Irregular English (was Hello from newbe Aspie)

[Guest guest]

, I too have been irked for years by the irregularity and illogic of the English language. I've written about it before (on this and other boards) and gave examples of just the type they have tabulated on that very informative site you posted a link to. The arguments against freespelling that I got from other Aspies were:

1. That the current spelling retains some of the history and origin of that particular word. It's easy to see from the spelling if a particular word has a French, Greek or Latin origin, for example. But you can reform words lightly and still make their background recognisable as we have done in Swedish and German. I do think it's a good point though.

2. That people pronounce especially English vowels differently in different parts of the world. Aunt and sow are examples I used which I had pointed out to me that their pronounciation varies. If one was to agree upon one particular pronounciation and thenceforce spell it accordingly, who gets to decide which one? What people like about English is that it's spelling is consistent even though the pronounciation may vary (except for Americans spelling it color instead of colour and socialize instead of socialise - I tend to adapt my spelling to the person I'm talking to, but in a mixed group of Americans and Brits/Aussies, I sometimes find it hard to decide which spelling to use.

3. That we are so used to recognising words the way they look now, that a text written in reformspelling may be all but incomprehensible. It certainly would to me who identify the words by how they look rather than how they sound. Here is an example of a text based on a more logical spelling. Great in theory, but impossible to read. http://www.benjaminrossen.com/VOX/html/vox_05.htm

My own thoughts about some of these suggested reform-spellings on your link:

"sed - said; ses - says; Wensday - Wednesday; sistem - system; cof - cough; cum - come; meel - meal; teech - teach; deleet - delete; sardeen - sardine, shreek - shriek; theef - thief; weerd - weird; ate - eight; nite - night; buty - beauty; groop - group; moov - move; yor - your; yung - young"

"Says" indicates a connection with the word "say" but "ses" does not.

"Sardeen" sounds cute - sort of like Aberdeen. :-)

Some words already have another meaning in that spelling, for example "cum" and "ate". "Eit" would be better. All the "gh" spellings are the ones easiest for me to make typos on; I'd love to get rid of them since they only complicate things needlessly. "Nite" is good; no risk of confusing it with anything else.

"Rh" could go too. We have ditched them in Swedish and no one misses the extra "h". "Rheumatism" is "reumatism" here. But I would not like to see it spelled "roomatism" since I would then start associating to a room instead of a disease. That would be taking the reform too far.

We have also done away with "ph" and spell "photographer" as "fotograf".

"English spells many identical sounds differently when they occur in different positions in a word.For example, the Sh-sound is spelt as in shop, station, vicious and session"

This is due to its original Latin word. Those give useful clues too. (If you're interested in Latin morphs, I've posted a file in the Files section on this forum.)

Inger

> sometimes I think the English language is illogical

SOMETIMES !!!

the English language is illogical all the time (sorry i am just venting my anger)

This language was cobbled together out of lots of different languages,

it was not a hi priority to make this language easy to use.

There is a group who is trying to come up with a solution to this communication mess

http://www.spellingsociety.org/index.php

john

Re: Hello from newbe Aspie

I get a lot of words wrong - sometimes I think the English language is illogical - for example I have always thought it should be 'unsane' and not 'insane' - the word 'insane' when I break it down sounds like the process of being 'in' 'sanity' - or maybe I'm just unsane/insane for thinking this :-)FAM Secret Society is a community based on respect, friendship, support and acceptance. Everyone is valued. Don't forget, there are links to other FAM sites on the Links page in the folder marked "Other FAM Sites."

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: Inger Lorelei

, I too have been irked for years by the irregularity and illogic of the English language. I've written about it before (on this and other boards) and gave examples of just the type they have tabulated on that very informative site you posted a link to. The arguments against freespelling that I got from other Aspies were:

i do not see the importants of the hitorical value in words.

2. That people pronounce especially English vowels differently in different parts of the world. Aunt and sow are examples I used which I had pointed out to me that their pronounciation varies. If one was to agree upon one particular pronounciation and thenceforce spell it accordingly, who gets to decide which one? What people like about English is that it's spelling is consistent even though the pronounciation may vary (except for Americans spelling it color instead of colour and socialize instead of socialise - I tend to adapt my spelling to the person I'm talking to, but in a mixed group of Americans and Brits/Aussies, I sometimes find it hard to decide which spelling to use.

i try to use the most logical spelling but the spell check has a hard time.

3. That we are so used to recognising words the way they look now, that a text written in reformspelling may be all but incomprehensible. It certainly would to me who identify the words by how they look rather than how they sound. Here is an example of a text based on a more logical spelling. Great in theory, but impossible to read. http://www.benjaminrossen.com/VOX/html/vox_05.htm

i find this link very interesting.

