Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

On Friday 31 January 2003 8:44 pm, Jake X wrote:
> > Let's not exaggerate.  Literature hasn't been spelled "the old way"
> > for anything like 1000 years.  "Whan that Aprille with his shoures
> > sote / The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, / And bathed
> > every veyne in swich licour, / Of which vertu engendred is the flour;"
> > etc.  Late 14th Century.  Standard spellings for words didn't really
> > exist until dictionaries became popular in the 18th century*.  So in
> > practice you're looking at less than 300 years of mostly consistent
> > spelling.
>
> I'll give you that, and I was aware of this.  I really must admit I got
> carried away
> in that email, it was partly out of fun.  But spelling would be a serious
> issue if the reforms were as drastic-- and as weird-- as they were in my
> email.  This from a person who learned how to spell by staring at a word
> for a long time to see if it "looked right."
>
> > Still, that's hardly a negligable amount, and probably accounts for
> > the majority of books in existance.  Certainly there would be a
> > certain amount of difficulty, in the event of a language reform.  RI,
> > at least, follows current conventions well enough that most old words
> > would be recognizable (as I understand it).  Also, it's a lot easier
> > to learn to read odd spellings of familiar words than it is to produce
> > them.  It doesn't take much practice to become used to the spellings
> > of familiar words in Middle English - the difficulty comes from words
> > which are obselete, which wouldn't apply in this case.  I suspect that
> > the kind of people who enjoy "the beautiful scent of dust from the
> > book not beeing read for 150 years" would probably be willing to learn
> > to recognize old spellings.
>
> It's spelled obsolete.  I usually wouldn't correct like that, but this
> time, it's in the spirit of the thread.  hehe
>
What is odd, is that I spell 'spelled' as 'spelt', more commonly. Is this the
beginning of the reform?

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