Already a number of good suggestions. I’d like to add one for an inclusive and exclusive form of “we” - as in “you and I and maybe some other people” vs. “me and some other people but excluding you”.
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gender-specific words for ‘friend.’ I’m tired of saying female-friend or male-friend all the time (yes, I’m male).
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Change the word for "w’. Double-U? That’s three syllabels. 2 more than any other letter. It’s got to go. I really hate using ‘dub’ cause that just sounds idiotic. Plus, most letters end with a vowel sound. I was thinking it should be pronounced ‘wee’ but that sounds to similar to the letter ‘v’, so it would get confused a lot. I think we’ll have to settle for the sound ‘woo’. Of course, this just entirely screws up the alphabet song.
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I second the elimantion of the letter ‘c’. But any reasonable othographic reform would take care of that immediately.
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Ban the usage of condensed words like 'thru" or ‘u’. If you’re going to the trouble of making the word more phonetic - DO IT RIGHTLY! None of this mangled half way crap. I suppose words like ‘nite’ and ‘lite’ are ok.
Johnny, Mark Twain wrote two essays that may be what your are thinking of, and netziens being the pun-loving group they are, these essays are all over the internet:
At first I thought this was an accidental post . . . then I realized you were probably trying to tell me that “it” is a gender neutral pronoun. If that’s the case, you’re incorrect. “It” is a neuter pronoun. You can only use it for things that have no gender, not for someone who has a gender that is unknown or unspecified. I can’t say, for instance: “I looked across the street and saw a person dressed in a trenchcoat. It paused for a moment, and then hastily walked away.” There’s no good way to say the sentence. If I say “he paused”, you’ll think I could tell the person in the trenchcoat was a man. And saying “he or she paused” just sounds really awkward when you’re talking about a specific person, as opposed to some hypothetical person in the future. (In sentences like “When a customer comes in, greet him or her pleasantly” I find it less objectionable.)
The first link is close, but the one I’m thinking of sounds like a rabid Nazi speech at the end.
O~ :I+K UR O~D~%Z OR T%RIFIK
I’d also like to second the calls for multiple forms of “we”, to differentiate “me and these guys” from “me and you”. And for the inclusion of a you-plural, and the elimination of the letter c.
Also, I think that using “snew” for the past tense of snow is a very malkavia idea.
Abandon the differences between objective and subjective cases so that all of the ubiquitous “Him and me went to the movies last night” and “He gave the present to she and I” will no longer be the sign of uneducated illiterati.
Get rid of the plodding phrases, “Might be able to” and “Might have been able to”, in favor of “Might could”, already so prevalent in some areas.
So, you want to return to Old English, when we used to declenate nouns, adverbs ans adjectives.
I’ve always used “might maybe.” I like the alliteration.
Until the gender neutral word comes along, I’ve mae a study of rewriting sentences so it is not needed; i.e.
I can’t tell you who the witness is, but let me give you this hint: someone very famous.
I looked across the street and saw a person dressed in a trenchcoat, who paused for a memnt, and then hastily walked away.
It’s a rare sentence that can’t be rewritten without the false generic “he.”
I’d like to see each letter have a unique sound and for words to then be spelled like they sound. The existing vowels should have “pure” pronounciations, as in Latin and Spanish.
a = “ah” as in hot; we’d need a new letter for the a as in “at” sound
e = “eh” as in bed
i = “ee” as in Lisa
o = “oh” as in boat
u = “oo” as in hoot
“I” as in "high’ is a dipthong – ai
“A” as in “cape” is a dipthong – ei
“ow” as in "how – ao
“Y” = “i”+other vowel. “year” would be spelled ieir. “you” would be spelled iu. “yaw” would be ia. etc.
Only “K” would have the c as in cat sound. Only “S” would have the c as in cellophane sound. “C” would be used for the “ch” sound.
The letter Q is gone forever.
One of my pedantic peeves. Can you explain the apparent non-sequitur between the first two sentences? And what would you think about just eliminating the apostrorphe/hyphen? Dont you think its worth considering?
A-hem! {Sound of me clearing my throat loudly}
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- I would re-name the digits (0-9) so that when they were placed in numeric order, they would also be in alphabetic order. Then I would re-name the days of the week and the months of the year, so that they as well would be in the proper numeric order when they were in alphabetic order as well. I like the literal sound idea, where each letter only has one sound it is ever used for. And I also like a tense-numeric idea, where the tense of a verb is related to if it is alphabetically/numerically first, second or third in the series of past-present-future tense (and every verb would have a single-word form for its past, present and future form). There other things that could be renamed “in order” as well but I’m not certaint that there would be any great advantage right off.
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And I also might switch to that “pronunciated punctuation” from the old Danny Kaye routine.
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I’d like to request that the “?!” sometimes used for “excited questions” be merged into a single symbol. It’d come in handy.
I’d simplify, along Chinese lines.
Remove declension based on case. “I gave it to him” becomes “I gave it to he”.
Remove the definite article.
Remove redundant prepositions.
Reduce the number of tenses. Remove all tense endings and irregularities. Add simple qualifiers to denote which tense:
I went => I go past
I shall go => I go future
I would go => I go future if
I would have gone => I go past if
The passive tense should be removed. (DYSWIDT?)
Introduce the gender-neutral pronoun as mooted. Let’s call it “it”. Qualify if needed by being specific about the subject/object.
Simplify all negative with the use of the word “not”.
Thus
“John went to the cinema. He would have give his other ticket to Jane, but she didn’t want it.”
becomes
“John go past cinema. John give past if other ticket Jane, but it want not ticket.”
I just want a better word for “that person of the opposite gender who I sleep with to whom I’m not married yet we’ve been together for 8 years and we have a mortgage and a dog and a kid and we’re not gonna split up anytime soon.”
“boyfriend” and “girlfriend” suggest a casual relationship; indeed, you can have girlfriends even if you are a girl and aren’t gay.
“significant other” is too clumsy and dated.
“partner” has been hijacked by the gay community. I’m guessing they’d like something better as well, since it’s difficult to understand if you’re talking about a business partner or a spouse equivalent.
This would require a fundamental leap in how we construct sentences, because they would be so different. In fact, a lot of your other changes would just be disastrous trying to convert to. I suppose, feasability is not a criteria given by the OP, but it certainly would help.