"A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue"
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/proposal.html
Swift was apparently serious about this, as he was not in _A Modest Proposal_.
He wasn't the first. "The Royal Society set up a committee in 1664 for 'improving the English language', and they explored the idea of an Academy. It came to nothing..."
As did Swift's and many other proposals. The same attitudes exist today (English is going to hell), as one can see from letters to the editor and the
like, but nobody imagines that a single authoritative body could be established, or would do any good.
“Instances of this abuse are innumerable: what does your lordship think of the
words drudg’d, disturb’d, rebuk’d, fledg’d, and a thousand others everywhere to
be met in prose as well as verse? where, by leaving out a vowel to save a syllable, we form so jarring a sound, and so difficult to utter, that I have often wondered how it could ever obtain.”
Consonant clusters, what a tribulation.
It *could* be established, if publishers co-operated, ideally internationally.
That would be their own best interests since international standards would theoretically drive down their copy-editing costs even further. There is some instinct to standards, idiosyncracies in spelling are not actually that tolerated.
On 2024-02-23, Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote:
“Instances of this abuse are innumerable: what does your lordship think of the
words drudg’d, disturb’d, rebuk’d, fledg’d, and a thousand others everywhere to
be met in prose as well as verse? where, by leaving out a vowel to save a
syllable, we form so jarring a sound, and so difficult to utter, that I have >> often wondered how it could ever obtain.”
Consonant clusters, what a tribulation.
I think he's objecting to an ongoing change of his time where -ed /əd/
loses the schwa?
It *could* be established, if publishers co-operated, ideally internationally.
That would be their own best interests since international standards would >> theoretically drive down their copy-editing costs even further. There is some
instinct to standards, idiosyncracies in spelling are not actually that
tolerated.
The problem isn't that English spelling lacks standardization, but
that without an authoritative body it has become impossible to
change the standard.
The problem isn't that English spelling lacks standardization, but
that without an authoritative body it has become impossible to
change the standard.
Oh, English has plenty of standards. There's the American one, the
common British one, the Oxford University Press one, the Australian
one (which I think is mostly but not entirely like the British
one). Canadian spelling is somewhere between American & British. I'm
not sure if New Zealand has a distinct one from the others.
There's no way you could get most British people to switch to American spelling (even though it's somewhat simpler & easier) --- they are
snobby enough about things like "math".
On 2024-02-26, Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
There's no way you could get most British people to switch to American
spelling (even though it's somewhat simpler & easier) --- they are
snobby enough about things like "math".
Wasn't there some carfuffle a few years back because some British
Royal (then-Prince Charles?) used an -ize spelling somewhere and
much of the British audience thought this an Americanism, since
your average Brit doesn't read any OUP publications, I guess.
The fairly minor modernizations of the French (1990) and German
(1996) orthographies also triggered major outcries. People react
with kneejerk refusal without even knowing what it is that they are
against. That's one for the psychologists. It's as if people feel
that something is taken away from them. Very odd.
I think people who are good at the existing system have an ego stake
in maintaining it. People who know you're supposed to write (in BrE) >"colourful" but "coloration" can feel superior to those who don't.
Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote or quoted:
I think people who are good at the existing system have an ego stake
in maintaining it. People who know you're supposed to write (in BrE) >"colourful" but "coloration" can feel superior to those who don't.
You are full of it when you portray those who support
the retention of normal spellings (the majority of the
population, including many experts, who gave good reasons for
their opinion) as mentally disturbed. Maintaining the normal
spellings is what everyone usually does, for good reasons.
There may be something to that ego stake. A secretary may be
proud of the fact that she can type so quickly. But this is
no argument for changing the position of the keys.
Around the year 2000, the school ministers of the federal states
of the Federal Republic of Germany decided that various normal
spellings of words in schools should now be regarded as errors.
Today, children generally make many more mistakes than before
this change in schools.
1972 7
2002 12
2012 17
Error rates according to the Giessen longitudinal study
("Gießener Längsschnittstudie")
Some want to explain this by the idea that people generally
learn less well today. However, it turns out that the mistakes
are made precisely where changes have been made:
"Comparable spelling performance with words not directly affected
by the spelling reform contrasts with significantly poorer
performance with the s-words that were changed by the reform.",
quoted (translated to English) from: "Rechtschreibleistung
vor und nach der Rechtschreibreform: Was ändert sich bei
Grundschulkindern?" ("Spelling performance before and after the
spelling reform: What has changed for primary school children?");
by Harald Marx; University of Bielefeld; 1999
But there is no need to argue any further here, because the school
ministers have long since recognized their mistakes!
"The education ministers have long known that the spelling
reform was wrong." said Johanna Wanka (President of the
"Kultusministerkonferenz" [The so-called "conference of
school ministers"] in 2005)
"We should not have made the spelling reform." said Hans
Zehetmair (a former supporter of the reform) in 2003, as
Bavarian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs.
