### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/21 "2012-04-18T15:19:06Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Regional variations haven’t stopped many countries from implementing spelling reforms. That’s because most countries do have a standard pronunciation (whether it’s a formal standard or merely the “average” of how everyone speaks) that everyone understands.
> In phonetic languages, people are used to thinking of “newsreader” pronunciation in terms of how words are spelled.
>
> Again, I don’t think reform is feasible for english, but that particular objection isn’t the reason why IMO.
Actually, it is. There is no single standard pronunciation in English. Even if you argue that there is a standard American pronunciation (which is fairly loose standard), it’s not the only standard. Even in England, Received Pronunciation is no longer the mandatory newsreader pronunciation.
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### Author:  [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/22 "2012-04-18T15:23:55Z")
I find reformed spelling like the OP harder to read. I don’t read by pronouncing the letters, I read by visually recognizing the words. As text-based language displaces spoken language as the primary form of communication for many people, pronunciation is increasingly irrelevant.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/23 "2012-04-18T16:51:57Z")
Use whatever regional accent you want to use, but at least make it coherent, I can read and write in English with some success, but I’m still reeling from the fact that you pronounce “read” differently depending on the verb tense, even when its written the same way…
and that at least has some rule that you can learn to help you, but it seems to me that there is no way to know how a word is pronounced without first hearing someone say it, and that’s just WRONG.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/24 "2012-04-18T17:28:26Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> It would be nice if English spelling followed consistent phonetic rules. But I don’t think reform is feasible. English is too widespread; you’d never get any agreement on anything…
Who needs agreement? That’s why America has the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.
America – Fuck Yeah!
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/25 "2012-04-18T18:01:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Actually, it is. There is no single standard pronunciation in English. Even if you argue that there is a standard American pronunciation (which is fairly loose standard), it’s not the only standard. Even in England, Received Pronunciation is no longer the mandatory newsreader pronunciation.
The point was about people seeing a word spelled phonetically and not understanding or not agreeing with the spelling. But basically everyone is aware of a standard way of pronouncing most words.
If you were to ask someone from Glasgow, Liverpool, Somerset, how would a newsreader on the national news pronounce \, they will agree on the same pronunciation (minor emphasis and accent differences aside) because, for one thing, they will have all seen the national news.
As for standardizing English internationally, it’s not going to happen for practical / political reasons (just like nationally). But I don’t think differences in US and UK pronunciation are that great that you couldn’t in principle standardize spellings for most words. In most cases, there’s just differences in emphasis, and many phonetic languages give limited information on emphasis in their written form anyway.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/26 "2012-04-18T20:19:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I find reformed spelling like the OP harder to read. I don’t read by pronouncing the letters, I read by visually recognizing the words. As text-based language displaces spoken language as the primary form of communication for many people, pronunciation is increasingly irrelevant.
We’re even seeing the rise of words, like “pwn”, that have a clear, agreed-upon spelling, but no unambiguous pronunciation.
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### Author:  [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/27 "2012-04-18T21:14:36Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#):
>
> I find reformed spelling like the OP harder to read. I don’t read by pronouncing the letters, I read by visually recognizing the words. As text-based language displaces spoken language as the primary form of communication for many people, pronunciation is increasingly irrelevant.
Just to make clear, the “reformed spelling” of the OP was a joke and pretty much nothing like what real spelling reform would look like. In every case of implemented spelling reform that I’m aware of, 95% of words are untouched.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/28 "2012-04-19T09:29:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> We’re even seeing the rise of words, like “pwn”, that have a clear, agreed-upon spelling, but no unambiguous pronunciation.
It’s less ambiguous than most people give it credit: it is nearly universally pronounced as if it were spelled “pone” in actual usage. Trying to pronounce it the same as “own” makes it impossible to distinguish from the word spelled “own.”
Anyways, my problem with spelling reform is that there’s no clear target that needs reform. There’s no one change that would make things significantly more phonetic. Or, at least, I’ve never seen one offered.
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### Author:  [@drbhoneydew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drbhoneydew)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/29 "2012-04-19T11:04:16Z")
> [@Frodo](#):
>
> Use whatever regional accent you want to use, but at least make it coherent, I can read and write in English with some success, but I’m still reeling from the fact that you pronounce “read” differently depending on the verb tense, even when its written the same way…
> and that at least has some rule that you can learn to help you, but it seems to me that there is no way to know how a word is pronounced without first hearing someone say it, and that’s just WRONG.
You can usually have a pretty fair guess though, -ough words excepted. The thing is, it’s a false assumption that the written and spoken forms of a language having such a direct mapping is desirable and necessary. Gaelic and Welsh have pretty direct linkage but look a mess when written down despite sounding lovely.
Once you get past the madness of some short/common words (and the pronunciation of the name of the language not matching its spelling), the spelling/pronunciation mapping is actually pretty regularised if quirky. Even on the short rule breakers and irregular verbs, you probably wouldn’t like the changes as phonetic normalisation would rub up against words that we already have and would possibly confuse in many contexts that are fixed by social magic when speaking.
