English ambiguity?

[Tom Breton]

"Jim Heckman" <***@lnubb.pbz.invalid> writes:

[Including alt.language.english.spelling.reform]

[...]

And do you think speakers who *aren't* CIC would be
willing to sign on to a spelling reform that didn't reflect
their pronunciation?

In the status quo, they've signed onto worse. I doubt
"pronunciation", "distinction", or "modification" reflect your own
pronunciation. Does "tion" /***@n/ include any sounds you usually
pronounce for "t", or "i", or "o"? And how about "sign" there? Do
you pronounce a /g/ in "sign"? Or even a /dZ/?

I bet you think that's childish. One of the oddities of English
spelling reform is that English is so far gone that even a child can
spot major problems with it. And because English is so far gone, some
people treat the use of conventional spelling as some sort of mark of
education or intelligence, and therefore denigrate spelling reform.
Perverse. It would never happen in, say, Spanish.

Several regular posters to sci.lang, one in particular, will be
happy to give you several good arguments against spelling reform
of English in general.

Incorrect. I've as much experience with antireformers as anybody, and
they have chronically failed to give good arguments against spelling
reform. I've listened to them, and it was a waste of my time.

[Tom Breton]

Erik Max Francis <***@alcyone.com> writes:

[Including alt.language.english.spelling.reform]

So are you trying to design something of the sort? And if you are,

what are

the principles you use? Are you aiming for as many homographs as
possible
without it hurting?

Yes, I'm thinking of renewing the effort now that I know a bit more
about formal phonetics (I recently got a copy of _IPA Handbook_, which
I'd wish I'd read as a kid ...).

Having read an introduction to IPA as a child, it definitely colors
the way you think about pronunciation.

But no, increasing the number of
homographs was not an intended goal; I was just wondering specifically
how many additional homographs there would be if that particular
distinction was eliminated. Minimizing, or at least keeping in control,
the number of additional homographs was an intended goal.

You might want to look at what are called "root and branch" systems.
They deliberately create more homographs with variant phonetic
spellings. Some proposals, none of which impressed me:

English Simplified Spelling
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/ess.html

Fanetik: Thoroughgoing Spelling Reform for English, At Least
for Teaching:
http://members.aol.com/Fanetiks/

Phonetics
http://www.tutoru.com/Phonetics.htm


Me, I don't think that's such a great idea. Disambiguation only in
writing is worth little. Oral disambiguation by spelling-it-out is
not the only way to disambiguate words orally, and often isn't
available anyways. I don't consider the benefit worth paying for
every single time the word in question is written. It also carries
another price: misspellings. Homonyms that can be disambiguated in
writing can be misdisambiguated, eg "They're present that there
waiting for is over their", which is worse than nothing.

That's really a breach with the tradition I grew
up in
(L1 Dutch, degree in Scandinavian studies) in which distinctions of
which
there's only so much of a hint left in even the most insignificant
dialect
are reflected in spelling. So personally I would not really like a
spelling
in which the (for me) existing differences between "cot" and "caught"
aren't
reflected.

I haven't really decided whether it would be beneficial or hurtful to
eliminate the difference; as I mentioned, I was merely testing the
waters and trying to see what people might think. An interesting data
point is that there are already some dialects which do not make the
distinction, implying that the distinction is not as important as I
might have thought.

There is a common but bogus argument among antireformers, this
argument from accent variation. In my experience, antireformers place
much emphasis on accent variation, and extrapolate that no spelling
can adequately cover the many accents of English. But they are in
fact guessing, and are in fact wrong:

It is possible to develop regional pronunciations by rule from
existing standard pronunciations, and most systematic
differences can be covered this way. However, there are
certain features, for some accents in particular, which cannot
be accurately generated by this method. (The conclusion of
_The Generation Of Regional Pronunciations Of English For
Speech Synthesis_, by Susan Fitt)

NB, this is actually being done for speech synthesis, so antireform
arguments that it's impossible are unconvincing. A paper I liked on
the topic was _A Keyvowel Approach To The Synthesis of Regional
Accents In English_ by Briony Williams and Stephen Isard.

This is rooted in J C Wells' _Accents Of English_ (1982), wherein he
creates a system for classifying the vowel phonemes of English
allowing for variations across accents.

[Erik Max Francis]

Post by Tom Breton
This is rooted in J C Wells' _Accents Of English_ (1982), wherein he
creates a system for classifying the vowel phonemes of English
allowing for variations across accents.

That segues nicely into a related question I had: I'm interested in a
comprehensive analysis of accents and "dialects" of English -- primarily
American and British English, but if possible all the various English
forms (Canadian, Australian, Irish, Scottish, etc.), including all the
similarities and differences. I'd like to be a specifically scholarly
work (using IPA to distinguish the sounds), not an ESL text/audiobook or
something intended at a lay audience.

Would _Accents of English_ (Wells) or _English Accents and Dialects_
(Hughes, Trudgill, and Hughes) [although the latter is British English
only] be what I'm looking for?

Thanks.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Erik Max Francis

Post by Tom Breton
This is rooted in J C Wells' _Accents Of English_ (1982), wherein he
creates a system for classifying the vowel phonemes of English
allowing for variations across accents.

That segues nicely into a related question I had: I'm interested in a
comprehensive analysis of accents and "dialects" of English -- primarily
American and British English, but if possible all the various English
forms (Canadian, Australian, Irish, Scottish, etc.), including all the
similarities and differences. I'd like to be a specifically scholarly
work (using IPA to distinguish the sounds), not an ESL text/audiobook or
something intended at a lay audience.
Would _Accents of English_ (Wells) or _English Accents and Dialects_
(Hughes, Trudgill, and Hughes) [although the latter is British English
only] be what I'm looking for?

Yes and no respectively, the latter for exactly the reason you mention.

Wells's book is, though, 20+ years old, and the dialects have not been
static.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Tom Breton
[Including alt.language.english.spelling.reform]

So are you trying to design something of the sort? And if you are,

what are

the principles you use? Are you aiming for as many homographs as
possible
without it hurting?

