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Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English impersonal verbs)

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Sunday, March 12, 2006, 22:42
On 3/12/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> Nobody asked, but IMO a surprizingly large percentage of these slang > spellings
...like "surprizingly"? No thanks.
> actually work better than the current ones. As a prime example, > "U" versus "you".
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. Never, do you hear? Never! You can have my irregular spelling when you pry my dictionary from my cold, dead hand! "U" for "you" is in the same category as "4" for "for". > But "theatre" is the more regular one. Since this is a "broken" <ea> - ie.
> two vowels, not an /i/ deriving from pre-GWS */E:/ - the spelling "theater" > would suggest that the <a> is /ei/.
And it is indeed pronounced that way in much of the Southern US. /'Ti:.ei.tr\=/.
> There'd also be "theatter" but I think added double letters look a little > silly;
And it would shift the emphasis, making it /Ti'j&t.r\=/.
> and "theatr" would be an upgrade only for the peepl who use a syllabic /r/.
Bah. There is no meaningful difference between a syllabic r and schwa + r.
> And there's many, many more words for which the standard spelling is > irregular for 99% of English speakers, like "often",
... which many people give a spelling pronunciation with a /t/...
> "heart", "hour" or "laugh". I'm actually surprized how little resistance there is against > those. Isn't anyone really aware enuff of the rules of English spelling to > see what exactly is irregular and what isn't?
Cognitive dissonance/bully propagation principle. Having been forced to learn all that crap, we're reluctant to let future generations off easy. :) -- Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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R A Brown <ray@...>