Re: USAGE: di"f"thong (was: Tetraphthongs, Triphthongs, Dipht..)
| From: | John Vertical <johnvertical@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, May 29, 2006, 13:57 |
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*sigh* OK, since the hopes of passing the topic quietly were for naught, I'm
going into Rant Mode then.
[Tristan:]
> > unless we plan on creating two spellings for a fairly large
> > collection of words, "laff" is the most sensible spelling.
[Philip:]
>I'd rather say that unless we plan on creating two spellings for a
>fairly large collection of words, _"laugh"_ is the most sensible
>spelling, because it's what people are already used to.
>
>Current spelling is approximately phonemic; it might not be great but
>it serves its purpose more or less. It also blurs some distinctions
>(or underspecifies the sound), letting people with different accents
>each read their own vowel sound into the word.
So, you argue that the current spelling is phonemical enuff to work? And
yet, "laugh" is not a phonemical spelling. Even the reason you give for
defending it is people being used to it.
Yes, "laff" is not a perfect solution, but it is still *more phonemic* than
the current spelling! The argument that dialects exist would be a very good
one if I were proposing, say, conflating <wh> with <w>, or <ew> with <oo>.
But *absolutely nobody* (or, to play safe, at best a minority so small that
they can and should be ignored) pronounces "laugh" as [lO], or whatever the
vowel you have in "caught" etc. is. Everyone has an /f/ at the end, and this
/f/ is not reflected the least bit in the spelling.
"Laff" also already exists as a recognized alternate spelling. It gets
almost 2M hits on Google; "laugh" 96M. That's 1-2% by _usage_. I know it's
markedly "lower class", but I don't let that get in the way; it's still far
from being as sanctioned as "U" or "sum" or "fite"...
(And why two effs? Simply because the general rule is that a final /f/ after
an orthographic short vowel is written double.)
I've read it long ago already. These are good reads too:
http://www.zompist.com/spell.html
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ortho.html
>I think that varieties are too diverse for you to be able to make a
>completely phonemic orthography for English
And you are right. IMHO, estabilishing some sort of only slightly bug-fixed
standard English for international usage + allowing more freedom dialectally
seems like a good solution. Yes, that would require many people to
essentially learn two languages, but you are _already_ doing that with the
current spelling system; only the other one is always written, and the other
one (almost) always spoken.
>and I'm not sure how much headway would be gained by making
>minimal changes that would make some bits more phonemic
>_for everyone_.
>
>Cheers,
>Philip
Even if you ignore the ubiquitous vowel length issues, English still has
*heaps* of atrocities which violate the spelling rules in ALL dialects, such
as "build", "choir", "colonel", "does", "island", "lose", "machine",
"tongue", "would", "you"... I once made some statistical research on this,
and such words make up at least some 2% of the language.
>It's somewhat similar in effect, though not magnitude, to
>someone arbitrarily deciding to spell /&/ with <aleph>. Stumbling block for
>readers.
>
>--
>Shreyas
You don't think the purpose of spelling reform would be to help those who
already have learned all the irregularities, do you? No, of course it's
ultimately for the benefit of *new* learners, be they nativ or forrin.
John Vertical
PS. I hope I don't come across as hostile; I'm just stating my reasons.
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