'Enuf is enuf': Protesters in bee suits outside Spelling Bee want to make English simpler

FOXNews.com ^ | June 4, 2010 | Associated Press

[metmom]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's capital always draws its share of protesters, picketing for causes ranging from health care reform to immigration policy.

But spelling bee protesters? They're out here, too.

Four peaceful protesters, some dressed in full-length black and yellow bee costumes, represented the American Literacy Council and the London-based Spelling Society and stood outside the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. Their message was short: Simplify the way we spell words.

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

[metmom]

Simple. Educate the kids instead of indoctrinate them and they'd learn to read, write, and spell just fine.

[metmom]

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[bootless]

Harrison Bergeron ping

[Dallas59]

Double plus bad!

[whattajoke]

Don’t homeschooled kids dominate these things?

[Grunthor]

So because there are stupid illiterates out there, our school system should be (further) dumbed down?

[metmom]

They tend to be over represented.

[Dr. Sivana]

You can only remove my Merriam-Websters Unabridged 2nd Edition from my cold, dead hand ... and my compact OED from my other cold, dead arm.

[mnehring]

Oh good grief

[OldDeckHand]

I swear, I thought this was a satirical article. Public school teachers have been miserable failures teaching the nation's children to read and to spell, so they want to "dumb down" the language, rather than educate to a standard that has been in existence for two centuries.

It's pathetic.

[SJSAMPLE]

More like “paging Teddy Roosevelt”.

[olepap]

phonetic spelling obliterates word geneology. It destroys the meaning. Literate people can tell if a word has Latin, French, or Olde English roots - this adds texture and meaning to our lives...

[libertylover]

English IS at times a crazy language, but let’s not dumb it down to the level of texting and rap “music”.

[Dr. Sivana]

Maybee thay hav uh poynt. exsept for thuh fact that Ehneetheeng rittin beefor thee implehmentayshun uv this eyedeeuh wood bee az hard too reed az Chowser, thayr iz noe disadvantij.

[Let's Roll]

Gee, it didn't used to obstruct "...40 percent of the population from learning how to read..."

But now, everything is just so hard and so unFAIR.

[absolootezer0]

y iz “phonetic” spelt with a “PH”?

[JenB]

Precisely. Phonetic spelling is about separating words from meaning. By defining words by their sounds, you remove that connection between word and meaning.

And who gets to define phonetics, either? Some people pronounce “better” as “betah”, others more like “butter”. Whose spelling would be right?

[rickb308]

theyr luzrs. (Intentionally mis-spelled)

[absolootezer0]

And who gets to define phonetics, either? Some people pronounce “better” as “betah”, others more like “butter”. Whose spelling would be right?

the department of newspeak of course.

[SAJ]

The ‘F’ key was broken on the typewriter of the guy who invented the term...