I’m surprised at the increase in mistakes, I found the
post-1996 spelling agreeably consistent when I learned German
from 2002 onwards, but I have no big stake in this.
"ss", "s" and "ß"; for example, "dass", "Bus", and "buß".
Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote or quoted:
I think people who are good at the existing system have an ego stake
in maintaining it. People who know you're supposed to write (in BrE) >>"colourful" but "coloration" can feel superior to those who don't.
You are full of it when you portray those who support
the retention of normal spellings (the majority of the
population, including many experts, who gave good reasons for
their opinion) as mentally disturbed. Maintaining the normal
spellings is what everyone usually does, for good reasons.
There may be something to that ego stake. A secretary may be
proud of the fact that she can type so quickly. But this is
no argument for changing the position of the keys.
Around the year 2000, the school ministers of the federal states
of the Federal Republic of Germany decided that various normal
spellings of words in schools should now be regarded as errors.
Today, children generally make many more mistakes than before
this change in schools.
1972 7
2002 12
2012 17
Error rates according to the Giessen longitudinal study
("Gießener Längsschnittstudie")
Some want to explain this by the idea that people generally
learn less well today. However, it turns out that the mistakes
are made precisely where changes have been made:
"Comparable spelling performance with words not directly affected
by the spelling reform contrasts with significantly poorer
performance with the s-words that were changed by the reform.",
quoted (translated to English) from: "Rechtschreibleistung
vor und nach der Rechtschreibreform: Was ändert sich bei
Grundschulkindern?" ("Spelling performance before and after the
spelling reform: What has changed for primary school children?");
by Harald Marx; University of Bielefeld; 1999
But there is no need to argue any further here, because the school
ministers have long since recognized their mistakes!
"The education ministers have long known that the spelling
reform was wrong." said Johanna Wanka (President of the
"Kultusministerkonferenz" [The so-called "conference of
school ministers"] in 2005)
"We should not have made the spelling reform." said Hans
Zehetmair (a former supporter of the reform) in 2003, as
Bavarian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs.
Mentally disturbed is something of an exaggeration. All I meant was
that some educated poeple are resistant to change for that reason.
The spellings imposed on people in schools today have /three/
On 2024-03-05, Stefan Ram wrote:
Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote or quoted:
I think people who are good at the existing system have an ego stake
in maintaining it. People who know you're supposed to write (in BrE)
"colourful" but "coloration" can feel superior to those who don't.
You are full of it when you portray those who support
the retention of normal spellings (the majority of the
population, including many experts, who gave good reasons for
their opinion) as mentally disturbed. Maintaining the normal
spellings is what everyone usually does, for good reasons.
Mentally disturbed is something of an exaggeration. All I meant was
that some educated poeple are resistant to change for that reason.
Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
Mentally disturbed is something of an exaggeration. All I meant wasWhat you actually did was to add insult to injury.
that some educated poeple are resistant to change for that reason.
And then one could just as well cite psychological mechanisms at
Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote or quoted:
I’m surprised at the increase in mistakes, I found the
post-1996 spelling agreeably consistent when I learned German
from 2002 onwards, but I have no big stake in this.
In normal German, syllables that end with the sound /s/ can
be written with "s" or "ß" at the end. An example would be
the words "das" and "daß".
(A sequence "ss" in words such as "Wasser" is analyzed as
"Was|ser", with one "s" ending the first syllabe and the
next "s" starting the second syllable.)
The spellings imposed on people in schools today have /three/
possible endings for syllables ending with the sound /s/:
"ss", "s" and "ß"; for example, "dass", "Bus", and "buß".
Things have become more complicated, and writers have to
think more about spellings. Indeed, Marx has found that
pupils today make more mistakes regarding such words.
On 2024-02-26, Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> wrote:
The problem isn't that English spelling lacks standardization, but
that without an authoritative body it has become impossible to
change the standard.
Oh, English has plenty of standards. There's the American one, the
common British one, the Oxford University Press one, the Australian
one (which I think is mostly but not entirely like the British
one). Canadian spelling is somewhere between American & British. I'm
not sure if New Zealand has a distinct one from the others.
Yes, and the biggest part of the divergence is due to the reform
efforts of one Noah Webster and the fact that--absent an authoritative body--those changes didn't penetrate all of the English-speaking
world or were even rolled back. (Look up the history of why the
Australian Labor Party is spelled that way.)
It usually takes the whole first chapter for me to notice whether
a book is typeset according to US or UK spelling. It's not very
salient.
There's no way you could get most British people to switch to American
spelling (even though it's somewhat simpler & easier) --- they are
snobby enough about things like "math".
