Re: Poem in Fynetik Inglix

Gerald Koenig wrote:

> Well I really do like it. Pardon my ignorance but I never heard of
> American Regularized Inglish, I'm not sure it's not a parody!
Not at all.  Regularized Inglish was developed by Axel Wijk and documented
in his 1959 book _Regularized English_, which is out of print but
obtainable.  There are British and American flavors/flavours.
(I will, I will, I *will* post the technical content on my Web site!)

> Some questions, Why do
> nevver, hevvens, and  endevvor have two r's,
(I presume you mean two "v"s.)  It's a rule of conventional English spelling
that v is never doubled or final (except in "Slav", a few slang terms
like "flivver", and a few abbreviations like "Rev.").  This came about
because v, w, and u were originally mere variants of the same letter.

However, it is a general rule that a single consonant other than "v"
between two vowels gives the former vowel its "long" value:
"later" has a "long" a, whereas "latter" has a "short" a.
In Regularized Inglish, this rule is extended to "v" as well:
"saver" is left alone, but "liver" (the organ) becomes "livver".

> and why does moone have an e,
For essentially the same reason: to indicate that "oo" has its "long"
sound as in "croon", rather than its "short" sound as in "foot".
I personally feel that this change is unnecessary, as many words
fluctuate between the "short" and "long" pronunciation (coop, roof, e.g.)
anyway, and minimal pairs are few on the ground.  (In technical
language, the /u/ vs. /U/ contrast has low functional load.)

--

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