Re: Not phonetic but IN CONCLUSION

what is ghoti?

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Shannon [mailto:fiziwig@YAHOO.COM]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 10:11 AM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Not phonetic but IN CONCLUSION


In conclusion, it appears that my original concept of
a dialect-neutral phonetic alphabet is not possible.
In fact, phonetic alphabets in general would be
useless except in a very small community of speakers
who all use the same dialect.

That being the case, it appears that spelling of an
international language like English more or less
_must_ be somewhat arbitrary.  So those phonetic
spelling fans, like the Shavians, are really wasting
their time.  Arbitrary spelling in English (within
limits, of course) is really the only system that is
workable.  The best we could hope for in the way of
reform is to get rid of some of the grosser oddities
like the "gh" in "ghoti".

--gary

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