I think that those self-proclaimed "reformers" have too much time on there hands. Perhaps if they became tutors for the dyslexic instead of picketing, they could correct the problem.

I had no idea that an illiterate could get fired over the frustration of mispronouncing "antique" and that would cause them to commit crimes and be incarcerated! What a faux pas!

This reminds me of a remark James Lileks just made in one of his Bleats the other day on people agitating to remove a tiny image of a cross from the California state seal: How small are these people's lives that they get worked up over something like this?

My husband's spelling is atrocious but he quotes someone in antiquity who said "If burd doesn't spell bird, then what DOES it spell?"
The tv showed a young male fainting at this Bee and only one person, a girl, seemed upset and rushed over to him; all the others just sat there. What gives?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers of a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

Tihs cmae tghruoh a frworad jsut ysrteready!
Cpoyact!!

Rross suggests protesters at the Bee could better use their time tutoring. At least one of them does. No matter how much tutoring, teaching, remedial work that is undertaken in any English-speaking society, the literacy rate seldom rises above 80%. Languajes that have transparent spellings – Italian, Swedish, Finnish – often go over 90%. English-speakers, according to one study, take up to two years longer to attain a satisfactory reading standard than do learners in 13 other European languajes. Its time orthografic fundamentalists woke up to the harm our spelling causes.

Well Lorna, ya got me! But, I didn't claim credit for it, I only shared it. (and how do you know that I didn't start that forward!?) :) The research was done long before yesterday, the article I read was published 6 months ago. If you are on the slow end of receiving this info, because it came to you from a forward and you don't read the same publications as I, that isn't a big deal. Besides, is it less true because I didn't do the research? (I really got a kick out of how you wrote your comment! That was great!)

Hey Allen, thanks for your rebuttal, very well written. Do you blame spelling for ignorance? Is it comprehension of every illiterate person that causes illiteracy, or merely spelling in your view? While your point is valid on illiteracy rates, and it may prove easier on future generations to change to more phonetic spellings. I don't believe that it will happen, which is why I suggest those activists spend their time better elswhere. It's their choice, their life, my opinion. I'm not suggesting that their actions and ideas are good or bad, merely futile. (or shoud I say fyootul?) The point of the Cambridge study is that spelling doesn't matter once the language is learned.

How many of those very literate countries have a space program? Even though they can document there existence to hundreds or thousands of years before our beginnings, we advance. (although morally I believe we are regressing) If our spelling causes harm, (which I wish you would define to help me understand the "harm" it causes) then shouldn't their spellings promote genius?

I think it will end up right where the metric system changes that were proposed here have gone, as a hobby for those who think it's "neat." When you find the metric system in use, the english measurement is printed nearby. As a nation we did not accept the metric system as our standard. I don't believe these changes in spelling will be accepted either. I may be way off base here... and I really would like to understand your premise and reasoning... I vow to investigate.

Maybe we want to retain our difference as a legacy, and that's why we resist change. Perhaps our spelling comes from the American attitude that we are somehow "superior" to other cultures. Or, maybe it's because the "American English" language is a hodge-podge of words from different languages, and we kept them as near to the original as possible to make them easier to define, instead of pronounce. I don't know the answer, but I'm betting that a sweeping change in spelling for America would be more difficult to bring about, than it would be to take bag of cheese doodles away from Oprah! (but far less painful)

What's the illiteracy rate in China?

BTW Lorna, on of the inherent problems with blogging is that we cannot hear the tone of voice nor see the facial expressions of the blogger. I hope that you were smiling when you wrote that, I was when I wrote back.

For both Lorna and Allan, please do not read malice in my comments, there was none.

Blog on!

this is for rross: :-) BIG ONE !

Many reformers are teachers or former teachers so they are acutely aware of the spelling problems in English.

We do teach dyslexics but we also realize that what we call dyslexics here would do quite fine in Spanish and Italian because they don't sink in the quagmire when the orthography is shallow.

