Spelling System or Speling Sistum? Everything Wrong with English

 Wie Shood Wee Chaynj thuh Speling Sistum?

By Margaret

What do overcooked porridge and the English Spelling System have in common? That’s right: they’re absolutely atrocious and very hard to swallow. So why have we tolerated it for so long (the Spelling System, I mean)? And is there a way to change it? Do we even know what the problems are? Read on as I take a sweeping look at the appalling state of my breakfast. And the Spelling System. 

    

First, let’s take a look at what the problems are. Trust me, English is riddled with them. 

·       Homophones: words that sound the same but have different spellings or meanings (poor/pour)

·       Homographs: words that are spelled the same but have different spellings or meanings (tear/tear)

·       The same sound is represented by many different letters/letter combinations (ee/ea/ey)

·       One letter may make many different sounds (apple/palm/lay)

·       Silent letters (write/doubt/crumb)

·       Double letters (committee/better/called)

·       Not enough symbols for the number of sounds (th/ee/ou)

·       Several letters/letter combinations representing the same sound (f/ph/gh)

    Do you see what I mean? The English Language cannot even obey its own rules, let alone follow a logical system. Take ‘ough’. Think you know how it sounds? ‘Drought’? ‘Tough’? ‘Thought’? What about ‘though’? Or ‘cough’? Remember ‘through’? And that’s just one example of the many convoluted facets of our language. 

     But so what? Most of us learn how to use it relatively quickly and some nearly master it by the time they are fifteen or sixteen. Yes, English has its problems, but do they really matter? I’ll tell you: yes, they absolutely matter. Have you ever tried to teach an eight-year-old to spell the word ‘Wednesday’? How about ‘onomatopoeia’? It’s not easy explaining to a child that the sounds and letters they learn in school aren’t always consistent. Words like ‘conscientious’, ‘acquiesce’ and ‘mischievous’ pepper our day’-to-day speech without a problem, but when we come to writing them, it becomes a whole new issue. Have you ever thought about how much of a child’s early education is dedicated to teaching them spelling? How much time and money is spent reproducing documents, signs and presentations after spotting a spelling mistake? In addition, spelling has a huge impact on the way we perceive a person or organisation. In fact, it is estimated that a single spelling error on a commercial website can cut online sales by half. Not to mention spelling mistakes on resumes and application letters- these could literally lose you a job. Why is it that we automatically think poorly of someone if we discover they cannot spell? Surely, it’s not their fault that they can’t tell the difference between ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’. Does your ten-year-old really deserve that D on their spelling test for misspelling ‘accidentally’?

     Fortunately, all hope is not lost. There are a few individuals who are significantly better at making porridge than our 

Latin, French and Anglo-Saxon forefathers. During the twentieth century, several of these individuals endeavoured to reform the spelling system, by adding new rules and making redundant many of our current practices. One such reformed spelling system is called Soundspel.

SoundSpel has a long history of development which is closely tied to the reform spelling movement during the twentieth century. Its creations began with the New Spelling Dictionary by Walter Ripman and William Archer in 1941, leading to the Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling by Rondthaler and Edward Lias in 1986. This same system then evolved from 1987 onwards, eventually becoming Soundspel.

     A summary of the rules of the Soundspel system includes short vowels as a single letter (as in sat, set did, dot, cut), long vowels are followed immediately by an e(as in sundae, see, die, toe, cue), no silent letters, most double letters are removed and consonants such as f, c, s, j and g have a consistent, single sound and spelling.

     Additional advantages of Soundspel consist of: no new symbols introduced into the alphabet; it uses familiar diagraphs; it does not use any abnormal letter combinations for sounds (with a few, minor exceptions); it does not use diacritical marks (such as accents) which most English speakers are not confident with using anyway; it keeps the appearance of existing words relatively similar to their previous form; it keeps the spelling of the current 12 most common words; it uses s for plurals and possessives and it keeps the current th diagraph.

    

There are a few other, small exceptions to the system, but generally, words are spelled as they sound, e.g.

·       hat, have, laugh, plaid= hat, hav, laf, plad

·       red, head, said, friend= red, hed, sed, frend

·       herd, earth, birth, journey= herd, erth, berth, jerny

·       roll, hole, soul, goal, bowl= roel, hoel, soel, goel, boel

·       tough, love, judge, tongue= tuf, luv, juj, tung

To test this system, see if you can read this extract from the Gettysburg Address using Soundspel:

     “Now we ar engaejd in a graet sivil wor, testing whether that naeshon, or eny naeshon so conseevd,

     and so dedicaeted, can long enduur. We ar met on a graet batl-feeld in that wor. We hav cum to    

     dedicaet a porshon of that feeld, as a fienal resting-plaess for thoes hoo heer gaev thaer lievs, that that

     naeshon miet liv. It is aultogether fiting and proper that we shuud do this.”

Could you read it? Of course! Perhaps your reading wasn’t as fluent as normal, but that’s only due to your familiarity with this new system compared with the old one. Consider how quickly you’d be able to learn Soundspel, compared to the years and years it took you to learn the word ‘necessary’. A new system like this one would be unequivocally more efficient and straightforward.

     However, not everyone is as enthusiastic as I am about the potential of reformed spelling. Many people have expressed the fear that a new spelling system would spoil a ‘wonderful’ language. In actuality, the language itself would not be changed by these reforms, only the spelling. There is also a fear of losing the historic origin of words. In truth, the historic development of individual words is usually well documented. In addition, the spelling of many current words is already a poor guide to their origin, having been changed considerably overtime. Moreover, some people simply dislike the ‘look’ of reformed spellings. Spellings have become attractive through familiarity and even older versions of English spellings look odd. Nevertheless, with use and new familiarity, reformed spellings would eventually become acceptable too.

     In short, however accustomed you are to burnt porridge for breakfast, the English Language is in dire need of a make-over. I personally am sick and tired of trying to guess how many s’s there are in ‘possession’ and don’t get me started on ‘colonel’. The English Language is in a dreadful state, but there is light at the end of this crepuscular, calamitous, lugubrious tunnel. Think of the ease with which you could send an email without worrying about spelling, think of your little son writing to his heart’s content without fear of mistakes. Just think. Perhaps one day, people will wake up and realise that they actually prefer their porridge light and fluffy, wich is, ov cors, hou it taysts best.