My own thoughts about some of these suggested reform-spellings on your link:

"sed - said; ses - says; Wensday - Wednesday; sistem - system; cof - cough; cum - come; meel - meal; teech - teach; deleet - delete; sardeen - sardine, shreek - shriek; theef - thief; weerd - weird; ate - eight; nite - night; buty - beauty; groop - group; moov - move; yor - your; yung - young"

enuf - enough; laf - laugh; yot - yacht

"Says" indicates a connection with the word "say" but "ses" does not.

"Sardeen" sounds cute - sort of like Aberdeen. :-)

Some words already have another meaning in that spelling, for example "cum" and "ate". "Eit" would be better. All the "gh" spellings are the ones easiest for me to make typos on; I'd love to get rid of them since they only complicate things needlessly. "Nite" is good; no risk of confusing it with anything else.

one - won

(below is some thing i wrote some time ago)

Another difficulty of my primary school is where dyslexia and Asperger meet such as the stupid way many words are spelt.

Words such as "one" (1), i all ways spelled it as "won".

No mater how many times the teacher would loose her temper or remind me how useless and hopeless i am, could get me to under stand why this word is spelt wrong.

I spent many hours worrying why i was the only person who could not see how to get "o" to sound like "w".

The meaning of the word gullible springs to mind, was i the only person who is not gullible,

or perhaps the teacher is wrong, or may be an alien was causing people to do strange things like what happened on star trek.

I have got it, it was a printing error when the dictionaries was made,

or what if it not that, maybe the teacher is right and that i am as stupid and thick like the teacher says i am, my mum says that i am a retard.

"Rh" could go too. We have ditched them in Swedish and no one misses the extra "h". "Rheumatism" is "reumatism" here. But I would not like to see it spelled "roomatism" since I would then start associating to a room instead of a disease. That would be taking the reform too far.

i wish the rest of the world would see sense.

We have also done away with "ph" and spell "photographer" as "fotograf".

"English spells many identical sounds differently when they occur in different positions in a word.For example, the Sh-sound is spelt as in shop, station, vicious and session"

This is due to its original Latin word. Those give useful clues too. (If you're interested in Latin morphs, I've posted a file in the Files section on this forum.)

i will have a look at it.

Inger

I think that the solution is to keep making small changes instead of 1 big change.

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: Inger Lorelei

, I too have been irked for years by the irregularity and illogic of the English language. I've written about it before (on this and other boards) and gave examples of just the type they have tabulated on that very informative site you posted a link to. The arguments against freespelling that I got from other Aspies were:

i do not see the importants of the hitorical value in words.

2. That people pronounce especially English vowels differently in different parts of the world. Aunt and sow are examples I used which I had pointed out to me that their pronounciation varies. If one was to agree upon one particular pronounciation and thenceforce spell it accordingly, who gets to decide which one? What people like about English is that it's spelling is consistent even though the pronounciation may vary (except for Americans spelling it color instead of colour and socialize instead of socialise - I tend to adapt my spelling to the person I'm talking to, but in a mixed group of Americans and Brits/Aussies, I sometimes find it hard to decide which spelling to use.

i try to use the most logical spelling but the spell check has a hard time.

3. That we are so used to recognising words the way they look now, that a text written in reformspelling may be all but incomprehensible. It certainly would to me who identify the words by how they look rather than how they sound. Here is an example of a text based on a more logical spelling. Great in theory, but impossible to read. http://www.benjaminrossen.com/VOX/html/vox_05.htm

i find this link very interesting.

My own thoughts about some of these suggested reform-spellings on your link:

"sed - said; ses - says; Wensday - Wednesday; sistem - system; cof - cough; cum - come; meel - meal; teech - teach; deleet - delete; sardeen - sardine, shreek - shriek; theef - thief; weerd - weird; ate - eight; nite - night; buty - beauty; groop - group; moov - move; yor - your; yung - young"

enuf - enough; laf - laugh; yot - yacht

"Says" indicates a connection with the word "say" but "ses" does not.

"Sardeen" sounds cute - sort of like Aberdeen. :-)

Some words already have another meaning in that spelling, for example "cum" and "ate". "Eit" would be better. All the "gh" spellings are the ones easiest for me to make typos on; I'd love to get rid of them since they only complicate things needlessly. "Nite" is good; no risk of confusing it with anything else.

one - won

(below is some thing i wrote some time ago)

Another difficulty of my primary school is where dyslexia and Asperger meet such as the stupid way many words are spelt.

Words such as "one" (1), i all ways spelled it as "won".

No mater how many times the teacher would loose her temper or remind me how useless and hopeless i am, could get me to under stand why this word is spelt wrong.