Check out www.spellingsociety.org
The group has been around since 1909 and boasts such luminaries as the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, H.G. Wells, Charles Darwin, John Downing, Daniel Jones, the reputed model for Prof. Higgins in My Fair Lady, Sir James Pitman, and the list goes on.

Only those who have been involved in multicultural teaching are clearly aware of the problems created by our orthography. Dr. Frank C. Laubach, who taught literacy in 300 languages said that 95% of them are phonemic making it possible to teach a person to read a newspaper in 3 months [2 hrs. per day]. "English is the World's worst spelling system" What could take 3 months takes 3 years or more.

Someone quoted a Cambridge study. There is no such study but there was a similar study to the one that made the rounds on the Net done at the University of Nottingham. The study concluded that English readers are quite adept at reading scrambled text as long as the first and last letters remain the same. Some critics showed that this was not always the case, but most words can be unscrambled.

This is all the more reason to adopt a reformed spelling of English. If we can read scrambled text, we can certainly read regularized English.

The first step in regularization is to remove the superfluous letters. Webster tried to do this but only got so far: colour to color. Had he been more radical he would have suggested the respelling: culler. This is still closer to the way we actually pronounce the word.

The reason for not moving all the way to 100%phonemic written English is that this would require respelling 50% of the words in the dictionary. Spoken English is already 100% phonemic.

--Steve

He's got a point...

air: stuff we breathe

are: 1/100th of a hectare

e'er: contraction of "ever"

ere: eventually

err: to make a mistake

heir: one who will inherit

Matt Rosenburg wuhd be graetful if the prossess of lerning tu read and spel had led tu being abel tu absorb, comprehend and reproduse whot he reads. But it seems that we spend so much time just remembering whot awl the wurds ar ment tu be in speech when we read them that thayr meaning is offen lost tu us and the context in which thay ocur is clowdy. This results in errors of understanding. For exampel, the awthor of the artical confuzed and merjd the names of too sosietys, the American Literacy Council and the Simplified Spelling Society, intu the American Literacy Society. Even the speling of the three wurds on a sien got misrepresented so that "Spell different diferent" became "Spell different diferen". English speling is so unpredictabel that we can not be sure that whot we read is whot is ment. Clearly in "difrent" somthing is missing, but it is not easy for litterate jurnalists tu reproduse whot it is. Som of the rest of us wuhd rahther not tu hav tu worry abowt it.

Pete, shouldn't his name be spelled
Mat Rozenberg?

I'm not sure who Richard thinks has the point... but his post makes me wonder... What do we due with the homonyms? Dew you Pete, or ewe Allan, have that answer?

Steve Bett... I quoted an article in the local University's paper, because I was amazed that I read it with no problem. (about Cambridge) Looks like I should have checked sources. Obviously I will be more suspicious of that paper now on. Where the info came from isn't as important as the premise is to me. I believe that if sweeping change in our spelling comes about, I will be able to deal with it. I also believe it won't happen. (else Jive or Ebonics would have had a shot)

I think that my time is spent better feeding the hungry, than protesting reform that,
(when I read the comments at http://www.spellingsociety.org/index.html)
even the "reformers" can't agree on.

I can't find a quote of more than a 10% illiterate rate in the U.S. Allan... not even at UNESCO. (most were 6% or less)

No one denies that English has some bizarre spellings. But let's be realistic. The United States, much less Britain or any other English-speaking country, will never adopt such a fundamental and complete overhaul of the language. Heck, in the U.S. we haven't even been able to adopt the metric system, which would be a piece of cake in terms of implementation when compared with the task of implementing a standardized spelling for the English language.

Instead of chasing some unattainable dream of a perfect, rational spelling system, teachers and reformers should focus their energies on finding new strategies to help disadvantaged groups learn, or at least cope with, traditional spelling.