English has a lot of homophones caused by its varied roots in Saxon, Celtic, Norse and Norman French and, as such, the written form needs a method of distinguishing between them. With a phonetic spelling reform it would be a lot harder to discern that the middle word in “I’ve red eyes” and “I’ve read minds” has a different meaning. The written form isn’t just a pronunciation guide, it’s a visual etymological and root meaning store with a built-in homophonic ambiguity fixer. It would be a shame to lose those features for the sake of marginally speeding up some kids’ reading and writing.
For all the complications of our orthography, at least we don’t suffer the madness of noun gender or the German counting system - 1 hundred, 1 and 20 thousand, 4 hundred, 2 and 30 (speaking 1 1 2 , 4 2 3 for 121,432).
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### Author:  [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/30 "2012-04-19T11:25:55Z")
ˈaɪ prəˈpoʊz ˈðæt ˈevrɪˌbədiː ʃʊd ˈlərn ənd ˈmæstər ˌaɪpiːˈeɪ, ˈðæt ˈweɪ ˈɔl ˈækˌsent ˌveriːˈeɪʃən kən ˈbiː əˈkæʊntɪd fər, ənd ˈlərnɪŋ ˈəðər ˈlæŋgwɪdʒɪz wəd ˈbiː ˈsoʊ ˈmətʃ iːziːje.
Also, the biggest problem I see with the OP is that the orthography of phonetics using the alphabet isn’t universally agreed upon. Plus there’s the issue of having two written Englishes, one that everyone else follows, and one that just America follows. Doesn’t seem like a good idea.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/31 "2012-04-19T11:41:48Z")
I think that saying that there are “two written Englishes” is significantly overstating the situation.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/32 "2012-04-19T13:00:33Z")
> [@drbhoneydew](#):
>
> You can usually have a pretty fair guess though, -ough words excepted. The thing is, it’s a false assumption that the written and spoken forms of a language having such a direct mapping is desirable and necessary. Gaelic and Welsh have pretty direct linkage but look a mess when written down despite sounding lovely.
> Once you get past the madness of some short/common words (and the pronunciation of the name of the language not matching its spelling), the spelling/pronunciation mapping is actually pretty regularised if quirky. Even on the short rule breakers and irregular verbs, you probably wouldn’t like the changes as phonetic normalisation would rub up against words that we already have and would possibly confuse in many contexts that are fixed by social magic when speaking.
> English has a lot of homophones caused by its varied roots in Saxon, Celtic, Norse and Norman French and, as such, the written form needs a method of distinguishing between them. With a phonetic spelling reform it would be a lot harder to discern that the middle word in “I’ve red eyes” and “I’ve read minds” has a different meaning. The written form isn’t just a pronunciation guide, it’s a visual etymological and root meaning store with a built-in homophonic ambiguity fixer. It would be a shame to lose those features for the sake of marginally speeding up some kids’ reading and writing.
>
> For all the complications of our orthography, at least we don’t suffer the madness of noun gender or the German counting system - 1 hundred, 1 and 20 thousand, 4 hundred, 2 and 30 (speaking 1 1 2 , 4 2 3 for 121,432).
The etymological aspect it’s certainly fascinating, but I’m not sure it justifies making the language so damn hard to learn to pronounce correctly.
It’s exasperating, when compared to Spanish, that is (to my Spanish as first language eyes at least) pretty much a phonetic language where A always sounds the same way, independently from the letters around it, B always sound the same way, etc (there are a couple of exceptions like (L, LL) and (R, RR) or the G and U thing (as in GUERRA) but the rules are simple and _consistent_)
Now Spanish has noun genders and a lot of verb conjugations (is conjugation the right English word?) so no language is perfect, but I think that if it was possible in practice (which I doubt) English would benefit from making it more phonetic.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/33 "2012-04-19T13:08:54Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> Tha simp’l fakt ov tha matter iz, inglish pronunsiashun iz a relik ov tha past. Bayst on tha fifteenth sentury rather than twenty-furst, inglish pronunsiashun confuzez nyu lernerz.
Modern English pronunciation is a relic of the past? What does that even mean?
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/34 "2012-04-19T13:14:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Modern English pronunciation is a relic of the past? What does that even mean?
Perhaps he meant to say English spelling?
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/35 "2012-04-19T14:19:56Z")
> [@Frodo](#):
>
> Use whatever regional accent you want to use, but at least make it coherent, I can read and write in English with some success,
Putting it mildly. I never realized you weren’t a native English speaker, and now I’m wondering how many other regular posters on these boards are non-native Anglophones and I never suspected it. Huh. Learn something new every day.
> [@](#):
>
> but I’m still reeling from the fact that you pronounce “read” differently depending on the verb tense, even when its written the same way…
> and that at least has some rule that you can learn to help you, but it seems to me that there is no way to know how a word is pronounced without first hearing someone say it, and that’s just WRONG.