Yes, I'm thinking of renewing the effort now that I know a bit more
about formal phonetics (I recently got a copy of _IPA Handbook_, which
I'd wish I'd read as a kid ...).

Having read an introduction to IPA as a child, it definitely colors
the way you think about pronunciation.

Does a.l.e.s.r. welcome dangling participles?

Post by Tom Breton

But no, increasing the number of
homographs was not an intended goal; I was just wondering specifically
how many additional homographs there would be if that particular
distinction was eliminated. Minimizing, or at least keeping in control,
the number of additional homographs was an intended goal.

You might want to look at what are called "root and branch" systems.
They deliberately create more homographs with variant phonetic
English Simplified Spelling
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/ess.html
Fanetik: Thoroughgoing Spelling Reform for English, At Least
http://members.aol.com/Fanetiks/
Phonetics
http://www.tutoru.com/Phonetics.htm
Me, I don't think that's such a great idea. Disambiguation only in
writing is worth little. Oral disambiguation by spelling-it-out is
not the only way to disambiguate words orally, and often isn't
available anyways. I don't consider the benefit worth paying for
every single time the word in question is written. It also carries
another price: misspellings. Homonyms that can be disambiguated in
writing can be misdisambiguated, eg "They're present that there
waiting for is over their", which is worse than nothing.

That's really a breach with the tradition I grew
up in
(L1 Dutch, degree in Scandinavian studies) in which distinctions of
which
there's only so much of a hint left in even the most insignificant
dialect
are reflected in spelling. So personally I would not really like a
spelling
in which the (for me) existing differences between "cot" and "caught"
aren't
reflected.

I haven't really decided whether it would be beneficial or hurtful to
eliminate the difference; as I mentioned, I was merely testing the
waters and trying to see what people might think. An interesting data
point is that there are already some dialects which do not make the
distinction, implying that the distinction is not as important as I
might have thought.

There is a common but bogus argument among antireformers, this
argument from accent variation. In my experience, antireformers place
much emphasis on accent variation, and extrapolate that no spelling
can adequately cover the many accents of English. But they are in
It is possible to develop regional pronunciations by rule from
existing standard pronunciations, and most systematic
differences can be covered this way. However, there are
certain features, for some accents in particular, which cannot
be accurately generated by this method. (The conclusion of
_The Generation Of Regional Pronunciations Of English For
Speech Synthesis_, by Susan Fitt)
NB, this is actually being done for speech synthesis, so antireform
arguments that it's impossible are unconvincing. A paper I liked on
the topic was _A Keyvowel Approach To The Synthesis of Regional
Accents In English_ by Briony Williams and Stephen Isard.
This is rooted in J C Wells' _Accents Of English_ (1982), wherein he
creates a system for classifying the vowel phonemes of English
allowing for variations across accents.

How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography. And those countries that keep trying
reforms (Norway, Netherlands) do that only for the most important
authors -- you can Ibsen in modern spelling, but probably not whoever
was the third-best playwright of his time.

And there's so much _more_ literature in English than in just about any
other language that there's no possibility that any but the tiniest
fraction would be updated.

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography. And those countries that keep trying
reforms (Norway, Netherlands) do that only for the most important
authors -- you can Ibsen in modern spelling, but probably not whoever
was the third-best playwright of his time.
And there's so much _more_ literature in English than in just about any
other language that there's no possibility that any but the tiniest
fraction would be updated.

That's bogus now. We have adequate text-to-speech software. And
speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy. And OCR to do
paper-to-text is not real bad and improving.

So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be trivially easy
and cheap to update any english literature that someone wanted to read.
It would be easy and cheap to update anybody today who's considered
important enough to have his writing converted to text already, once the
phonetic alphabet specs are provided.

Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels
How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography. And those countries that keep trying
reforms (Norway, Netherlands) do that only for the most important
authors -- you can Ibsen in modern spelling, but probably not whoever
was the third-best playwright of his time.
And there's so much _more_ literature in English than in just about any
other language that there's no possibility that any but the tiniest
fraction would be updated.

That's bogus now. We have adequate text-to-speech software. And

Splork!

Post by jonah thomas
speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy.

Splork!

Post by jonah thomas
And OCR to do
paper-to-text is not real bad and improving.
So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be trivially easy
and cheap to update any english literature that someone wanted to read.
It would be easy and cheap to update anybody today who's considered
important enough to have his writing converted to text already, once the
phonetic alphabet specs are provided.
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

How many items are housed in the Library of Congress and the British
Library (to start with merely the top)?

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

How many items are housed in the Library of Congress and the British
Library (to start with merely the top)?

It doesn't matter. If they get transliterated when somebody wants them,
then you get an estimate of which works nobody ever looks at. No
problem at all.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

How many items are housed in the Library of Congress and the British
Library (to start with merely the top)?

It doesn't matter. If they get transliterated when somebody wants them,
then you get an estimate of which works nobody ever looks at. No
problem at all.

Obviously you've never done any sort of research work ("literature
search") at all.

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

How many items are housed in the Library of Congress and the British
Library (to start with merely the top)?

It doesn't matter. If they get transliterated when somebody wants them,
then you get an estimate of which works nobody ever looks at. No
problem at all.

Obviously you've never done any sort of research work ("literature
search") at all.

Of course I have. But you see, once each piece of literature is
converted into a text file the rest of the process will take a fraction
of a second. And within a hundred years we'll likely have technology
that will let the Library of Congress scan a book without opening it.
(The most obvious approach is to dump a cartful of books into an MRI
scanner and scan the whole mess. Then separate it out into pages and
map out the ink on the pages and you're set.)

So it would take very little human intervention, mostly choosing the
books and putting them on the cart. Then wait something between 2 hours
and 2 days for the MRI scan (depending on the technology, those scans
are kind of slow).

