See it for yurseelf
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/07/05/bc.simple.words.ap/index.html
I’m sorry, but you americans are crazy. Crazier than we are.
Is this real? This is how illiterate people spelled words by just writing the sounds.
That’s the point. That’s what they want.
Its just a different way of doing things, phonetic vs simple word memorization. It looks “stupid” because “stupid” people spell words phonetically because its the spelling that makes the most sense. I’d personally rather see the english language be written phonetically, but sadly, the opinion of one lonely internet male is not enough to change the way a language has been written for 300+ years. 8(
wut th fuuck muthor fuuckors?
Dammit, if they’re going to try to simplify spelling, they should do it in a way that makes sense.
2 u’s consecutively for a short “u” sound doesn’t makes sense, and spelling “few” as “fue” is just as stupid, since they ignore the consonant “y” sound.
The adjustment of “roet” from “rote” looks to me like it should be 2 syllables now (like poet), so that doesn’t help either.
Arrgh! So much stupidity.
I would imagine it would be quite the hassle for everyone who learned the proper English spellings to try and switch over to phonetic English just for the sake of some kids.
Plus, the phonetic spellings would differ greatly due to regional dialects. What we all recognize as for, I (and most everyone I know) pronounce as a bastard child of fir and fer. And what about words like caught and cot? Once again, everyone I know pronounces them exactly the same, but apparently in some dialects (and even “proper” English pronunciation), there’s actually a difference.
Goddammit, isn’t English insane enough? >:O
It kind of makes sense on the face of it, but this would be a massive pain to implement. I don’t know why people are freaking out, it’s not as if non-phonetic spelling is somehow superior.
I dunno, it hurts my brain just to read some of that. My god.
Is it me, or is America trying to dumb education down to “mentally disabled” level?
Non-phonetic spelling has two big advantages.
First, it maintains a standard pronunciation for a massive population. Students are taught that words are spelled a certain way, and that words are generally pronounced as they are spelled. This prevents them from straying too far from the original pronunciation. For instance, it maintains the difference between ‘would have’ and ‘would of.’ Permanently mixing up “have” with “of” would be a linguistic disaster.
Second, it allows an educated person to predict a word’s meaning and origins, which is actually quite important in modern English. For example, take the words ‘educate’ and ‘deduct’. Phonetically, they’re very different, but their spelling is a clue that they’re related. In fact, in Latin, one means ‘lead out of’ and the other means ‘lead down from’. This gives you something interesting to think about. It also gives anyone extensively familiar with English a powerful tool for understanding the language: not only for figuring out rare words, but also for perceiving the deeper implications in common words.
Given all that, I’m not sure I support non-phonetic spelling. I thought I’d make a case for it, though, since everyone else seems pretty firmly against it.
In case it’s relevant, you might consider that spelling was standardized throughout the 17th century. In other words, for most of its history, English has not had standardized spelling. On the other hand, the 17th century also marked the beginning of science and modern rational thought. If we want to give up standardized spelling now, what does that imply about us? Just food for thought.
Second, it allows an educated person to predict a word’s meaning and origins, which is actually quite important in modern English
Right, by observing the etymology of a word, one can learn the meaning of a new word without looking it up in a dictionary. If we simplify the words, there will be no need to know their etymology. And etymologies make it easier to learn new words, especially those latin/greek scientific terms.
It doesn’t make the least bit more sense than non-phonetic spelling. It would be a bleeding confused mess with dictionaries ten times the size today.
Yes, yes it is.
The problem with phonetic is how it is also altered by accents and such. It would be mindnumbingly subjective, and from my perspective impossible to standardise. Without a standard, communication becomes far more complicated when similar sounding words are used.
It sounds like a dumb idea to me. I could barely even read half of that junk. I think it would just confuse everyone and make things harder to understand.
To me, the phonetic stuff just seems harder to read then what we have. And if they suddenly switch spellings, that would mean that every sign that has the current spellings would have to be replaced, all the books would have to be editted and reprinted. It would be to hard to do.
Not to mention I would personally hate having to relearn how to spell.
Remember everyone, these kids are our future.
984 and Xwing, good points.
Destroying linguistics at a moment’s notice makes no sense. Languages evolve (or at least change), don’t get pushed around. Who would be the one to single-handedly reform english? Hubris. (The play would probably end with him not being able to understand a message of importance and unknowingly killing his father).
If english became phonetically spelled wouldn’t it make more sense to do away with it and adopt bastardised español?
edit: Blasted kids, get off my lawn!
And think about how much money countries would lose reforming dictionarys. And what about exams? Would peoples G.C.S.E (and other exams)English tests still count? Or will people have to retake them? Sounds way too confusing to me.
Thees ees almost as eentellegent as that one article for “simplizing” German. Try pronouncing “Ghoti”, folks.