Re: English notation

I wrote:

> >> Ie think dhis iz sumwut mor reed'b'l for Eenglish speekerz. It reeliez on
> >
And Tristan replied:

> >I'll be calm. Okay. I think I can manage it. DON"T CONFUSE AMERICAN ENGLISH
> >WITH
> >ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >(etc).
Ray chimes in:

>AMEN!!!!!
This is unfair, and I'd appreciate a little attention to context before
escalating the animosity. When I said "more readable", I was referring only
to my substitution of already-in-use English digraphs for Christian's
rather foreign-looking ones; it had nothing to do with any thought that a
phonetic rendering of my American accent was more readable for English
speakers everywhere than a phonetic rendering of British English would
be--this interpretation must surely be the result of coming in in the
middle of the conversation and deciding to take offense without paying
attention to who was saying what, or why.


>me:
> >
> >But, alas, one can't do phonetic writing without choosing *some*
> >accent--
>
>...which is precisely the point I made in an earlier email.  A phonetic
>approach to spelling reform must inevitably be divisive.
And I agree totally; I never advocated such a phonetic reform of English
spelling; I just made a few suggestions to improve one suggested by someone
else, and now I seem to have become the preferred target to bash.

> >and, like it or not, American English has become the dominant form
> >of the language today.
>
>..which is precisely the attitude that gets Americans disliked in so many
>parts of the world.
OK, point taken. But the complementary attitude exhibited by some Brits is
no better--that theirs is the "proper" form of the language, and must
continued to be treated with deference, despite the demographic trends that
have reduced its prominence in objective terms.

>I must make it clear that personally I have no animus against Americans.
>Indeed, on my visits to the USA, I have found Americans to be courteous &
>hospitable.  BUT - I'm afraid Americans are not always perceived that way,
>even here and still less in other parts of the globe.  And one reason is,
>quite frankly, the attitude: "Look, buster, we are the dominant power in
>the world today, so you'd better get used to it."
I agree with you, but please don't equate my linguistic statement with that
distasteful political statement, which I do not endorse; it is an attitude
I have worked diligently to avoid in my travels to other countries.

My point was this: If one is to make the error (as we both see it) or
regularizing English by some kind of phonetically-based system, then one is
forced to take a particular accent and use it as a model. Parochial and
political matters entirely aside, American English is a choice defensible
in terms of number of speakers and prevalence in media (not to mention a
fairly high degree of internal uniformity)--it is a choice a hypothetical
"extraterrestrial" charged with the task might well select. I noted this
fact only because Tristan seemed to be advocating a phonetic transcription
of one of the British accents as a superior alternative, and I felt *that*
was parochial.

I hope we can acknowledge that this thread struck a nerve, and raised all
the classic spectres of linguistic chauvinism, on all sides. It doesn't
seem anyone's intentions were bad, however, and I hope we can avoid pumping
it up further.


Cheers, Tom


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Tadfor Little               tom@telp.com
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Telperion Productions           www.telp.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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