🚀 go-pugleaf

see1@tank.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) writes:
> 
> I learned quite a few rules by making and studying lists of similar
> words.  In almost all expert activities, the *really* good performers
> are those who can glance at a large arrangement and grasp a pattern.
> And like playing chess, spelling is something you learn by doing until
> you *feel* the patterns.
 
	Ok, but why *should* spelling be as tough as chess. One of my 
co-workers tells me that Italian spelling is easy enough that his pre-school
daughters already know all the rules and exceptions.


raymond@utpsych.toronto.edu (Raymond Shaw) writes:
> 
> The thing to remember about all of this nonsense about reforming orthography
> is that English is comprised of words from many other languages, and the
> spelling of many of the words remains little changed from the original.
> The beauty of this is that intelligent people (go ahead, flame me on this
> one, I'm looking forward to it), that's right, I said it, INTELLIGENT people
> can look at a word they don't know, and make logical guesses about the meaning
> of the word, because of its spelling, which reflects the original language.

	Well you used to be able to tell the subject of a volume measurement 
by the units used. Gallon = water, pint = beer or blood, bushel = leaves or
grain, hogshead = beer again, barrel = oil, gill = medicine or liquor, and
cord = wood. In general these have been discarded (except in some barbaric
parts of the world :-).

	Why should millions of man-years be wasted to preserve etymology?
There's easier ways to do it.
 
> Finally, if you want to change spelling so that it matches pronunciation,
> on whose pronunciation would you base it? 

	Well you could at least remove things that were archaic even when
the first dictionary was penned.

	I think tonite I'll drive-thru Dunkin Do-nuts, rite?
*not*	I think toni<cough>te I'll drive thro<hack> dunkin<gahh> 
		do<clear phlem> nou<wheeze>ts, ri<final cough>te?
-- 
      ___   __   __   {utzoo,lsuc}!censor!jeff  (416-595-2705)
      /    / /) /  )     -- my opinions --
    -/ _ -/-   /-     No one born with a mouth and a need is innocent. 
 (__/ (/_/   _/_                                   Greg Bear