Well, the reform of English spelling is apparently a topic of
discussion again. From
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060705/ap_on_re_us/simpl_wurdz (you may
find you need to adjust your reading glasses between paragraphs) :


Push for simpler spelling persists
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 5, 5:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON - When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb"
and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae
sound?

Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster
and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make
spelling even more confusing.

Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

It's been 100 years since Andrew Carnegie helped create the Simplified
Spelling Board to promote a retooling of written English and President
Theodore Roosevelt tried to force the government to use simplified
spelling in its publications. But advocates aren't giving up.

They even picket the national spelling bee finals, held every year in
Washington, costumed as bumble bees and hoisting signs that say "Enuf
is enuf but enough is too much" or "I'm thru with through."

Thae sae th bee selebraets th ability of a fue stoodents to master a
dificult sistem that stumps meny utherz hoo cuud do just as wel if
speling were simpler.

"It's a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this,"
says Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council, which
favors an end to "illogical spelling." The group says English has 42
sounds spelled in a bewildering 400 ways.

Americans doen't aulwaez go for whut's eezy — witnes th faeluer of th
metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that
a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues.

Doughnut also is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the
British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been
replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.

"The kinds of progress that we're seeing are that someone will spell
night 'nite' and someone will spell through 'thru,'" Mole said. "We
try to show where these spellings are used and to show dictionary
makers that they are used so they will include them as alternate
spellings."

"Great changes have been made in the past. Systems can change," a
hopeful Mole said.

Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic, he sed.

In languages with phonetically spelled words, like German or Spanish,
children learn to spell in weeks instead of months or years as is
sometimes the case with English, Mole said.

But education professor Donald Bear said to simplify spelling would
probably make it more difficult because words get meaning from their
prefixes, suffixes and roots.

"Students come to understand how meaning is preserved in the way words
are spelled," said Bear, director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center
for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Th cuntry's larjest teecherz uennyon, wuns a suporter, aulso objects.

Michael Marks, a member of the National Education Association's
executive committee, said learning would be disrupted if children had
to switch to a different spelling system. "It may be more trouble than
it's worth," said Marks, a debate and theater teacher at Hattiesburg
High School in Mississippi.

E-mail and text messages are exerting a similar tug on the language,
sharing some elements with the simplified spelling movement while
differing in other ways. Electronic communications stress shortcuts
like "u" more than phonetics. Simplified spelling is not always
shorter than regular spelling — sistem instead of system, hoep instead
of hope.

Carnegie tried to moov thingz along in 1906 when he helpt establish
and fund th speling bord. He aulso uezd simplified speling in his
correspondens, and askt enywun hoo reported to him to do the saem.

A filanthropist, he becaem pashunet about th ishoo after speeking with
Melvil Dewey, a speling reform activist and Dewey Desimal sistem
inventor hoo simplified his furst naem bi droping "le" frum Melville.

Roosevelt tried to get the government to adopt simpler spellings for
300 words but Congress blocked him. He used simple spellings in all
White House memos, pressing forward his effort to "make our spelling a
little less foolish and fantastic."

The Chicago Tribune aulso got into th act, uezing simpler spelingz in
th nuezpaeper for about 40 years, ending in 1975. Plae-riet George
Bernard Shaw, hoo roet moest of his mateerial in shorthand, left muny
in his wil for th development of a nue English alfabet.

Carnegie, Dewey, Roosevelt and Shaw's work followed attempts by
Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain to advance simpler
spelling. Twain lobbied The Associated Press at its 1906 annual
meeting to "adopt and use our simplified forms and spread them to the
ends of the earth." AP declined.

But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of
funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn't captivaet the masez then — or
now.

"I think that the average person simply did not see this as a needed
change or a necessary change or something that was ... going to change
their lives for the better," said Marilyn Cocchiola Holt, manager of
the Pennsylvania department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Carnegie, hoo embraest teknolojy, died in 1919, wel befor sel foenz.
Had he livd, he probably wuud hav bin pleezd to no that milyonz of
peepl send text and instant mesejez evry dae uezing thair oen formz of
simplified speling: "Hav a gr8 day!"

___

On the Net:

American Literacy Council: http://www.americanliteracy.com

Simplified Spelling Society: http://www.spellingsociety.org

National Education Association: http://www.nea.org