Oh well, Chinese is worse [/feeble evasion]. Yup, I’m afraid there’s no way around the fact that written English is not reliably phonetic.
[Read it and weep](http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/12/23/english-pronunciation/). But don’t read it aloud, because you won’t be able to pronounce it. Some of those can trip **me** up, and I’m a fairly hyper-literate native English speaker.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/36 "2012-04-19T14:24:22Z")
[Dolton Edwards had this figured out in 1946.
> [@](#):
>
> BECAUSE WE ARE STILL BEARING SOME OF THE SCARS OF OUR BRIEF SKIRMISH with II-B English, it is natural that we should be enchanted by Mr. George Bernard Shaw’s current campaign for a simplified alphabet.
>
> ```
> Obviously, as Mr. Shaw points out, English spelling is in much need of a general overhauling and streamlining. However, our own resistance to any changes requiring a large expenditure of mental effort in the near future would cause us to view with some apprehension the possibility of some day receiving a morning paper printed in-to us-Greek.
>
> Our own plan would achieve the same end as the legislation proposed by Mr. Shaw, but in a less shocking manner, as it consists merely of an acceleration of the normal processes by which the language is continually modernized.
>
> As a catalytic agent, we would suggest that a National Easy Language Week be proclaimed, which the President would inaugurate, outlining some short cut to concentrate on during the week, and to be adopted during the ensuing year. All school children would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.
>
> ```
]([Meihem In Ce Klasrum, by Dolton Edwards](http://www.angelfire.com/va3/timshenk/codes/meihem.html))
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/37 "2012-04-19T15:12:23Z")
Nah, it’s horribly confusing. In the Netherlands people are obsessed with either changing the spelling or protesting the latest changes, with the result that nobody can spell to save their lives.
They left the spelling alone from the '50s until 1996, when I was at school. Suddenly there were huge changes and I had to relearn all the spelling. _Ruggegraat_ (spine) was changed to _ruggengraa_t; _pannekoek_ was changed to _pannenkoek_. The same rule for all similar words, except all plants and except some random words. The rules were changed for other things too: _zeeëend_ (sea duck, is that even a real animal?) became _zee-eend_ and all similar words, except some of them which didn’t change.
Of course many people disagreed with certain changes and kept using the old spelling, even newspapers and the like, so you didn’t see it consistently to even get used it.
Only ten years later, my poor brain still hurting, they changed it all again. Some things were changed back, peoples were to be capitalised (\*Joden \*for the people, _joden_ for the religious), _paardebloem_ (dandelion) became _paardenbloem_.
Only this time, the people weren’t going to stand for nonsensical new spelling. The “Green Book” (the book of new spelling) was declared the enemy and to solve the problem of having confusing spelling, the “White Book” was published, with completely different rules.
Now trying to write anything goes like this:
[shout to colleague] “Does _paardebloem_ have an n in it?”
- “Well, let’s see, is the rule that because it’s not really a horse you don’t add an n?”
“No, that’s old spelling, now it has an n, because you just go with the actual plural form, right?”
- No, then they changed it again, because they changed all the plants."
“Yeah, but they changed it having an n, right?”
- “Oh wait, do you use the Green Book or the White Book?”
“I’ll just say “flower” instead…”
Just a word of warning…
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### Author:  [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/38 "2012-04-19T17:04:43Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> I think that saying that there are “two written Englishes” is significantly overstating the situation.
I’m not sure if I understand what you’re getting at. My point was that it wouldn’t be a good idea, hypothetically, to have two highly distinctive versions of English in written form. I wouldn’t be able to communicate with you on this message board for starters.
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### Author:  [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/39 "2012-04-19T17:11:17Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> Tha simp’l fakt ov tha matter iz, inglish pronunsiashun iz a relik ov tha past. Bayst on tha fifteenth sentury rather than twenty-furst, inglish pronunsiashun confuzez nyu lernerz. Jermanz and italyanz hav a literal spelling sistem. In fakt, italyan kidz lern too spell and read in only a frakshun ov tha time with tha Montessori sistem.
>
> _(Well, I think the time has come for English spelling reform. What do the rest of you think?)_
>
> :):)🙂
If your point is this crap is readible, it is, but only at about 10% of my normal reading speed.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-reform/619130/40 "2012-04-19T21:52:56Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> In, say, American English there is at least an informal standard or “average” pronunciation that is clear to everyone.
> And even in phonetic languages, there is some variation in pronunciation, but people are used to thinking of “newsreader” pronunciation in terms of how words are spelled – a similar thing would happen if English became phonetically spelled.
>
> Again, I don’t think reform is feasible for english, but that particular objection isn’t the reason why IMO.
I don’t know if that’s true. I can clearly understand all of the anchors on all the TV news shows. If I heard Anderson Cooper say hour, dawn, crayon, or any number of other words I’d understand him, but if you asked me ahead of time how he pronounced them, I could only guess.
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