Assuming the worst case, 2 days for a cartful of 1000 books and only 100
MRI machines available, that's only 50,000 books a day. So you'd have
to prioritise. At 200 working days a year you'd only get 10,000,000
books a year scanned. So when somebody goes to LoC and wants a book
that's only in an obsolete alphabet he can't read (because he's the
first one who ever asked for it), he requests it and it goes into the
first cart and he gets it 2 days later.

On the other hand, if instead of 2 days it takes 2 hours, then they can
save money and buy only 5 MRI machines and still get it to him in 2 days
or better.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

How many items are housed in the Library of Congress and the British
Library (to start with merely the top)?

It doesn't matter. If they get transliterated when somebody wants them,
then you get an estimate of which works nobody ever looks at. No
problem at all.

Obviously you've never done any sort of research work ("literature
search") at all.

Of course I have. But you see, once each piece of literature is
converted into a text file

And who's going to do the converting?

Post by jonah thomas
the rest of the process will take a fraction
of a second. And within a hundred years we'll likely have technology
that will let the Library of Congress scan a book without opening it.
(The most obvious approach is to dump a cartful of books into an MRI
scanner and scan the whole mess. Then separate it out into pages and
map out the ink on the pages and you're set.)

Splork!

Post by jonah thomas
So it would take very little human intervention, mostly choosing the
books and putting them on the cart. Then wait something between 2 hours
and 2 days for the MRI scan (depending on the technology, those scans
are kind of slow).

Do you have the _slightest_ idea what you're talking about? When's the
last time you even opened a book?

Post by jonah thomas
Assuming the worst case, 2 days for a cartful of 1000 books and only 100
MRI machines available, that's only 50,000 books a day. So you'd have
to prioritise. At 200 working days a year you'd only get 10,000,000
books a year scanned. So when somebody goes to LoC and wants a book
that's only in an obsolete alphabet he can't read (because he's the
first one who ever asked for it), he requests it and it goes into the
first cart and he gets it 2 days later.
On the other hand, if instead of 2 days it takes 2 hours, then they can
save money and buy only 5 MRI machines and still get it to him in 2 days
or better.

Whereas, even at today's understaffed LoC and BL, an item is normally
paged within one hour. At the NYPL (42nd St., the recently renamed
Humanities Research Center), it rarely takes as long as 15 minutes.

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
Assuming the worst case, 2 days for a cartful of 1000 books and only 100
MRI machines available, that's only 50,000 books a day. So you'd have
to prioritise. At 200 working days a year you'd only get 10,000,000
books a year scanned. So when somebody goes to LoC and wants a book
that's only in an obsolete alphabet he can't read (because he's the
first one who ever asked for it), he requests it and it goes into the
first cart and he gets it 2 days later.
On the other hand, if instead of 2 days it takes 2 hours, then they can
save money and buy only 5 MRI machines and still get it to him in 2 days
or better.

Whereas, even at today's understaffed LoC and BL, an item is normally
paged within one hour. At the NYPL (42nd St., the recently renamed
Humanities Research Center), it rarely takes as long as 15 minutes.

Sure, but that would be pretty much instant for things that have
*already* been converted. And they'd be getting converted at ten
million books a year, starting with the ones that get accessed most often.

It's a non-problem.

I think your problem here is that you're used to 1980's technology,
while any reasonable projection for spelling reform has to put it no
sooner than 2020.

[Tom Breton]

Post by jonah thomas
So it would take very little human intervention, mostly choosing the
books and putting them on the cart. Then wait something between 2 hours
and 2 days for the MRI scan (depending on the technology, those scans
are kind of slow).

ISTM the MRI scan and other internal scanning technology would be more
appropriate for fragile works of archaeological importance, eg, the
Dead Sea Scrolls (*).

For not-so-fragile works that have half a chance of being read by a
normal human reader anyways, why not an optical scanner and mechanical
page-turner, which are possible today? Or even let the reader himself
scan them in to be converted? Any physical problems eg stuck-together
pages would have to be surmounted anyways, regardless which spelling
is used.


(* Though last I read of it, they were not doing that with the
scrolls. They just mounted them on some backing and had them under
glass so they could be inspected without being handled. Dunno if
they've done more now)

[jonah thomas]

Post by Tom Breton

Post by jonah thomas
So it would take very little human intervention, mostly choosing the
books and putting them on the cart. Then wait something between 2 hours
and 2 days for the MRI scan (depending on the technology, those scans
are kind of slow).

ISTM the MRI scan and other internal scanning technology would be more
appropriate for fragile works of archaeological importance, eg, the
Dead Sea Scrolls (*).

Because it's expensive.

Post by Tom Breton
For not-so-fragile works that have half a chance of being read by a
normal human reader anyways, why not an optical scanner and mechanical
page-turner, which are possible today? Or even let the reader himself
scan them in to be converted? Any physical problems eg stuck-together
pages would have to be surmounted anyways, regardless which spelling
is used.

That's how I'd do it today. But if we're going to wait until a phonetic
alphabet gets accepted, we have the luxury of doing it better.

If you do MRI scans you can read the stuck-together pages without
separating them, which is a plus. Much less wear-and-tear on the books,
and you don't have to scan books a page at a time or even a book at a
time. Give it a few years and the MRI prices will come down a lot too.

This is entirely a side issue, I'm just pointing out that if we assume a
reasonable timescale then the technological issues mostly go away.
We're talking about things that are almost feasible now, that will keep
getting easier.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Tom Breton
ISTM the MRI scan and other internal scanning technology would be more
appropriate for fragile works of archaeological importance, eg, the
Dead Sea Scrolls (*).
(* Though last I read of it, they were not doing that with the
scrolls. They just mounted them on some backing and had them under
glass so they could be inspected without being handled. Dunno if
they've done more now)

What for? It's not like they're palimpsests or anything.

The unopenable scrolls have apparently melted together, so there would
be nothing there for the MRI to find.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> That's bogus now. We have adequate text-to-speech
jonah> software.

Adequate? Such as Stephen Hawking's computer generating speech in an
American accent?


jonah> And speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy.

Only in your fantasy. Study some basics of signal processing and then
pattern recognition and you'll start to appreciate the miracles of a
3-year-old's brain.


jonah> And OCR to do paper-to-text is not real bad and improving.

