# How easy is it for you do read the following "simplified spelling" text? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 13, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866 "2013-11-13T23:31:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/1 "2013-11-13T23:31:23Z")
I took some text from a [CNN article](http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/07/travel/faa-airplane-electronics-update/index.html?hpt=tr_c2) and applied some spelling transformations to make it follow phonetic rules. > [@](#): > > Wont too reed that “e-book” or plei “Candy Crush” wail taxiing too the runwei? > > Ad “US Airways” to the list of U.S. erlains that hav reseevd Federal Eivieishon Administreishon aproval too alau pasenjers too yuz meni portabel electronic devaises in ol feizes of flait. > > US Airways’ moov Thersdei hapend a week after the FAA anaunsd the loosening of electronics rools abord aircraft. Under the niu rools, pasenjers mei yuz serten electronic devaises in “erplein moud” dooring taxiing, teikoff and landing. Eech erlain has too proov too the FAA that devaises ar seif to yuz in erplein moud on its ercraft. After trying to read the above quote: [ol] [li]How easy is it to understand what the text is saying?[/li][li]Even if you can understand it, how “jarring” is it for you to see written word spelled this way?[/li][li]Are you a native English speaker? (so we can see how this affects the results)[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/2 "2013-11-13T23:35:01Z")
It wasn’t too bad. I’m shur after a week or too, I wud be able to adjust just fin. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/3 "2013-11-13T23:47:39Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > I took some text from a [CNN article](http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/07/travel/faa-airplane-electronics-update/index.html?hpt=tr_c2) and applied some spelling transformations to make it follow phonetic rules. > > After trying to read the above quote: > [ol] > [li]How easy is it to understand what the text is saying?[/li][li]Even if you can understand it, how “jarring” is it for you to see written word spelled this way?[/li][li]Are you a native English speaker? (so we can see how this affects the results)[/li][/ol] Native English speaker. I find it difficult because several of the “simplified” spellings already exist as words in English with vastly different meanings. In the first paragraph alone, “wont,” “reed,” “wail,” and “too” are perfectly good words that don’t have any relationship to the words represented by the standard spellings they mean to replace (“want,” “read,” “while,” and “to”). I also find it confusing because the simplified spellings are based on a different regional accent than I’m used to. When I see “wail,” I don’t hear the sounds of the word that’s usually spelled “while.” I’m used to hearing “while” pronounced _ˈhwī(-ə)l_, that is, with a slightly aspirated “h” in front. When I see “wail,” I hear _ˈwāl_. They don’t even rhyme. Similarly, I see that the simplified scheme uses “oo” to represent more than one vowel sound. “Too” and “proov” replace “to” and “prove,” but those words use two different sounds. I can’t think of any regional accent in which the vowels in _tə_ and \*prüv \*sound the same. Overall, it looks less like a simplified spelling scheme and more like a transcript of what text-to-voice software (think MacTalker from the bad old days) generates. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/4 "2013-11-13T23:55:23Z")
Ugly! It’s so, so ugly! The words “niu rools” really jumped out at me. There’s regional variation as to whether “new” is pronounced “noo” or “niu”; should we have regional variation in spelling as well? Also, why are you using “s” for the “z” sound in “rools”, but not for “yuz”? ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/5 "2013-11-14T00:12:10Z")
How is wail a phonetic spelling of while? And erlains for airlines? Those are i sounds, not a sounds. And I don’t know how to phonetically spell air, but I don’t pronounce it anything like er. Maybe this is phonetic for the same people who pronounce oil as ull and New Orleans as n’orluns but for this native English speaker from the Pacific Northwest, I had trouble with more than just the spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/6 "2013-11-14T00:49:12Z")
A pronounced as in ‘want’ and i pronounced as in ‘thing’. A I. Said as a diphthong. As in the Japanese word ‘ai’. Don’t look for the idiotic English ‘phonetic spellings’, read them like they’re written in a language with rational spelling - Spanish, or Japanese rendered as romaji, for instance. But the fact that several pseudo-phonetic spellings leak in and a few words, even aside from the proper nouns (which they’re inconsistent about) get their standard English spellings, despite that not making sense with their pronunciation (electronic, instead of ilektronik (or elektronik), or, conversely, ‘e-book’ instead of ‘ebooc’ frex), as well as no separate character for schwas makes it harder - as well as the fact it’s clearly written to a very different dialect than mine (niu, or see the elektronik/ilektronik thing above). Also, the problem in standard English spellings of characters or characters representing multiple sounds is still there - more characters, and/or accents are needed. (C, X, and Q could be repurposed, once they’re replaced by k/s, ks, and kw, but borrowing characters from IPA and/or the Scandinavian alphabets, or adding accents, diaereses, or macrons are still needed to deal with our serious lack of vowel characters, though diphthongs can handle some of the sounds.) Rationalized spelling can work. This is a terribly inconsistent attempt at doing so. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/7 "2013-11-14T00:51:48Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > How is wail a phonetic spelling of while? And erlains for airlines? … I wasn’t even sure what “erlains” were. I thought it might be a misspelling of “airplanes” or “air lanes”. ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/8 "2013-11-14T01:22:26Z")
