Re: men, elves, wolves, and robots; was: man, etc.
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, December 28, 2004, 7:28 |
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On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:49:59 EST, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...> wrote:
> If English were an unwritten language, it probably wouldn't
> occur to any of the speakers that there was any connection between the /gajn/
> of "gynecology" and the /dZIn/ of "androgyny"
Or between /foUt@/ in "photograph" and /f@tQ/ in "photography", perhaps.
Which is one reason why spelling reform seems unlikely, since some
people like seeing etymological relations reflected in the spelling.
(This was also a motivator for some of the spelling changes in the
recent German spelling reform -- to make etymologically-connected
words [or, in some cases, folk-etymologically-connected words] have a
similar spelling.)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Watch the Reply-To!