Hello Scott. Did you mean to repeat parts of the earlier post by rross, or did you just not read it? I agree with both of you. (especially because you two say the same thing)

I certainly can empathize with those who take a contrary view regarding the necessity of studying spelling. I mean, after all, look at that paragraph posted by rross, and it seems to show that learning to spell is unnecessary. I, for one, certainly would have rather spent all those hours of homework during my childhood doing something else. But let me raise a few points for your consideration:
First, the garbled spelling posted by rross is decipherable only because we know the correct spelling from which it deviates.
Second, homonyms weren’t all that problematic until pronunciation became sloppy in the public at large. The logic behind the different spellings between “hue” and “hew” (or, for that matter, “flu,” “flue,” and “flew”) is simply this: They were pronounced distinctly, once upon a time anyway.
Third, if we make sweeping changes to spelling, then the wealth of literature from past generations---which is to say, the recorded lessons that were painfully learned by them, sometimes in blood---would be lost to us.
Fourth, it is never a good idea to go from greater ability to less ability. That cannot be described as progress---except towards slavery and tyranny. Remember the novel 1984? The totalitarians were proud of the fact that Newspeak was the only language whose vocabulary was shrinking year by year. If one cannot articulate thoughts, then one cannot have thoughts---good news to tyrants and tyrants only.
We humans still must articulate thought via language if we are to communicate, and good spelling is at the foundation of good communication, as well as at the foundation of thinking straight.

I like your comments, John! I've a British friend who speaks as though from the Upstairs part of the home in Upstairs, Downstairs, and articulates her words much more than the average person, even the average Englishwoman. For another contrast in this, compare Tony Blair's speeches with um, Dubya's. :-)

Thank you for joining in John. I especially appreciate your point that, "it is never a good idea to go from greater ability to less ability."

A Poem that I am sure you may have seen before.

Eye Halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue,
Miss Steaks I kin knot sea.

Eye Strike a key and type a word,
and weight four it two say,
Weather eye am wrong oar write.
It shows me straight a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid,
it nose bee four two long,
and eye can put the air rite,
It's rare lee ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it.
I am shore your pleased two no.
Its letter perfect awl the weigh--
My chequer tolled me sew.

-Unknown

To Lorna about the speller fainting and only one speller rushing to his aid...
My son was in the National Spelling Bee twice, so I have observed firsthand the nerves, fear, trepidation, or perhaps just blindered focus that these youngsters experience during the bee. It is a battle to concentrate, and the simplest word can sound like Klingon rather than English when the pronouncer uses the "standard" pronunciation and your knees are knocking, and your tongue has dried up, and "everybody" is looking at you and just waiting for you to stumble, and (well, you get the picture I'm sure). The on-lookers may have been too stunned to act, paralyzed by their own stage-fright, meditating til their next turn, or afraid one false move would disqualify them. I applaud them all for even making it to Washington, they are truly spelling champions all.

Thanks, Sandy, for the information only someone who's 'been there' would know. Were there no adults sitting amongst all those kids, or how about the people directing this? The girl who rushed over appeared to be a contestant, too, so perhaps her altruism took precedent (at the moment, at least) over how she fared as a speller. Can't help but wonder if such nonchalance would prevail in an unstressful situation, too.

SPELLING EFFICIENCY
Relative spelling efficiency has been demonstrated by comparing the essays of English speaking 2nd year foreign language students. It turns out that they can spell in the foreign language better than they can spell in their native languages.

There is reseach on scrambled spelling but it was not done at Cambridge. [try U. Nottingham]

Achieving literacy in written English probably develops skills in deciphering scrambled spelling. This hypothesis has yet to be tested.

What this also means is that those adept in the traditional writing system can also read phonemic English spelling without much difficulty.

However, this does not mean that people like to read scrambled spelling or any spelling that deviates from the whole word pattern in one's visual memory.

