Re: Conspelling

Muke Tever <alrivera@...> wrote:
>
> > From:    Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>
> >
> > But what interests me most in this is the term "aesthetics"; the
> > spelling must look nice (unlike the one above). But what are people's
> > ideas of "nice"? Aha, very interesting indeed....;)
>
> My idea (well, other than the dictatorial "alphabet reform") is that a
> reformed English spelling should at least try to *look* English (as
> opposed to Dutch or Spanish or Klingon...).  It could do that by building
> on the actual _current_ spelling rules of English.  (The biggest problem
> with a new spelling is that to the old spelling, so much is spelled
> wrong!)
    That is one of the goals of Vermont Revised Spelling.  A lot of common
words are spelled the same or almost the same, e.g.: "Dick and Jane run with
Spot.  Dick iz a boy.  Jane iz a guerl.  Spot iz a dog.".

> Anyway, based on this what I've studied so far, I probably would not call
> 'aile' for 'aisle' "regular" English, because the normal sound of 'ai' is
> "long-A":  maim, mail, fail, quail, rail, rain, main, stain, Spain,
> maize...[2] That is, even 'aile' is irregularly spelled (even though it
> doesn't look it if you think of the Romance-vowel-value of 'ai').
    In VRS it's "ile".

> > Basically, we could call this 'conorthography' or 'conspelling'. Do
> > people here have some cool conspellings they'd like to share?
    VRS is at http://www.connix.com/~dennis/rbweb/vrs.htm.

> [2] 'Air' is different though, closer to "short-E": air, stair, fair,
> bairn, chair... This might be because "long-A" and "R" tend to appear at
> syllable breaks and not together.  player, mayor, etc.  Not sure though.
    Do you distinguish between "fairy" and "ferry"?

 ===========================================================================

           Denniss Paull Himze    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
                  http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm

Disclaimmer: "Troo, y tolk uv dremze; wich ar dha chiljrin uv an idle brane,
beegot uv nuththenge but vane fantucee; wich iz az thin uv substuns az dhe
are."                        - Roammeeo & Juuleeet, Act I Cene iv Vers 96-99