They have been improving for a long time -- I mean decades. And still
just "not real bad". Shouldn't that shine some light on you about how
difficult that is?


jonah> So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be
jonah> trivially easy and cheap to update any english literature
jonah> that someone wanted to read. It would be easy and cheap to
jonah> update anybody today who's considered important enough to
jonah> have his writing converted to text already, once the
jonah> phonetic alphabet specs are provided.

Even if you live in a dream-work where we have 100% accurate
text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools, you still have a problem that
can't be solved by technology: should the speech be
generated/recognized in the American accent, the British accent, the
Australian accent, the Indian accent, the Singaporean accent, or what?
Should it distinguish "cot" and "caught" in the speech signal?


jonah> Since it isn't hard today,

If you believe it's not hard, why don't you do it?

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> That's bogus now. We have adequate text-to-speech
jonah> software.
Adequate? Such as Stephen Hawking's computer generating speech in an
American accent?

You got a problem with that, buddy?

Right here on this newsgroup we have people complaining that different
people have different accents, and now you complain about standardising
accents. But it isn't an issue. We aren't going to get some
international standard english committee to decide what the standard
accent will be. This is a problem for *non*phonetic alphabets.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> And speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy.
Only in your fantasy. Study some basics of signal processing and then
pattern recognition and you'll start to appreciate the miracles of a
3-year-old's brain.

Well, it's particularly easy when the speech is computer-generated. You
could even leave out a couple of the harder steps.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> And OCR to do paper-to-text is not real bad and improving.
They have been improving for a long time -- I mean decades. And still
just "not real bad". Shouldn't that shine some light on you about how
difficult that is?

Consider how long it will take us to actually get a degree of spelling
reform. A lot of people who think about the issue don't even consider
a timetable, since they oppose the idea. So before we actually get
spelling reform it will be necessary to convince the opponents who're
open to being convinced. (A large minority of opponents are hidebound
reactionaries who aren't open to evidence, and will never be convinced.)
Then we'll have a whole lot of inertia to overcome. And there are the
initial costs, with the payoffs in the future, mostly for ESL and people
who're children now. Everybody who's already literate in english have
made whatever accomodation to english spelling they can, and they'd have
to learn something new even if the new thing is better.

So the fact is, we have *further* decades before we'll need the improved
OCR. There's plenty of time.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be
jonah> trivially easy and cheap to update any english literature
jonah> that someone wanted to read. It would be easy and cheap to
jonah> update anybody today who's considered important enough to
jonah> have his writing converted to text already, once the
jonah> phonetic alphabet specs are provided.
Even if you live in a dream-work where we have 100% accurate
text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools, you still have a problem that
can't be solved by technology: should the speech be
generated/recognized in the American accent, the British accent, the
Australian accent, the Indian accent, the Singaporean accent, or what?
Should it distinguish "cot" and "caught" in the speech signal?

You're completely missing the point. If we decide on a single accent
that all phonetic spellings must be spelled in, we'll quickly get the
same problems over again as the language that people actually speak changes.

Let people spell things however they think best. We'll get a lot of
regional accents, and we'll tend to get one or a few that tend to
dominate. People may tend to learn to write one of those because
everybody else does. People may tend to learn to speak a standard
dialect because everybody else does, and they'll use it for official
communications and to talk to strangers. All just like it is now,
except easier.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> Since it isn't hard today,
If you believe it's not hard, why don't you do it?

Do you have a market? The market I'm looking at is decades down the
road. If you know of contracts this year I'd be interested.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> And speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
Only in your fantasy. Study some basics of signal processing
and then pattern recognition and you'll start to appreciate the
miracles of a 3-year-old's brain.

jonah> Well, it's particularly easy when the speech is
jonah> computer-generated. You could even leave out a couple of
jonah> the harder steps.

It's a ridiculous approach if the speech was computer-generated.
You're saying that you let computer A generate speech S from text T,
and then you feed S to computer B and let B recognize the sounds and
generate text T2, and hope that T2==T? Why are you doing that in the
first place? Why not simply copy T from computer A to computer B, so
that computer B is guaranteed to get a T2==T?


jonah> Everybody who's already literate in english have made
jonah> whatever accomodation to english spelling they can, and
jonah> they'd have to learn something new even if the new thing is
jonah> better.

The problem is that those who have problems with English spellings
could overcome the problem with a little bit of learning. The mindset
"that's my native language; I don't need to learn it" is the major
obstacle. It's so ironic that I've met so many non-native speakers
who can spell English much more accurately than the (lazy) native
speakers. The L2er need not only learn the spellings, but also the
language (which includes vocabulary -- English has a huge one --,
grammar and pronunciation -- English has so many sounds). There is no
excuse for the native speakers to just sit there and complain the
spelling, which they just don't want to learn.



jonah> So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be
jonah> trivially easy and cheap to update any english literature
jonah> that someone wanted to read.

It's already been centuries that people propose to reform English
spellings. How much longer do you expect to wait? Google the Shavian
alphabet, for instance.


jonah> It would be easy and cheap to update anybody today who's
jonah> considered important enough to have his writing converted
jonah> to text already, once the phonetic alphabet specs are
jonah> provided.

A new writing system doesn't have to be phonetic. Google "Yingzi" for
some interesting ideas.

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> And speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
Only in your fantasy. Study some basics of signal processing
and then pattern recognition and you'll start to appreciate the
miracles of a 3-year-old's brain.

jonah> Well, it's particularly easy when the speech is
jonah> computer-generated. You could even leave out a couple of
jonah> the harder steps.
It's a ridiculous approach if the speech was computer-generated.
You're saying that you let computer A generate speech S from text T,
and then you feed S to computer B and let B recognize the sounds and
generate text T2, and hope that T2==T? Why are you doing that in the
first place? Why not simply copy T from computer A to computer B, so
that computer B is guaranteed to get a T2==T?

