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Re: The one already done

From:Tom Tadfor Little <tom@...>
Date:Saturday, June 30, 2001, 23:54
At 07:23 AM 6/30/01 , you wrote:
>While everyone's talking about spelling reform: > >Do americans spell aero- as ero-? (For example, do they spell >'aerodrome' as "erodrome" (I know they spell 'aeroplane' as "airplane", >and pronounce it to match, and that's the only diff i remember seeing). >If not, why not? They spell 'mediaeval' as "medieval" (pointless, IMHO, >because it no longer suggests two vowels), aesthetic as esthetic, why >have I never seen aero- as ero-? > >Also, does anyone know Webster's logic behind respelling 'colour' as >"color", but not 'source' as "sorce", which, being a stressed vowel, >would need it more, IMHO.
Hi Tristan! This is not an entirely logical thing. Many of these reforms go back to Noah Webster's original dictionary, which included many attempts to move toward a more phonetic rendering of (American) speech. Some of the reforms caught on, most didn't. We keep the 'a' in 'aero-'; I suspect the connection with "air" is too strong to be violated. I don't think there was ever any serious attempt to systematically change 'ae' to 'e' -- just a few words where it happened. The 'ou'/'o' thing was more widespread, but again no real consistency. Although there is an element of deliberate "reform" behind some of these changes, I think that overall they should not be thought of that way, but rather as evolutionary developments, like those that happen in all spelling systems. Cheers, Tom ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tom Tadfor Little tom@telp.com Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Telperion Productions www.telp.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~