English Language Reforms

I'm sort of a conservative as well when it comes to language reforms. On the other hand, for whatever historical reason, you write "colour" and I write "color" and it doesn't really matter in the end if they're both regarded as acceptable. There needs to be some sort of rule system. Otherwise how can you ever run a spelling bee?

I'm sort of a conservative as well when it comes to language reforms. On the other hand, for whatever historical reason, you write "colour" and I write "color" and it doesn't really matter in the end if they're both regarded as acceptable. There needs to be some sort of rule system. Otherwise how can you ever run a spelling bee?

But obviously "color" is the better way to spell it. It is shorter, which allows for faster communication and it is closer to the sound of the word than "colour" is.

Cut Spelling, the spelling (and nothing else) reform proposal that I know the best, is really just removing letters that are redundant for pronunciation such as the "u" in "colour" (CS "colr"), the "u" and "h" in "psychology" (CS "sycoloji") etc.

And now that reason has examined the question, what is chosen lies with the passions. That's what Hume said.

I know. I read Hume already. (So I did read something old!)

But obviously "color" is the better way to spell it. It is shorter, which allows for faster communication and it is closer to the sound of the word than "colour" is.

It doesn't matter -- do you speak French? Do you have any idea how many written characters go unpronounced? Travaillent is pronounced "travai". They seem to be doing ok.

It doesn't matter -- do you speak French? Do you have any idea how many written characters go unpronounced? Travaillent is pronounced "travai". They seem to be doing ok.

I agree it's cumbersome. I don't agree it's worth changing.

For a native speaker it's not cumbersome at all -- it is what it is.

For someone learning the language, it's a different matter. If you know another Romance language, then the current French spelling is extremely easy because the conjugation is basically the same as in Spanish, Italian, etc, and it might be harder to learn if you just "simplified" the words. If you don't know another Romance language, it sure seems cumbersome.

But whom are we trying to help by simplifying words? "Lite" has become somewhat standard; does that mean we'll all have a "rite" hand?

Sometimes just letting things take their own course is better than trying to force them.

Ok Emil, so instead of codifying changes that happen naturally and rise up from common speech, would you rather convene a linguistic oligarchy to hand us all new rules?

How's that metric system coming on here in the States, by the way? That's a FAR simpler system than the English system we use, it's logical, it's intuitive, it's predictable -- and yet it just has never caught on. This would be infinitely harder if people just slashed and diced English into "thru" instead of "through".