.

English Spelling Reform projects are a dime a dozen and almost as
controversy-generating as IALs. If English spelling is ever
reformed, it will be at a grass-roots level, untidily and messily as
natural languages like to do things.

Upward is/was the head of the Simplified Spelling Society and as such
commanded greater attention than the run-of-the-mill spelling reform
crackpot.