Roosevelt Spelling Reform

kernals12

Banned
The English language is very complicated and confusing. It's filled with non-phonetic pronunciations and words that are much longer than they need to be. The problem is that since dictionaries came along in the 18th century, the way we spell has been set in stone. There have however been attempts to fix this.

In 1906, the Simplified Spelling Board, a group founded by Andrew Carnegie to, as the name implies, simplify spelling came up with a list of alternate spellings for 300 words and sent it to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt was delighted with the idea and ordered the government printing office to start using them.

Soon however, there was backlash among the public and congress passed a resolution ordering a switch to the older spelling. This was a real shame since their changes made a lot of sense, and some were eventually adopted such as eliminating the British style "ou" in several words but other perfectly sensible ideas such as replacing "fixed" with "fixt" and "phoenix" with "phenix" never did.

Here's all the words that were proposed to be changed
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Sadly they didn't want to get rid of the "w"s in "wrapped", "wrench", "write" or "wrong".

If this had gone through (or thru), it would've made english significantly easier to teach.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
The English language is very complicated and confusing. It's filled with non-phonetic pronunciations and words that are much longer than they need to be. The problem is that since dictionaries came along in the 18th century, the way we spell has been set in stone. There have however been attempts to fix this.

In 1906, the Simplified Spelling Board, a group of men who wanted to, as their name implies, simplify spelling. They came up with a list of alternate spellings for 300 words and sent it to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt was delighted with the idea and ordered the government printing office to start using them.

Soon however, there was backlash among the public and congress passed a resolution ordering a switch to the older spelling. This was a real shame since their changes made a lot of sense, and some were eventually adopted such as eliminating the British style "ou" in several words but other perfectly sensible ideas such as replacing "fixed" with "fixt" and "phoenix" with "phenix" never did.

Here's all the words that were proposed to be changed
The-300-Words-02.jpg

The-300-Words-03.jpg

The-300-Words-04.jpg

The-300-Words-05.jpg

The-300-Words-06.jpg

The-300-Words-07.jpg

The-300-Words-08.jpg

The-300-Words-09.jpg

The-300-Words-10.jpg


Sadly they didn't want to get rid of the "w"s in "wrapped", "wrench", "write" or "wrong".

If this had gone through (or thru), it would've made it english significantly easier to teach.
It would have made English spelling easier to teach. English speaking OTOH, would continue to be among the hardest languages to teach as a second language. For the simple fact that you still have multiple words that are for all intents and purposes identical that have different meanings.
 

Md139115

Banned
Mark Twain was actually a huge fan of it and wrote a very funny short story in favor of it. I sadly cannot find it, and I don’t recall seeing it elsewhere besides his autobiography.
 
It would have made English spelling easier to teach. English speaking OTOH, would continue to be among the hardest languages to teach as a second language. For the simple fact that you still have multiple words that are for all intents and purposes identical that have different meanings.
How is English hard to teach? You have no gender, no conjugaison, no gendered adjectives and no declinaison. It's by far the easiest of all European languages to learn (don't know for the rest)
 

kernals12

Banned
How is English hard to teach? You have no gender, no conjugaison, no gendered adjectives and no declinaison. It's by far the easiest of all European languages to learn (don't know for the rest)
Lots of non phonetic spellings. What is the point of having "Ph" make an "f" sound? Also why does it need to be "have" instead of "hav" or "tough" instead of "tuff"?
 
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I don't know what Indoeuropean language is the most regular in spelling and grammar, but English isn't it. It basically has no firm pronunciation rules. German is much maligned, but it has clear rules, and non-native learners of languages do need rules to grip onto.
 

kernals12

Banned
I don't know what Indoeuropean language is the most regular in spelling and grammar, but English isn't it. It basically has no firm pronunciation rules. German is much maligned, but it has clear rules, and non-native learners of languages do need rules to grip onto.
And Germany conveniently reformed their language in 1996 to make it easier to learn.
 
I don't know what Indoeuropean language is the most regular in spelling and grammar, but English isn't it. It basically has no firm pronunciation rules. German is much maligned, but it has clear rules, and non-native learners of languages do need rules to grip onto.
German is very tough to learn and to speak without sounding illiterate. There are three genders and four declinaisons, and verb use is much harder than English.
I had to learn both from French, English is child's play, which is why it's so common (among other reasons), it's as simplified as it gets
 
German is very tough to learn and to speak without sounding illiterate. There are three genders and four declinaisons, and verb use is much harder than English.
I had to learn both from French, English is child's play, which is why it's so common (among other reasons), it's as simplified as it gets
I suppose the genders are an issue in German- they aren't entirely logically set up- I end up having to learn by heart. But German pronunciation rules are definitely helpful, and in that aspect, English lags behind.
 
Lots of non phonetic spellings. What is the point of having "Ph" make an "f" sound? Also why does it need to be "have" instead of "hav" or "tough" instead of "tuff"?

We got nothing on French. That said, I find Portuguese to be relatively regular in most regards.

Anyway, this is almost all due to the fact that English had a huge number of loan words. Most of what we still retain from Old English is pretty phoenetic. Take the various pronunciations of ‘ch’ - if pronounced like a ‘k’ (choir) its from Greek, if like the usual ‘ch’ (chart) it was likely adopted from French in the middle ages, and if like ‘sh’ (chef) it was likely adopted from French more recently.
 
I think the proposed use of "decalog" and "prolog" make me feel even more nude than seeing "honor" instead of "honour" etc.

Would this simplify things, yes, but it would render Written English too ugly to bear.
 
I see your French, and raise you Polish. I see the spellings, I hear the pronunciations...but those letters don't even make those sounds...
I lived six months in Poland and it took me that long just to get the pronounciation right. Can't speak any but I can pronounce it!
Not even talking about... Gaelic *shudder*
 
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