Re: French spelling scheme

On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 20:53:36 -0400, Robert Hailman <robert@...>
wrote:

>Nik Taylor wrote:
>> > apostrophes are a pain to type, I'm sure we can agree on that :)
>>
>> A pain?  It's a single character.  No harder than typing a space ... how
>> is, say, j'aime any harder than j aime?  It's the same number of
>> keystrokes.
>
>Well, it's off in the corner, and it's pressed with a weaker finger, so
>*hypothetically* it's harder to type - although not significantly. I
>think j'aime looks better than j aime - the j is all alone in the
>second.
That's exactly why I find it a pain. Except that to me, it's more than
hypothetical; hitting the space bar costs me next to no effort, since I use
the thumb exclusively for that, while the apostrophe requires me to grope
to the far right with my "weak" little finger.

My spelling scheme is not meant seriously per se; I'm sorry if it came on
to some as the foul breath of auxilinguo-prescriptivism  :) Real-world
orthographic reform design has unfortunate political connotations,
admittedly. My activity was and is merely meant as an intellectual
exercise, just like other designs such as Unilang, which also has a
lamentable offensive potential.

Perhaps I'm overreacting myself... :)

Regards,
Óskar