I spent many hours worrying why i was the only person who could not see how to get "o" to sound like "w".

The meaning of the word gullible springs to mind, was i the only person who is not gullible,

or perhaps the teacher is wrong, or may be an alien was causing people to do strange things like what happened on star trek.

I have got it, it was a printing error when the dictionaries was made,

or what if it not that, maybe the teacher is right and that i am as stupid and thick like the teacher says i am, my mum says that i am a retard.

"Rh" could go too. We have ditched them in Swedish and no one misses the extra "h". "Rheumatism" is "reumatism" here. But I would not like to see it spelled "roomatism" since I would then start associating to a room instead of a disease. That would be taking the reform too far.

i wish the rest of the world would see sense.

We have also done away with "ph" and spell "photographer" as "fotograf".

"English spells many identical sounds differently when they occur in different positions in a word.For example, the Sh-sound is spelt as in shop, station, vicious and session"

This is due to its original Latin word. Those give useful clues too. (If you're interested in Latin morphs, I've posted a file in the Files section on this forum.)

i will have a look at it.

Inger

I think that the solution is to keep making small changes instead of 1 big change.

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: Inger Lorelei

, I too have been irked for years by the irregularity and illogic of the English language. I've written about it before (on this and other boards) and gave examples of just the type they have tabulated on that very informative site you posted a link to. The arguments against freespelling that I got from other Aspies were:

i do not see the importants of the hitorical value in words.

2. That people pronounce especially English vowels differently in different parts of the world. Aunt and sow are examples I used which I had pointed out to me that their pronounciation varies. If one was to agree upon one particular pronounciation and thenceforce spell it accordingly, who gets to decide which one? What people like about English is that it's spelling is consistent even though the pronounciation may vary (except for Americans spelling it color instead of colour and socialize instead of socialise - I tend to adapt my spelling to the person I'm talking to, but in a mixed group of Americans and Brits/Aussies, I sometimes find it hard to decide which spelling to use.

i try to use the most logical spelling but the spell check has a hard time.

3. That we are so used to recognising words the way they look now, that a text written in reformspelling may be all but incomprehensible. It certainly would to me who identify the words by how they look rather than how they sound. Here is an example of a text based on a more logical spelling. Great in theory, but impossible to read. http://www.benjaminrossen.com/VOX/html/vox_05.htm

i find this link very interesting.

My own thoughts about some of these suggested reform-spellings on your link:

"sed - said; ses - says; Wensday - Wednesday; sistem - system; cof - cough; cum - come; meel - meal; teech - teach; deleet - delete; sardeen - sardine, shreek - shriek; theef - thief; weerd - weird; ate - eight; nite - night; buty - beauty; groop - group; moov - move; yor - your; yung - young"

enuf - enough; laf - laugh; yot - yacht

"Says" indicates a connection with the word "say" but "ses" does not.

"Sardeen" sounds cute - sort of like Aberdeen. :-)

Some words already have another meaning in that spelling, for example "cum" and "ate". "Eit" would be better. All the "gh" spellings are the ones easiest for me to make typos on; I'd love to get rid of them since they only complicate things needlessly. "Nite" is good; no risk of confusing it with anything else.

one - won

(below is some thing i wrote some time ago)

Another difficulty of my primary school is where dyslexia and Asperger meet such as the stupid way many words are spelt.

Words such as "one" (1), i all ways spelled it as "won".

No mater how many times the teacher would loose her temper or remind me how useless and hopeless i am, could get me to under stand why this word is spelt wrong.

I spent many hours worrying why i was the only person who could not see how to get "o" to sound like "w".

The meaning of the word gullible springs to mind, was i the only person who is not gullible,

or perhaps the teacher is wrong, or may be an alien was causing people to do strange things like what happened on star trek.

I have got it, it was a printing error when the dictionaries was made,

or what if it not that, maybe the teacher is right and that i am as stupid and thick like the teacher says i am, my mum says that i am a retard.

"Rh" could go too. We have ditched them in Swedish and no one misses the extra "h". "Rheumatism" is "reumatism" here. But I would not like to see it spelled "roomatism" since I would then start associating to a room instead of a disease. That would be taking the reform too far.

i wish the rest of the world would see sense.

We have also done away with "ph" and spell "photographer" as "fotograf".

"English spells many identical sounds differently when they occur in different positions in a word.For example, the Sh-sound is spelt as in shop, station, vicious and session"

This is due to its original Latin word. Those give useful clues too. (If you're interested in Latin morphs, I've posted a file in the Files section on this forum.)

i will have a look at it.

Inger

I think that the solution is to keep making small changes instead of 1 big change.