Thread: Push for Simpler Spelling Persists

for Simpler Spelling Persists
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 5, 4:23 PM


Elizabeth Kuizenga reads from a spelling book in her ...
WASHINGTON - When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing.

Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

It's been 100 years since Andrew Carnegie helped create the Simplified Spelling Board to promote a retooling of written English and President Theodore Roosevelt tried to force the government to use simplified spelling in its publications. But advocates aren't giving up.

They even picket the national spelling bee finals, held every year in Washington, costumed as bumble bees and hoisting signs that say "Enuf is enuf but enough is too much" or "I'm thru with through."

Thae sae th bee selebraets th ability of a fue stoodents to master a dificult sistem that stumps meny utherz hoo cuud do just as wel if speling were simpler.

"It's a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this," says Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council, which favors an end to "illogical spelling." The group says English has 42 sounds spelled in a bewildering 400 ways.

Americans doen't aulwaez go for whut's eezy _ witnes th faeluer of th metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues.

Doughnut also is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center.

"The kinds of progress that we're seeing are that someone will spell night 'nite' and someone will spell through 'thru,'" Mole said. "We try to show where these spellings are used and to show dictionary makers that they are used so they will include them as alternate spellings."

"Great changes have been made in the past. Systems can change," a hopeful Mole said.

Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic, he sed.

In languages with phonetically spelled words, like German or Spanish, children learn to spell in weeks instead of months or years as is sometimes the case with English, Mole said.

But education professor Donald Bear said to simplify spelling would probably make it more difficult because words get meaning from their prefixes, suffixes and roots.

"Students come to understand how meaning is preserved in the way words are spelled," said Bear, director of the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Th ****ry's larjest teecherz uennyon, wuns a suporter, aulso objects.

Michael Marks, a member of the National Education Association's executive committee, said learning would be disrupted if children had to switch to a different spelling system. "It may be more trouble than it's worth," said Marks, a debate and theater teacher at Hattiesburg High School in Mississippi.

E-mail and text messages are exerting a similar tug on the language, sharing some elements with the simplified spelling movement while differing in other ways. Electronic communications stress shortcuts like "u" more than phonetics. Simplified spelling is not always shorter than regular spelling _ sistem instead of system, hoep instead of hope.

Carnegie tried to moov thingz along in 1906 when he helpt establish and fund th speling bord. He aulso uezd simplified speling in his correspondens, and askt enywun hoo reported to him to do the saem.

A filanthropist, he becaem pashunet about th ishoo after speeking with Melvil Dewey, a speling reform activist and Dewey Desimal sistem inventor hoo simplified his furst naem bi droping "le" frum Melville.

Roosevelt tried to get the government to adopt simpler spellings for 300 words but Congress blocked him. He used simple spellings in all White House memos, pressing forward his effort to "make our spelling a little less foolish and fantastic."

The Chicago Tribune aulso got into th act, uezing simpler spelingz in th nuezpaeper for about 40 years, ending in 1975. Plae-riet George Bernard Shaw, hoo roet moest of his mateerial in shorthand, left muny in his wil for th development of a nue English alfabet.

Carnegie, Dewey, Roosevelt and Shaw's work followed attempts by Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain to advance simpler spelling. Twain lobbied The Associated Press at its 1906 annual meeting to "adopt and use our simplified forms and spread them to the ends of the earth." AP declined.

But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn't captivaet the masez then _ or now.

"I think that the average person simply did not see this as a needed change or a necessary change or something that was ... going to change their lives for the better," said Marilyn Cocchiola Holt, manager of the Pennsylvania department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Carnegie, hoo embraest teknolojy, died in 1919, wel befor sel foenz. Had he livd, he probably wuud hav bin pleezd to no that milyonz of peepl send text and instant mesejez evry dae uezing thair oen formz of simplified speling: "Hav a gr8 day!"

___

On the Net:

American Literacy Council: http://www.americanliteracy.com

Simplified Spelling Society: http://www.spellingsociety.org

National Education Association: http://www.nea.org

Boy this ticks me because I know what a nightmare it was with my kids. They called it writing to read. And that's what you do. Spell the word the way it sounds and that's supposed to work better.

My daughters would get a test with a picture of a cat and they were supposed to write kat. If they wrote cat....it was marked wrong. Then of course in a couple of years when they are supposed to start spelling correctly.....they then have to un-learn what they have been told and re-learn it the right way.

Thats why you see so many kids that can't spell worth a hoot. Care for some more dummy-down theories?

crazybird........where do they come up with the words "gooder" and "thunk"? Heard those 2 used alot in the past several years.
Those words ain't in my vocabulary. Wasn't taught to me in school.
THUNK IS IN THE DICTIONARY!!!!!

Too hard to do the tenses I guess. Good, better, best is to HARD....so let's do good, gooder, goodest.

The results of the "invasion" are showing up, even the language is starting to change.

Oh my!

Just one more reason I will continue to homeschool my children.

Just when I had heard just about everything.

http://Eether wae, the consept has y... imajinaeshun.

LOL I needed a laugh and that sentence is it. Thanks Crazy

They don't need to simplify spelling they need to upgrade teachers, reduce class size, (I can think of a fast way ) and STOP messing with our culture!

This is just another brain F...T from the libs to nuetralize the culture of this nation.

Geeeesh!

Home schooling is VERY wise given the fact teachers can't teach anymore due to many reasons... none the least of which is the Federal interferance, the libs and having to teach in two languages in the same class room. This is nuts!

I wish I could have.......basicly had to spend every evening doing it anyway. Except for math......I'm lousy and fortunatly they are both quite good at it. But I did have to work alot with them on reading because they didn't teach phonics. Alot on spelling to un-do the damage. And history early on coz they weren't taught anything. Never was taught about Lincoln or Washington or anything till way later on in their schooling.

Just another dumbing down method thanks to the UN and the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND which IS a UN agenda! They don't want smart people they only want laborers!

I have 3 grand children, they thanks G_D go to a very good private school, even then the oldest who is beginning high school dosen't know almost anything of geographie, it's not in the curriculum, about the rest of the world geographie ?nothing. This year in the 7th grade my other one was taught some, so I asked how come the first one wasn't taught the same ? They answered me that only this year the goverment introduce these studies.
Now, without no other increasement in studying history and geographie, they are introducing spanish or french, which if there were a normal curriculum , would be OK,but I cannot agree with this policy they don't teach the fundamental , because for me this is basic to know the history and geog, of the country, they are coming with spanish, this they learn at the malls, at the pool etc... That's also why'the level of our schools comparing to the world are so low.

In Jr, high mine weren't given the choice of a language....it was Spanish.

Fortunatly in high school there's still a choice.