National Spelling Bee protests: Should we simplify English spelling?

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 4 June 2010 | Eoin O'Carroll

[FourPeas]

Nicely done.

[FourPeas]

heehee

[Xenalyte]

Someone who got sent out in the second round?

[Seaplaner]

Saving this poem (pome?)

[mvpel]

It’s more like puzzles meet the lottery. A kid gets a random word, the definition, alternate pronunciations, etymology of the word, and then they hear it in a sentence.

In Russia, I'm given to understand that radio hosts will have contests on the grammatically correct pronunciation of very large numbers. Because of the gender and six different grammatical cases of the language, large numbers can be difficult to say correctly.

Perhaps a Russian speaker can comment on this.

[MozarkDawg]

There’s a reason posting on Free Republic is less formal than, say, legal writing. Different contexts.

The same thing with email letters, they are conversational. Those letters look/read nothing like my correspondence, business letters, etc.

(I must admit to the constant use of the comma splice in my posts, email -- I am typing what I hear in my head as though I'm speaking it, and I tend to use a hellalot of commas rather than the full stop period, begin another sentence style.)

[SAJ]

First rate, Xena! WTG!

I have known English teachers who were unable to punctuate that sentence, btw.

[SAJ]

Not so. See post 54, wherein Xenalyte demonstrates the correct punctuation of the sentence as is.

[Tax-chick]

Hey, what did I do to deserve this?

[Xenalyte]

You used “has had” where the teacher was looking for “had had.” SNAP! ;p

[Larry Lucido]

[Tax-chick]

That wasn’t me - the cat was on the keyboard again.

[Xenalyte]

Ah, that explains it. Felines are notoriously bad with tenses.

[Tax-chick]

The eternal present of the perfect solipsist. And Jake is only a year old.

[trisham]

What a great idea! I think the Obama administration should make this a top priority, and pass a law that allows them to take over all of the companies that publish dictionaries. Penalties for non-compliance would probably have to be substantial, and of course, there will have to be union involvement, because all IRS forms, government signs, instructions and so on will have to reflect this new law. The possibilities for employment opportunities are endless.

It could cause an increase in taxes, but it would be worth it!

[InvisibleChurch]

No replies until mine? Is FR insane? Great job!

[SAJ]

I had just read one of your posts on a different thread when I posed that little punctuation problem to Xena.

In effect, you were just a bystander; I needed two names for the problem. No harm intended, I assure you.

;^)

[bannie]

What makes English the most “wealthy” of languages is that we have the largest, richest lexicon. We are, simply, not snobbish about adopting (and adapting) “outside” words as our own. I love this.

Even in an instructive profession, however, I’m just not possessive of particular word spellings. (Don’t worry: I still insist on proper spellings!) We’ve already changed the true ENGLISH spellings of a number of words—like color (colour) and center (centre)—to better suit us...AND Shakespeare spelled even his own NAME in numerous ways.

I see the need for consistency (litigation, and all); but I just don’t feel a moral connection to traditional, particular spellings.

I blame the Great Vowel Shift (and its minor brother) for most of the mess.

(Go ahead...shoot! I have thick skin.)

[Tax-chick]

I was just confused, because I had been out all morning (children’s swim meet); I couldn’t remember any exchanges involving “has had,” “had had” or anything even close!

[SAJ]

No, indeed, you weren’t involved or being absent-minded at all. You know threads on FR; they’re apt to go in any direction imaginable. That punc problem just popped into my head from I-don’t-know-where.