Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

In a message dated 2/2/2003 10:21:06 AM Pacific Standard Time,
joe@WANTAGE.COM writes:


> > > 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?
>
 Another thing you missed is that he spelled "existence" as "existance" in
the "obselete" post as well.

 If this is a sign . . . could it be being regularized to be consistent with
"resistance"?