The intention is to start with an obsolete-english text, and end up with
a modern-english text with phonetic spelling. To automate that you have
to guess at pronunciation for the obsolete text. We have a start at
guessing at pronunciation from traditional spelling, so that isn't
implausible.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> Everybody who's already literate in english have made
jonah> whatever accomodation to english spelling they can, and
jonah> they'd have to learn something new even if the new thing is
jonah> better.
The problem is that those who have problems with English spellings
could overcome the problem with a little bit of learning. The mindset
"that's my native language; I don't need to learn it" is the major
obstacle. It's so ironic that I've met so many non-native speakers
who can spell English much more accurately than the (lazy) native
speakers. The L2er need not only learn the spellings, but also the
language (which includes vocabulary -- English has a huge one --,
grammar and pronunciation -- English has so many sounds). There is no
excuse for the native speakers to just sit there and complain the
spelling, which they just don't want to learn.

I personally learned spelling just by reading. My visual thinking made
it easy, and luckily I mostly read things that weren't misspelled. But
auditory thinkers have it hard. I don't see why they should be burdened
with the useless claptrap of traditional spelling.

There is an excuse for those complaints -- you're asking them to work at
something that is in no way needed.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be
jonah> trivially easy and cheap to update any english literature
jonah> that someone wanted to read.
It's already been centuries that people propose to reform English
spellings. How much longer do you expect to wait? Google the Shavian
alphabet, for instance.

It will take some time.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> It would be easy and cheap to update anybody today who's
jonah> considered important enough to have his writing converted
jonah> to text already, once the phonetic alphabet specs are
jonah> provided.
A new writing system doesn't have to be phonetic. Google "Yingzi" for
some interesting ideas.

That's true, it doesn't have to be phonetic to be new. I see some
advantages to phonetic spelling. If you have an alternative that you
want to push, you're welcome to post it here.

I looked up yingzi. Ah! Pan Yingzi is hot! Anyway, I don't yet see
the advantage of an ideographic system for english. It might be an
improvement on english spelling as it is currently, but it seems to me
no competition for a phonetic system. Would you suggest this as a
better system?

[LEE Sau Dan]

The problem is that those who have problems with English
spellings could overcome the problem with a little bit of
learning. The mindset "that's my native language; I don't need
to learn it" is the major obstacle. It's so ironic that I've
met so many non-native speakers who can spell English much more
accurately than the (lazy) native speakers. The L2er need not
only learn the spellings, but also the language (which includes
vocabulary -- English has a huge one --, grammar and
pronunciation -- English has so many sounds). There is no
excuse for the native speakers to just sit there and complain
the spelling, which they just don't want to learn.

jonah> I personally learned spelling just by reading.

I learnt them by reading AND studying.


jonah> My visual thinking made it easy,

Me too. I can dissociate spelling from sounds, and directly read from
the spellings, without bothering with the sounds. That's so much
faster than having to think about the sounds and then trying to
understand the sounds.


jonah> and luckily I mostly read things that weren't misspelled.

Me too.


jonah> But auditory thinkers have it hard. I don't see why they
jonah> should be burdened with the useless claptrap of traditional
jonah> spelling.

But I'm quite tolerant to misspellings. Proofreading other's English
writing (including both grammar and spelling) isn't hard for me. I
can tolerate and understand them on the one hand, and I'm sensitive to
spelling errors on the other hand. I just have to "feel" that the
spelling is wrong when I glance over the line of text. No need to
think about the pronunciation. A more or less shape-based
recognition. (e.g. I mistyped "misspelt" as "mispelt" just then, and
my eyes have detected it before I finished typing that sentence. How
could the sounds help in this case?)



jonah> There is an excuse for those complaints -- you're asking
jonah> them to work at something that is in no way needed.

No. I'm asking them to do what they SHOULD do. If not being able to
spell hurts (e.g. their career), then you can't say it's "in now way
needed". Is communciation with others "in no way needed"? I believe
this type of people would still spell words wrong, even when we've got
a perfectly phonemic writing system. They could then come to complain
that the 26 letters (assuming we kept the same alphabet) are too many
to learn. It's so easy to invent an excuse to be lazy.



jonah> That's true, it doesn't have to be phonetic to be new. I
jonah> see some advantages to phonetic spelling. If you have an
jonah> alternative that you want to push, you're welcome to post
jonah> it here.

I'm not going to push anything. I'm just letting you know some
alternatives.


jonah> I looked up yingzi. Ah! Pan Yingzi is hot! Anyway, I
jonah> don't yet see the advantage of an ideographic system for
jonah> english.

Maybe simply because you haven't used it.


jonah> It might be an improvement on english spelling as it is
jonah> currently, but it seems to me no competition for a phonetic
jonah> system. Would you suggest this as a better system?

Could be. Who knows. But I find the current system, which I treat as
a mnemonic one rather than a phonetic one, very good and satisfactory.
The current English spellings, as a phonetic system, is really bad.
But as a mnemonic system, it's adequate. Remember, once you stop
considering it a phonetic system and start to treat it as a mnemonic
one, you'll find those "complaints" to be invalid. (So, please stop
inventing problems to complain, when the "problems" aren't existent.)
A mnemonic writing system, as English is today, has many advantages,
which the current English writing system also exhibits. E.g. being
insensitive to accent variations (whether it's due to differences in
space or time).

