"Enuf is enuf. Enough is too much." Protestors at the Washington DC Spelling Bee

[CalMeacham]

In DC, even the Spelling Bee draws protesters

WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital always draws its share of protesters, picketing for causes ranging from health care reform to immigration policy.

But spelling bee protesters? They’re out here, too.

Four peaceful protesters, some dressed in full-length black and yellow bee costumes, represented the American Literacy Council and the London-based Spelling Society and stood outside the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. Their message was short: Simplify the way we spell words.

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

“Our alphabet has 425-plus ways of putting words together in illogical ways,” Mahoney said.

The protesting cohort distributed pins to willing passers-by with their logo, “Enuf is enuf. Enough is too much.”

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for “fruit” to be spelled as “froot,” “slow” should be “slo,” and “heifer” — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be “hefer.”

Meanwhile, inside the hotel’s Independence Ballroom, 273 spellers celebrated the complexity of the language in all its glory, correctly spelling words like zaibatsu, vibrissae and biauriculate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/ap_on_re_us/us_spelling_bee_protest

[tdn]

wut u bunsh uv more ons.

[Ludovic]

You mean “morans”.

[tdn]

@Ludovic

You mean “morans”.

i gess i du.

[Rebo]

I swear - this country really will turn into Idiocracy before we know it.

[Marley23]

Eh. Noah Webster had some similar ideas, and the spelling bee is a sensible place to protest this even if it’s a really stupid thing to get worked up about. When I saw the thread title I was worried the Westboro Baptist Church was going to show up at the Bee.

[Sunspace]

Heifer should be simplified to ‘heffer’, not ‘hefer’. Unless we’re going to completely rationalize things, one sound for one letter? If so, we’d better start adding letters…

[Wheelz]

These people need to get a lyfe.

[running_coach]

@Wheelz

These people need to get a lyfe.

Lyf or lif, what’s with the extra “e”? :p:D

[Peremensoe]

@Sunspace

Unless we’re going to completely rationalize things, one sound for one letter? If so, we’d better start adding letters…

Yes, sixteen new letters will make spelling easier, won’t it?

Unless you decide to write to, or read anything from, a person or place with a different speaking accent.

And of course the homophone problem will be greatly aided by having those words also indistinguishable in written form! :smack:

[silenus]

With the repeal of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell,” I thought we did away with our homophone problem.

[Derleth]

@spark240

Yes, sixteen new letters will make spelling easier, won’t it?

That isn’t the only way of doing it. We could do like Spanish and have a normal (for Europe) alphabet but regularize the values assigned to letters and sequences of letters.

Unless you decide to write to, or read anything from, a person or place with a different speaking accent.

Ask a Spanish-speaker if this is a problem in real life. To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t.

And of course the homophone problem will be greatly aided by having those words also indistinguishable in written form! :smack:

This is a possibly valid concern, but it’s balanced by the elimination of homonyms and, on a philosophical level, it’s better to have the written language be a more accurate transcription of the spoken language, which takes precedence.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

The more things change…: Simplified Spelling Board - Wikipedia

[Folly]

double plus un-good!

[Peremensoe]

@Derleth

That isn’t the only way of doing it. We could do like Spanish and have a normal (for Europe) alphabet but regularize the values assigned to letters and sequences of letters.

Ask a Spanish-speaker if this is a problem in real life. To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t.

I don’t know that Spanish accents vary as much as English does, worldwide.

If it does, then I don’t see any way Spanish could possibly be written truly phonetically without there being different spellings for different people.

[elmwood]

@CalMeacham

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for “fruit” to be spelled as “froot,” “slow” should be “slo,” and “heifer” — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be “hefer.”

Isn’t that just Dutch or Afrikaans?

How do we choose what accent the simplified spelling shoud originate from? Will the SDMB’s host publication be the Shuhkager Reeduh if the Brits have their way?

[CalMeacham]

You could always just adopt the Shaw Alphabet and not have to deal with this. I’ve got a copy of the Penguin edition of Androcles and the Lion printed in this form. It really does take up less space, and you can get used to it after a while. But I’d hate to see it actually implemented. we’d lose too much.

shawalphabet.com

Shavian alphabet

Shaw Alphabet Androcles

[Pleonast]

Why are they protesting? There’s no official orthography in this country. People can spell words however they like.

[Ogre]

Unorthodox spellings are a wonderful reminder of our cultural heritage, and it would be a damn shame to see them lost. Just learn to spell, you morans!

[Sunspace]

@elmwood

Isn’t that just Dutch or Afrikaans?

How do we choose what accent the simplified spelling shoud originate from? Will the SDMB’s host publication be the Shuhkager Reeduh if the Brits have their way?

I wonder whether there’s a way to do something midway between the spelling we have now and a true-phonetic spelling which would represent all accents accurately, and thus change depending on which accent you were using.

Maybe there’s a way to create some sort of ‘nominal’ spelling which would be more regular than the traditional, but still let us pronounce things according to our own accents. Thus, ‘cat’ would have a different vowel spelling than ‘kate’, and ‘kate’ would not need the silent e, but we wouldn’t spell out the difference between the æ sound in North American pronunciations of ‘cat’, and the ah-sound in UK pronunciations of ‘cat’.

I found the Shaw alphabet on the net one time and tried to learn it; I found that a lot of the vowel sounds were confusing until I realized that he was probably speaking with some sort of English accent.