Strewth the spelling of English is weird!

[old man emu]

We were helping our grandson with his reading. He uses the "sound it out" method to read new words. The other day he was trying to read a story from an early level reader. The first sentence began, "One day ..."

 

How the hell do you get the sound "wun" out of "O-nn-eh"?

 

And another thing, why do stories start, "Once there was ...", or, "Once upon a time ..."?

 

 

[Yenn]

Because they are so far fetched that they never happen again.

 

 

[old man emu]

Oh! Like, "Once there was a politician who would not lie." ?

 

 

[red750]

It's definitely not a phonetic language - one/won, to/too/two, for/fore/four, etc.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

How to you pronounce GHOTI?

 

Answer....FISH.

 

GH as in rough.

 

O as in women

 

TI as in ignition.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I have a fish on my chin?

 

 

[spacesailor]

NOT only hard to spell,

 

BUT

 

has words that are NOT (spelt)written !.

 

How do you write the word that is the "pronunciation" of the words: so,sew, sow,

 

THEY are all pronounced XXXXX.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[red750]

The one that brings many undone on this forum (and others) - there/their/they're.

 

Which leads to another - here/hear.

 

One could keep following this line of thought - heard/herd.

 

 

[nomadpete]

I hope I'm not in that herd

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I've herd that good spelling is neither hear nor they're.

 

 

[facthunter]

Most of our food is far fetched (fetched from far away) though some people don't "get it".. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

That's why they are hungry.

 

 

[Cosmick]

whether the weather is fine

 

that tear in my shorts brings a tear to my eye

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

We were helping our grandson with his reading. He uses the "sound it out" method to read new words. The other day he was trying to read a story from an early level reader. The first sentence began, "One day ..."

How the hell do you get the sound "wun" out of "O-nn-eh"?

 

And another thing, why do stories start, "Once there was ...", or, "Once upon a time ..."?

Yor not rong, OME!

 

Our spelling mess sure makes it hard to learn reading, because it carries too much baggage - centuries of changes. One innovative solution is UNIFON, an invented script that little kids find heaps easier to learn. When they have mastered reading in Unifon, they find it a breeze to adapt to traditional spelling.

 

Unifon - Wikipedia

 

 

[red750]

Not so much the spelling, but the sound of words. Here's Aussie comedian Carl Barron -

 

 

[spacesailor]

"One innovative solution is UNIFON, "

 

The other is:

 

Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. It was created in the late 19th century by L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish .

 

Almost every country has an Esperanto club,

 

If people leaned just this one language, we will all be able to talk to other people everywhere.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[PA.]

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

 

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

 

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in our languag is disgrasful and should be eliminated.

 

By the 4th yer, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis, and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza -- Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German, like zey vunted us to in ze forst plas.

 

 

[facthunter]

Trouble with simplified or Phonetic spelling is you lose the word meaning connections. Goes back to the LED ZED LERN posters in the late 60's Nev

 

 

[red750]

Another example is new/knew. The K is silent, like the P in swimming.

 

 

[facthunter]

You are recalling the picture I guess, captioned Psychiatrist has a silent "P" while in the water up to his waist. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Urine about that!

 

 

[red750]

Actually it was a saying of my late father.

 

 

[facthunter]

Not "tasteless" though so you can repeat it. Hell, that wine tastes like Camels Pi$$. Well HOW would I know? ( not being a regular consumer and expert).. YOU know what?? Yeah.. he used to sell milk over at Merewether. Nev

 

 

[Bruce]

There was a model magazine where the editor actually implemented Spelling Reform 1, which was to make the "E" sound have consistent spelling, so you would have eaten some bred for example.

 

Needless to say, he failed. Personally, while I agreed with the idea, I didn't like reading it much.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Spelling reform would be a monumental task given that the meaning of similar-sounding words is tied up in slight differences in their spelling. The Chinese don't have this problem because their characters are idea-based; they use subtle pitch differences to distinguish similar-sounding words. (They have to tune into slight tonal variations most westerners would miss; one reason so many Chinese have perfect musical pitch.)

 

Althought their spoken languages are far apart, I believe a Japanese person could almost read a Chinese newspaper.