Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

kendra wrote:

>Tristan wrote:
>
>
>>Becoz(?) it completely avoids aul that hassle ov having(havving?) to
>>lern irregular spellings. If yoo donte hav too spend a year lerning how
>>too spell 'all', 'were' and 'word', yoo can spend it lerning how to
>>spell 'contrary', 'unfortunately' and 'antidisestablishmentarian' (or
>>whatever it is).
>>
>>
>But, for instance, things like "whatever" and "word" would still be
>irregular, to people who live where I live; wh and w are only different if
>you're me and mess up sometimes. Though I suppose the degree of irregularity
>would be reduced regardless.
>
Yes, I know... 'what' is h-less here, too. I didn't say I particularly
liked half-arsed spelling reforms. In fact, I've tried to say that any
half-hearted spelling reform, if it succeeds, is going to oversucceed
and the normal spelling in Some Parts of the World would be
'harf-harted'. And you're all specifically banned from saying 'I would
spell it 'haff-harted'.

But some believe a harf-hearted spelling reform is what we need... I
just reckon we should send standard English to wherever it is Classical
Latin lives.

>I guess I wasn't very clear, my question really was "Does the increased
>efficiency of a not very much changed orthography outweigh the overall
>effort and cost involved in fixing it?"
>
I think the only way to find that out is to actually reform the spelling.

>I like stupid English spelling, despite my hopelessness and tendency to
>write "excersize," so I count loss of character in that. :)
>
I like the look of the current English orthography. I imagine most do.
But it's only a matter of what we're used to. There's nothing inherently
worse with having written 'ai laik ov dhe karent Ingglish oothografi'
(unless you have Rs pronounced, or say 'current' as /kr=@nt/, or
whatever, but we don't need to hear it).

>>Well... if it helps, using 'ai' or 'ay' for the long A sound makes
>>phonetic sense for Australian English, where it's pronounced /&i/.
>>
>>
>
>Here it's probably more like something I'd write as ey, though I have no
>idea how to represent that. /ej/  I suppose. (Captain of Not Knowing SAMPA
>or anythign resembling it, and Captain of callnig myself Captain Of Stuff.)
>
(See, I mention one thing about my pronunciation that's somehow relevant
and everyone else goes off and turns it into a pronunciation thread.
It's hardly my fault!)

And yes, it is a new month, but no, we don't need a new one :P

Tristan.

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