Thank you gracer, that was wonderful. I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years and it was definitely amusing to see all these highly educated people I worked with arguing with each other from time to time over how to spell what seemed like the simplest words.
On the other hand, I guess it must be equally amusing for the Dutch and other people with phonographic spelling to see highly educated native English speakers arguing over how to pronounce a word that both have seen written but neither has ever heard spoken.
“Oh, that word is ‘terpsichorean’ [terp-SICH-orean], meaning having to do with dance.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s pronounced ‘terpsiCHORean’, like rhymes with DeLorean.”
“What?! No. The name is TerpSICh-o-re, the Greek muse of dance.”
“But that’s not how you say the adjective form, it changes stress. You know, like the god’s name is A-POLL-o, but something having to do with Apollo is A-poll-O-nian.”
“Look, I don’t care about Apollo, I’m talking about the word terpSIChorean, and that’s how it’s pronounced.”
Etc. etc.
I now realize that I am not in fact entirely sure how to pronounce “terpsichorean” so I’m off to look it up.
…
Jesus. According to Dictionary.com, it’s actually said with the accent on the fourth syllable, as if you were saying “turpsy-Korean”.
I swear to Og I did not stage-manage this example, I honestly started this post thinking that “terpsichorean” was a slightly tricky word to pronounce but that I, as a well-read and articulate native English speaker, did know how to pronounce it. :o
Well, it just goes to show how hellish English pronunciation really can be.
Here’s my vote: Stop trying to declare some official “right” way as long as they’re understood. If they can’t spell well enough to let you know what they mean, then they’d better change it. When enough people decide to do it differently, you’ll know.
I think that part of the problem with spelling reform is that English vowels are in a near constant state of flux as regards pronunciation. In Southern England there is a lengthening of the short a in certain words - bath as barth - for no apparent reason other than a euphony that I don’t agree with.
And English vowel orthography is rather different to how everybody else seems to do it, so foreigners would still get confused. Personally I find it quite nice to hear people struggling a bit with the vowels as the initial guesses are reminiscent of Olde Englishe.
Also, I don’t think reform is going to help with the most common mistakes such as failing to double the consonant in the likes of spelling.
However, if we’re going for full-on orthographic reform can we have a return for the thorn Þ and eth Ð characters?
The very fact that you present the spellings “bath” and “barth” to illustrate vowel-lengthening is a prime example of the difficulty of creating a unified orthography for English. Think of how misleading it was to Americans to explain that Sade was pronounced Shar-Day.
Spelling is reforming, slowly, through usage. Almost everyone recognized words like ‘tonite’ and ‘thru’. It’s just a matter of time in a language which has no controlling legal authority.
Of all the supposed vast differences in pronunciation, this is the one that gets trotted out constantly and is it really that big a deal? Do programmes currently need to be redubbed because bath and barth are mutually unintelligible?
Pick one and absent bloody-mindedness no-one would have any problem understanding. You could just have a hypothetical “posh guy” or whatever in mind when thinking of how words are spelled. This is already what happens in many phonographic languages as there are always some regional pronunciation differences.
In reality, because English is not regulated by a central authority (unlike Spanish and lots of other languages), if thou wants to change the orthography, as the saying goes, “there’s nothing to it but to do it”.
Really, though, this would make English very hard for second-language English readers/writers, who have grown accustomed to our current manners of spelling, unless the orthographic changes were both gradual and aesthetically simple. It could make English slightly easier to learn for brand new learners, though.
And the issue of accent is very important, as I see being discussed in this thread. Where I live, it is not a “pattern”, but rather a “pa’en”. It is not “water”, but “wata”. In lots of New Jersey, it is “wooder”, and in much of Alabama, it’s “woater”.
Accents and dialects of English can be quite divergent.
You completely missed the point, which just proves my point.
When you write “barth,” I don’t imagine a posh British guy saying “bath.” I hear a word with an /r/ in it, which sounds nothing like that. To get me to hear what you intend, you have to write “bahth,” not “barth.”
Writing an R after a vowel means something to you that it doesn’t mean to me. And that’s a big reason why trying to make English spelling more phonetic won’t work. Did you not understand my point about Shar-Day?
I didn’t specify any particular spelling, and this is irrelevant anyway as a phonetic language specifies precise rules on pronunciation, but anyway:
What, really?
You’d see the word “barth” and hear a distinct r sound, and not the /ar/ phoneme? This doesn’t seem the obvious parsing for an english-speaker. For one thing, you then need an arbitrary vowel to connect connect the /r/ with the /th/.
I understood your point, it just wasn’t relevant. Phonetic languages already have to deal with people and place names that don’t fit into their spelling rules. Either the spelling is changed, or the pronunciation. It’s not a big issue.
Thank you gracer, that was wonderful. I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years and it was definitely amusing to see all these highly educated people I worked with arguing with each other from time to time over how to spell what seemed like the simplest words.