Replies

Welcome to FR. I'm afraid I must dissent. The English language, while frustrating in both its inconsistency and its complexity, offers rich rewards to those for whom its proper employment constitutes a form of living art. I am not entirely convinced that simplification in the interest of accessibility doesn't remove a challenge that is beneficial to the child overall, and I do not think that a gradient of fluency from child to adult is in the least detrimental, albeit anathema to egalitarians.

I sympathize with the child for whom it seems an insuperable barrier to complete social intercourse, but for that child a carefully chosen vocabulary, properly employed, is no more difficult to master than common sums are when compared to integral calculus. It is the function of pedagogy to offer the child these subsets of overall vocabulary - for English, in excess of 100,000 words - in increasingly challenging forms until his or her needs are met. Forcing one mold on all is laziness; forcing too small a mold on all is cruelty.