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan

The problem is that those who have problems with English
spellings could overcome the problem with a little bit of
learning. The mindset "that's my native language; I don't need
to learn it" is the major obstacle. It's so ironic that I've
met so many non-native speakers who can spell English much more
accurately than the (lazy) native speakers. The L2er need not
only learn the spellings, but also the language (which includes
vocabulary -- English has a huge one --, grammar and
pronunciation -- English has so many sounds). There is no
excuse for the native speakers to just sit there and complain
the spelling, which they just don't want to learn.

jonah> I personally learned spelling just by reading.
I learnt them by reading AND studying.
jonah> My visual thinking made it easy,
Me too. I can dissociate spelling from sounds, and directly read from
the spellings, without bothering with the sounds. That's so much
faster than having to think about the sounds and then trying to
understand the sounds.
jonah> and luckily I mostly read things that weren't misspelled.
Me too.
jonah> But auditory thinkers have it hard. I don't see why they
jonah> should be burdened with the useless claptrap of traditional
jonah> spelling.
But I'm quite tolerant to misspellings. Proofreading other's English
writing (including both grammar and spelling) isn't hard for me. I
can tolerate and understand them on the one hand, and I'm sensitive to
spelling errors on the other hand. I just have to "feel" that the
spelling is wrong when I glance over the line of text. No need to
think about the pronunciation. A more or less shape-based
recognition. (e.g. I mistyped "misspelt" as "mispelt" just then, and
my eyes have detected it before I finished typing that sentence. How
could the sounds help in this case?)
jonah> There is an excuse for those complaints -- you're asking
jonah> them to work at something that is in no way needed.
No. I'm asking them to do what they SHOULD do. If not being able to
spell hurts (e.g. their career), then you can't say it's "in now way
needed". Is communciation with others "in no way needed"? I believe
this type of people would still spell words wrong, even when we've got
a perfectly phonemic writing system. They could then come to complain
that the 26 letters (assuming we kept the same alphabet) are too many
to learn. It's so easy to invent an excuse to be lazy.

I want to suggest that you are the worst person to make this claim. As
someone who's unusually good at handling the problems of the current
system, you disqualify yourself for deciding how important those
problems are.

It's natural for you to say "If the majority of the population has
trouble competing with me at this unnecessary task, they should just try
harder, I'm at the top and I want to stay that way.". But that doesn't
help solve the problem. In the USA we build wheelchair ramps at all the
intersections so people in wheelchairs can cross streets. (We started
doing that when a prominent politician was shot and confined to a
wheelchair.) We don't say "If cripples want to cross streets they
should exercise harder so they can carry their wheelchairs up curbs.".
It costs very little extra to put a wheelchair ramp into a new piece of
concrete, and it is good for the economy -- when people with wheelchairs
don't need someone to push them then that's good for them. And if the
people who would otherwise be pushing wheelchairs can find other work,
then the economy as a whole is more productive.

I've noticed the same thing with computing languages. I find C a
moderately powerful and expressive language, although I'm much more
productive with languages that require less redundancy. Probably the
majority of the population would not be willing to learn C at all, and a
large minority would be unable to learn C. Faced with the possibility
of people learning easier languages, some C programmers say "I'm the
best there is at C, and I say C is the best language. Anybody who can't
program in C shouldn't be programming at all. Programming takes real
skill and that's why I bring in the big bucks." Even if they themselves
would be more productive with a better language, they instinctively look
at the bottom line. Would they make more money if they were more
productive? It isn't clear that they would. So they champion the
tradition.

Spelling reform isn't primarily for people like you and me who could
learn any spelling system, who would only be slowed down a little by
awful spelling systems. It's for the economy as a whole.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas
In the USA we build wheelchair ramps at all the
intersections so people in wheelchairs can cross streets. (We started
doing that when a prominent politician was shot and confined to a
wheelchair.)

Are you talking about George Wallace or James Brady? Either way, I think
your history lesson is a bit off.

And LSD's command of written English is not at all exceptional. It's
unusual in a non-native speaker, but it matches the competence of just
about anyone who needs to use written English in daily life -- which is
a very small number of people.

[GEO]

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:07:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And LSD's command of written English is not at all exceptional. It's
unusual in a non-native speaker, but it matches the competence of just
about anyone who needs to use written English in daily life -- which is
a very small number of people.
--

Obviously you must be thinking of a small part of the academic
community, because you won't find the same level of competence in the
the business community, or in a number of political figures.
Your answer smacks of arrogance.

Geo

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by GEO
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:07:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And LSD's command of written English is not at all exceptional. It's
unusual in a non-native speaker, but it matches the competence of just
about anyone who needs to use written English in daily life -- which is
a very small number of people.
--

Obviously you must be thinking of a small part of the academic
community, because you won't find the same level of competence in the
the business community, or in a number of political figures.
Your answer smacks of arrogance.

How much writing do such people do? That's why they hire "speechwriters"
and "copywriters" and all.

Everyone needs to be able to read at least to some extent. Very few
people need to be able to write.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Peter> And LSD's command of written English is not at all
Peter> exceptional.

And don't make any expectations of my spoken English just by judging
my written English. My pronunciations may sound strange to you, and I
do much more grammatical mistakes when I speak. Mainly not using
plural forms (or using plurals wrongly) and using wrong tense forms.
I used to use "have" and "has" correctly, but recently, I often mix
them up. I find myself saying "he doesn't has" more and more. :(

BTW, I got a 4.5 in the TWE (Test of Written English) when I sat for
TOEFL 5 years ago. Their scale ranges from is 1--5, with 5 being
"native speaker" level, and 1 being the worst. Anyway, don't trust
TOEFL results. I've met so many Chinese who score almost full (667)
in TOEFL and more who get higher scores (e.g. >630) than would a
native speaker. But their English is totally unintelligible to native
speakers, and they have much difficulty understanding a normal
conversation. They can read reasonably well, but they don't write
well.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> It's natural for you to say "If the majority of the
jonah> population has trouble competing with me at this
jonah> unnecessary task, they should just try harder, I'm at the
jonah> top and I want to stay that way.". But that doesn't help
jonah> solve the problem.

But I'm not at the top, in the first place. And I'm not as lonely as
being at the top. There are so many people who can do as well as I
do.


jonah> In the USA we build wheelchair ramps at all the
jonah> intersections so people in wheelchairs can cross streets.

Because you can afford it. Space is cheap in the US anyway. Come to
my home city Hong Kong and see how you can find room to build those
ramps in our streets.


jonah> It costs very little extra to put a wheelchair ramp into a
jonah> new piece of concrete, and it is good for the economy

Not true when you're in a city where land price cost millions per
sq. meter. and flats in crowded skyscrapping buildings cost more than
US$500 per sq. feet.


jonah> -- when people with wheelchairs don't need someone
jonah> to push them then that's good for them.

