Re: The one already done

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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~