 Return to the ENGLISH Archive | Forward to the Current ENGLISH Forum |
| Ulven | Wednesday 16th of February 2005 02:32:28 PM |
| English: written to spoken - Once upon a time, English written language would have sounded as it was spelt. One would hope:). Nowadays however, English must be the most inconsistent language in the world with regard to its written to spoken relationship.
eg. The quadra-diphthong* 'ough' (pronunciation in brackets)- though (owe), thought (aw), through (ew), bough (ow), trough (off), tough (uff). Another example of English's aversion to coherent pattern, is the word 'doubt'. Which may be how the word 'duped' should be spelt. I post this thread mostly in jest. But, there is a part of me that would love to see English pull up its socks, at least a little. I mean, no other language on the planet would have a four-letter diphthong without telling you EXACTLY how to pronounce it. Sometimes I get the impression that the truth behind illiteracy in English speaking countries, is that its really the people at Oxford University that are the ones who can't spell:). So, is there anyone else who would even entertain a possibly-maybe-might-perhaps consideration toward the question "Does English spelling need a touch-up?" (I understand that 'overhaul' may be too strong a consideration for some;)) *By the way, 'quadra-dipthong' most probably isn't even a real word. | |
| sandman | Wednesday 16th of February 2005 04:57:33 PM |
| - a 5 year English spelling improvement plan %)
http://www.mail-archive.com/epfl-usa@alphanet.ch/msg00047.html | |
| Ulven | Thursday 17th of February 2005 03:26:40 AM |
| Wow, I thought I was the only one:) - ...who cared about the poor state of English spelling. I love the idea of losing the letter 'c'. I've always agreed with that, as 's' and 'k' already account for that letters usage. I don't understand the logic behind their dropping the 'v' sound. If 'v' is used inplace of 'w', I don't know how we're to pronounce the word 'very'. Yes, the 'ph' used as 'f' has got to go. That one was just a matter of time, I think. But, if 'z' is used inplace of 'th in the word 'them', does that mean 's' will be used to spell 'zebra'. Or, does it mean that the word zebra will actually lose its 'zzz' pronunciation altogether. I quite like the 'z'. I'd like to see all the z' sounds curentlt occupied by the letter 's', be taken over by the letter 'z'. It seems such a lonely letter:(. I'd like it to stay as its current pronunciation. It would be ambiguous to have the letter 's' double as both the sss and zzz sounds. I hope a happy medium can be struck so that English still ends up looking uniquely its own. But, a couple of extra vowels are needed in English. We simply don't have enough letters to account for the vowel sounds we use. | |
| Nevertheless | Tuesday 22nd of February 2005 03:00:58 PM |
| Is this really true.? - I've heard the news which page link you gave of and i couldn't believe my eyes. Is it possible to be something like in that news. | |
| Ulven | Sunday 27th of February 2005 05:01:05 PM |
| No, too good to be true - It's a joke by the Germans. They gradually make each change resemble German more and more each time until the English sounds like German. lol. (eg. Where is the house?----> ver iz zie haus?)
EDIT: I'm very embarrassed to have fallen for that link:(. | |
| majorshake | Wednesday 30th of March 2005 11:58:04 AM |
| - Yeah, it'd be convenient to have an effecient, standardized spelling. It wouldn't work, though. Think about the artificial languages that have been attempted, such as Esperanto. You can't dictate language. The only thing we can do is to make sure people are as educated as possible in the modern usage of a language, and we can just hope it changes. The more educated the population, the more standardized the language can become. Language is a living thing...the kind that actually CANNOT be created in a laboratory. | |
| applepie1254 | Monday 25th of April 2005 07:25:17 AM |
| LOL - lol i read the article found by clicking on the link and i personally found it hilarious ^^ | |