The US is technologically very advanced, right? Energy is cheap
there, too, right? Why not have electrically propelled wheelchair?


jonah> And if the people who would otherwise be pushing
jonah> wheelchairs can find other work, then the economy as a
jonah> whole is more productive.

That's just the optimitistic view. The fact: more people become
jobless, UNemployed.

Have the computerization and automation caused more people to be using
their time more productively, or have they caused more unemployment?


jonah> I've noticed the same thing with computing languages. I
jonah> find C a moderately powerful and expressive language,
jonah> although I'm much more productive with languages that
jonah> require less redundancy. Probably the majority of the
jonah> population would not be willing to learn C at all, and a
jonah> large minority would be unable to learn C. Faced with the
jonah> possibility of people learning easier languages, some C
jonah> programmers say "I'm the best there is at C, and I say C is
jonah> the best language. Anybody who can't program in C
jonah> shouldn't be programming at all.

I've been programming in C for over 10 years and I still like
programming in C. But I would frown upon people who insist on using C
and spending hours on writing a long piece of code just to do
something thing can be done in 10 minutes (including debugging) in
just a few lines of Perl. I tell people to use the right tool do do
the job right. Even when that right tool is totally new to him. When
it's the right tool, it worths learning.



jonah> Spelling reform isn't primarily for people like you and me
jonah> who could learn any spelling system, who would only be
jonah> slowed down a little by awful spelling systems. It's for
jonah> the economy as a whole.

The economy as a whole would be better off if most people have the
right attitude: willing to accept the challenge to learn something.

[Herman Rubin]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels
How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography. And those countries that keep trying
reforms (Norway, Netherlands) do that only for the most important
authors -- you can Ibsen in modern spelling, but probably not whoever
was the third-best playwright of his time.
And there's so much _more_ literature in English than in just about any
other language that there's no possibility that any but the tiniest
fraction would be updated.

That's bogus now. We have adequate text-to-speech software. And
speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software would be easy. And OCR to do
paper-to-text is not real bad and improving.
So by the time we could do spelling reform it would be trivially easy
and cheap to update any english literature that someone wanted to read.
It would be easy and cheap to update anybody today who's considered
important enough to have his writing converted to text already, once the
phonetic alphabet specs are provided.
Since it isn't hard today, based on work that's developed over at most
30 years, and the spelling reform would take at least a hundred years to
establish, the straight-line estimate is that the conversions would be
at least 4 times as good as they are now. Trivial.

All of this is essentially irrelevant, as English is
generally much harder to understand even "correctly"
pronounced compared to written. This assumes we can
agree on pronunciation, which is clearly not the case.

In addition, the written word often conveys the
etymology, which also contains information for those who
are willing to understand structure, which is often, if
not usually, lost in the oral version.

A small amount of spelling reform may be all right, but
if changes are needed, change the pronunciation to match
the spelling, not the other way. Unless there are vocal
patterns, such as rhymes, who cares how it is pronounced?
Also, the lack of total phoneticization makes puns and
other such possible.

[David Bowie]

Herman Rubin wrote:

<snip>

: A small amount of spelling reform may be all right, but
: if changes are needed, change the pronunciation to match
: the spelling, not the other way...

I like this! It makes the <gh> in light, night, &c. make a lot more sense.
I can just see it--cheering throngs chanting "Bring back the voiced velar
fricative!" and "Twa! Feower! Sex! Eahta! Who do we appreciahta!"

<snip>

Okay, i'll go back to work, now.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Herman> All of this is essentially irrelevant, as English is
Herman> generally much harder to understand even "correctly"
Herman> pronounced compared to written. This assumes we can agree
Herman> on pronunciation, which is clearly not the case.

Herman> In addition, the written word often conveys the etymology,
Herman> which also contains information for those who are willing
Herman> to understand structure, which is often, if not usually,
Herman> lost in the oral version.

Yeah! Let's promote "international English" as a variant of English
where words are pronounced as spelt. Let every native speaker learn
the "international English" as L2. That'd make these people aware of
the fact that they need to learn if you want to communicate properly.
They shouldn't take it for granted anymore that "everyone is speaking
my language already". (We may end up with something similar to Middle
English.)

Let's start to pronounce the lost sounds, like "k" in "knight",
"know", "knee" and "gh" in "eight", "rough", "right".

Are there already native speakers pronouncing the "t" in "question"
and "often"?

[Tom Breton]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Tom Breton
Having read an introduction to IPA as a child, it definitely colors
the way you think about pronunciation.

Does a.l.e.s.r. welcome dangling participles?

Being a former long-time participant in a.l.e.s.r, I would say that,
not having written the above in a formal register, ...



[...]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography.

To some degree. And I'm glad that you restricted it to subsequent
generations and exempted republished literature. Previous
antireformers didn't seem to think of those things.

Yet it's not neccessarily the case that older works would be
indecipherable to the ordinary reader, as opposed to more difficult.

Also, consider the typical age of books the general public is exposed
to. Say, at your local library: How many books were published within
the last 20 years? within the last 40? For me, that's 2/3+ and 99%+.
If I look hard, I can find maybe a dozen books from the 50's, among
their collection of (vague estimate) 100,000. And that's a lower
bound. Libraries, being repositories, tend to skew old. Other
sources like (non-specialist) booksellers skew much newer. So people
are mostly not exposed to unreprinted older material anyways.

And while new generations would read less of older works, they would
read more of new ones, thanks to easier reading. Dyslexia under more
phonetic writing systems is about 1/4 what it is in English. In the
interests of full disclosure, the titles below refer to popular
accounts of a single study:

ScienceDaily Magazine -- Dyslexia Study In Science Highlights
The Impact Of English, French, And Italian Writing Systems

Scientific American: News In Brief: Scientists Explain Rates
of Dyslexia: March 16, 2001

(I have urls for these if you want to try but the links have
probably long vanished)

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And those countries that keep trying
reforms (Norway, Netherlands) do that only for the most important
authors -- you can Ibsen in modern spelling, but probably not whoever
was the third-best playwright of his time.
And there's so much _more_ literature in English than in just about any
other language that there's no possibility that any but the tiniest
fraction would be updated.