Wasn't there some carfuffle a few years back because some British
Royal (then-Prince Charles?) used an -ize spelling somewhere and
much of the British audience thought this an Americanism, since
your average Brit doesn't read any OUP publications, I guess.
The fairly minor modernizations of the French (1990) and German
(1996) orthographies also triggered major outcries. People react
with kneejerk refusal without even knowing what it is that they are
against. That's one for the psychologists. It's as if people feel
that something is taken away from them. Very odd.
Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote or quoted:
I’m surprised at the increase in mistakes, I found the
post-1996 spelling agreeably consistent when I learned German
from 2002 onwards, but I have no big stake in this.
In normal German, syllables that end with the sound /s/ can
be written with "s" or "ß" at the end. An example would be
the words "das" and "daß".
(A sequence "ss" in words such as "Wasser" is analyzed as
"Was|ser", with one "s" ending the first syllabe and the
next "s" starting the second syllable.)
The spellings imposed on people in schools today have /three/
possible endings for syllables ending with the sound /s/:
"ss", "s" and "ß"; for example, "dass", "Bus", and "buß".
Things have become more complicated, and writers have to
think more about spellings. Indeed, Marx has found that
pupils today make more mistakes regarding such words.
5 Mar 2024 09:33:08 GMT: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) scribeva:
Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote or quoted:
I’m surprised at the increase in mistakes, I found the
post-1996 spelling agreeably consistent when I learned German
from 2002 onwards, but I have no big stake in this.
In normal German, syllables that end with the sound /s/ can
be written with "s" or "ß" at the end. An example would be
the words "das" and "daß".
(A sequence "ss" in words such as "Wasser" is analyzed as
"Was|ser", with one "s" ending the first syllabe and the
next "s" starting the second syllable.)
The spellings imposed on people in schools today have /three/
possible endings for syllables ending with the sound /s/:
"ss", "s" and "ß"; for example, "dass", "Bus", and "buß".
Yes, and consistently corresponding with long and short vowels. Which
is quite handy, especially for non-native speakers like me.
Things have become more complicated, and writers have to
think more about spellings. Indeed, Marx has found that
pupils today make more mistakes regarding such words.
The new system for s/ß is simpler, more consistent and easier to
learn.
And you don’t mention the upside of the reform, which was
more internal consistency regarding whether a double or a
single consonant should be written after a short vowel (where
diphthongs are regarded as long vowels).
Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:
The new system for s/ß is simpler, more consistent and easier toMany natives claim that the long/short distinction IN THIS CASE is a matter >of spelling pronunciation, which may be welcome to nonnatives but not for >natives.
learn.
Antonio Marques <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:
Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:
The new system for s/ß is simpler, more consistent and easier toMany natives claim that the long/short distinction IN THIS CASE is a matter >> of spelling pronunciation, which may be welcome to nonnatives but not for
learn.
natives.
Already the expression "the new system for s/ß" is misleading,
because it's for "s/ss/ß". There are /three/ possible spellings
for the /s/ at the end of a syllable one has to choose from.
There is no rule for deciding whether to use "s" ("Aas" with a
long /a/, "Bus" with a short /u/) or "ss/ß" ("Fraß" with a long
/a/, "dass" with a short /a/) - this has to be memorized for each
word. Only, if one has already memorized that a word is ending in
one of "ss/ß", then the length of the vowel can be used to resolve
the spelling, but since people do not want to think constantly when
writing, I guess most have also just memorized this for each word.
(A foreign language learner learning German also has to
memorize for every word whether an S sound at the end is
spelled "s" or "ss/ß".
For native language pupils, Marx has
shown that they make more errors with the news system, while
they did nearly not make any errors at all in this regard
[an /s/ sound at the end of a syllable] with the old system.)
Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
(A foreign language learner learning German also has toA foreigner only has to know the spelling and pronounce accordingly,
memorize for every word whether an S sound at the end is
spelled "s" or "ss/ß".
ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:
The spellings imposed on people in schools today have /three/
The word written "Meßſtelle" 100 years ago, in the schools
today is spelled "Messstelle" with three "s". The "ß" clearly
marked the end of a syllable, and "ſ" the beginning of a new
syllable, even though both share the same pronunciation.
A "Messer" is a knife, and "Meß-" means "related to a measurement".
A "Meßergebnis" is a "measurement result".
People found out that in vitro vitamin E is an antioxidant,
so they recommended it as a supplement. It's "logical"
that it should be helpful. What happened next? Quote:
The fairly minor modernizations of the French (1990) and German
(1996) orthographies also triggered major outcries. People react
with kneejerk refusal without even knowing what it is that they are
against. That's one for the psychologists. It's as if people feel
that something is taken away from them. Very odd.
I think people who are good at the existing system have an ego stake
in maintaining it.
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