Dhë speling sosieëti used tu publish in Nue Speling but eeven *the 300 memberz uv *the sosieëti found reeding mor than tu parragrafs in consistent sound speling woz slo and tiering.

The advantage of learning a dictionary key spelling is that it can be learned in 3 months instead of 3 years. One is learning about 41 sound-symbol correspondences instead of over 200.

Once code literacy has been achieved, it is much easier to achieve literacy in a multicode such as the English writing system:

Polyvalence chart

Various Spellings Sound Like alt. int'l spl.
play (ay) ay pley
maelstrom (ae) ay meylstrom
made (a-e) ay meyd
steak (ea) ay steyk
rainy (ai) ay reyni
sleigh (eigh) ay sley
straight (aigh) ay streyt
gauge (au-e) ay geyj
making (a) ay meykiq q=ng
veiled (ei) ay veyld
they (ey) ay dhey
raise (ai-e) ay reyz
plagueing (a-ue) ay pleygiq
ballet (et) ay baley
matinee (ee) ay matiney
dossier (er) ay dosiyey

Rross asks: 'Do you blame spelling for ignorance? Is it comprehension of every illiterate person that causes illiteracy, or merely spelling in your view?'
Difficulties in coping with decoding and coding spelling cause problems for many literacy learners. But they are not the only factors that can come in to play.
Social conditions, home life, availability of schooling (including pre-schooling), teaching standards, teaching resources, transience, visual memory, innate ability, health (both fysical and psychological) and probably others also have a bearing on the learner. Different people are affected by them differently.
Some of these factors we already are trying to improve. We need to try to improve the spelling one as well, if we want English-speaking nations to reach the top rung of literacy attainment.

A serious issue concerning our disorganized spelling needs to be brought to the attention of anybody who is against reform.

English became the defacto international language by the dominance of the countries that use it.

Now that dominance is fading. I beleive our language is doomed to extinction unless its flaws are fixed.

It is like a race car with square wheels that has been winning anyway by virtue of an overwhelmingly powerful engine. Now the engine is faltering & other contestants are gaining speed.

I like English. I think its worth putting some of them thar radical newfangled round wheels on the old buggy. We could win the race in less than a century AND stop ruining the road!

Win what race Jo? If the English language is doomed, what will be the new international language?

As I've said, I'm not against reform. (not a proponent of it either) Whatever happens, I will adapt. I just think you are wasting your time. Just like time was wasted trying to convert us as a noation to the metric system, on prohibition, the list is long folks.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/literacy.htm

Who are this nation's illiterates, and what makes them that way?

Allen: fysical ??

Having worked in laboratories for the last 20 years, and used the metric system every single day on the job, I'm amused by those of you who refer to it as a hobby. (Don't you ever look at the dosage information on your pill bottles?) Going from grams to milligrams to micrograms to kilograms is a piece of cake. You don't have to have a calculator, you just move the decimal. I'd hate to have to convert ounces to pounds and so forth all the time.

I think that written and spoken English are two different languages. The posts that are written in strictly phonetic English take me longer to read because I have to sound them out. Conventionally-spelled words go straight in.

My mom had a stroke last year (and recovered nicely). It affected her language, and at first she didn't even know her name. A week after the stroke I was reading to her from an Edith Wharton story, and she was typing as I read, to try to prepare for doing medical transcription again. She spelled words like "indistinguishable" and "incomprehensible" without batting an eyelash, but the word "inside" utterly threw her. I had to spell it for her, and then she stared at it for a while, and pronounced it several times, but it made no sense. I told her she had bad sectors on her hard drive.

The metric system is merely a hobby for mainstream America, Laura. There are times when I have need for it (metric system) at work as well. Only occupations with internationally shared resources or other similar concerns consistently use it. The average American has no use, or need for it... and probably never will. Besides, it's simply a comparison for those who think they will somehow change the spelling of the language.

Sorry about your Mom, glad to hear she recovered well.