Like reading a paragraph written by a first grader. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/9 "2013-11-14T01:22:50Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > Similarly, I see that the simplified scheme uses “oo” to represent more than one vowel sound. “Too” and “proov” replace “to” and “prove,” but those words use two different sounds. I can’t think of any regional accent in which the vowels in _tə_ and \*prüv \*sound the same. I’ve been trying it out, and I think I pronounce them they same. Do you have a link to the pronunciation you are talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/10 "2013-11-14T01:47:19Z")
Yes, to and prove have the same vowel sound, unless you’re speaking quickly and squash the one in to into a schwa. ---
**Author:** ![brainstall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@brainstall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainstall)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/11 "2013-11-14T01:55:20Z")
Instead of just reading the words, I have to sound each one out in my head to make sense of what its supposed to be. Then I have to string it together with the other words to figure out the whole sentence. The phonetics also seem off to me - ei does not equal a long a in my mind. That’s a lot of effort on my part. Native English speaker. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/12 "2013-11-14T02:00:38Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > A pronounced as in ‘want’ and i pronounced as in ‘thing’. A I. Said as a diphthong. As in the Japanese word ‘ai’. > > Don’t look for the idiotic English ‘phonetic spellings’, read them like they’re written in a language with rational spelling - Spanish, or Japanese rendered as romaji, for instance. Oh, I think I see… So while while is changed to wail, wail would be changed to weil. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/13 "2013-11-14T02:04:30Z")
Right. Which, as cwthree mentioned, is another complicating factor…to many words become homographs to standard English spellings which may or may not be spelt the same in the rationalized spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/14 "2013-11-14T02:18:10Z")
It took me much longer than it does with standard spelling of english. I also hated every second of it. Even my inner voice was jilted because I had to “sound” out each word in my head to realize what the words were, as opposed to simply reading them and understanding innately. In fact, sounding it out in my head put all the emphasis on the wrong syllables, and that’s why it sounded so jilted. Also, as others said: accents screw this up a lot. Native. If someone wrote a book like this I would want to burn it. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/15 "2013-11-14T02:46:54Z")
Native speaker. Didn’t find it terribly difficult, though I did find myself reading it with sort of… an accent, if that makes sense. If I had to put a name on the accent, I’d call it Dutch. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/16 "2013-11-14T03:45:11Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Native speaker. Didn’t find it terribly difficult, though I did find myself reading it with sort of… an accent, if that makes sense. If I had to put a name on the accent, I’d call it Dutch. Somewhere between Dutch and the Swedish Chef. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/17 "2013-11-14T03:58:07Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > If someone wrote a book like this I would want to burn it. Ha ha ha. Seriously though, it was pretty bad, and I agree with the rest of your post too. My answers to the OP’s questions. 1. I could understand it, but I had to slow down to sound it out in my mind first. My brain didn’t just register it quickly and automatically the way it would a typo or something. 2. It was incredibly jarring. 3. I am a native English speaker. Strangely, I found myself reading it with a weird accent too. Or perhaps not so strange, as I’m not alone. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/18 "2013-11-14T05:30:05Z")
Phonetic be fucked. Erlain? To my Australian ear that reads as er (like fur) and lain (like sane). Moud? Just like “allowed”, no relationship to mode. Devaises? The De-bit is ok, but vaises sounds like races. Shall I keep going? ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/19 "2013-11-14T05:33:17Z")
I gave up on that gibberish after the first line. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866/20 "2013-11-14T09:14:15Z")
I could get the gist of it but the “phonetic” spellings are not phonetic to my accent. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-easy-is-it-for-you-do-read-the-following-simplified-spelling-text/673866.md?page=2)