Well, everything that was ever in electronic form, for starters. One
would need to disambiguate homographs' word-senses (eg "polish"), but
this is a pretty light load for unsupervised word-sense
disambiguation. I know you don't like computational linguistics, but
it's available.

This idea has come up before. One antireformer (not you) tried to
claim that it was next to impossible for modern publishers to lay
hands on electronic copies (hard disk, floppy disk, tape) of their own
publications. But after checking with my sister-in-law who runs a
very small publishing house, I can say that keeping electronic copies
is the norm.

[Brian M. Scott]

On 05 Dec 2003 17:57:11 -0500, Tom Breton
[...]

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
How could I have left out Objection #3: Spelling reform cuts off all
subsequent generations from all previous literature, unless it's
republished in the new orthography.

To some degree. And I'm glad that you restricted it to subsequent
generations and exempted republished literature. Previous
antireformers didn't seem to think of those things.

Not *all* republished literature; only literature republished
_in_the_new_orthography_. This is a significant difference.

Post by Tom Breton
Yet it's not neccessarily the case that older works would be
indecipherable to the ordinary reader, as opposed to more difficult.

Obviously. But when you increase the difficulty, you lose
readers.

Post by Tom Breton
Also, consider the typical age of books the general public is exposed
to. Say, at your local library: How many books were published within
the last 20 years? within the last 40? For me, that's 2/3+ and 99%+.
If I look hard, I can find maybe a dozen books from the 50's, among
their collection of (vague estimate) 100,000. And that's a lower
bound. Libraries, being repositories, tend to skew old.

Not as much as you probably think: most of them have well-defined
replacement policies that lead to quite considerable turnover.

Post by Tom Breton
Other
sources like (non-specialist) booksellers skew much newer. So people
are mostly not exposed to unreprinted older material anyways.

You seem to be assuming that everything that is now reprinted
would be brought up to date orthographically and reprinted; this
is unlikely.

Post by Tom Breton
And while new generations would read less of older works, they would
read more of new ones, thanks to easier reading.

This is not clear. I have yet to see any solid indication that
dyslexia is a major cause of lack of desire to read for pleasure;
other reasons appear to be more significant.

[...]

Post by Tom Breton
This idea has come up before. One antireformer (not you) tried to
claim that it was next to impossible for modern publishers to lay
hands on electronic copies (hard disk, floppy disk, tape) of their own
publications. But after checking with my sister-in-law who runs a
very small publishing house, I can say that keeping electronic copies
is the norm.

I suggest that you look a bit further. I do not know whether it
is in fact the norm or not, but I do know that there are enormous
differences in this respect among publishing houses.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Tom> In the interests of full disclosure,
Tom> the titles below refer to popular accounts of a single study:

Tom> ScienceDaily Magazine -- Dyslexia Study In Science
Tom> Highlights The Impact Of English, French, And Italian Writing
Tom> Systems

Tom> Scientific American: News In Brief: Scientists
Tom> Explain Rates of Dyslexia: March 16, 2001

Funny, have they evern made any comparisons with Japanese -- the most
difficult writing system? Is Dyslexia common in Japan?



Tom> This idea has come up before. One antireformer (not you)
Tom> tried to claim that it was next to impossible for modern
Tom> publishers to lay hands on electronic copies (hard disk,
Tom> floppy disk, tape) of their own publications. But after
Tom> checking with my sister-in-law who runs a very small
Tom> publishing house, I can say that keeping electronic copies is
Tom> the norm.

The publishers like to publish everything in paper copies, because IMO
they can earn (more) money by doing that. Many publishers are now
putting some of their books and journals on-line as PDF files, too.
Of course, they charge for downloads, except for some "samples" or a
few pages of the table of contents. I believe they earn less by doing
so, because more money goes to the ISP, Web-hosting companies, etc.
They don't have much economical advantage in the virtual world, when
compared to the real world where nobody can practically publish a book
without a publisher. In the virtual world, distributing information
is so easy. So, even though their production cost is reduced in the
virtual medium (because they save paper, ink, etc.), they don't earn
as much as doing paper copies.

However, the publishing industry have already computerized much of
their infrastructure, beginning in the 80s. Since then, many of them
accept manuscripts or camera-ready copies in electronic formats
(e.g. LaTeX, Postscript, PDF) from authors. I would be silly to
simply delete these files once the printing is done.

[Tom Breton]

Erik Max Francis <***@alcyone.com> writes:

[Including alt.language.english.spelling.reform]

[...]

The subtext (probably obvious to those who have replied) is that I'm
curious about English (not just American English) spelling reform, and
am wondering if the elimination of that distinction would cause
significant harm. When I was a young boy I came up with an English
phonetic dspelling system I came to the (hardly scholarly) conclusion
that it wouldn't, and due to renewed interest after learning Shavian I'm
wondering if that might be the case at all.

To take this in a slightly different spelling reform direction, I've
been musing on the idea of improving both spelling phonetics and the
notoriously suboptimal QWERTY keyboard at the same time, by a single
reform.

Basically the idea is that we'd start with an English vocabulary,
tagged with frequencies, written in keysymbols. Say, the Unisyn
Lexicon or a feature set derived from it.

We push the vocabulary through a maximum entropy modeller, mapping it
to input symbols such that the home row of the existing QWERTY
keyboard is favored and alternating hands are favored. (Those are the
same desiderata that Dvorak used to design the Dvorak kbd)

The end product would be phonetically regular almost regardless of
accent and convenient to type, but would bear no graphemical
resemblance to English.

So this would come at the price of initial familiarity, but given the
resistance to spelling reform because "it looks like he can't spell!",
that feature might actually help its acceptance.


Remember, you heard it from me first. }:)


To be sure, there are some additional complications. For one, the
approach of using vocabulary words doesn't account for how affixes
combine phonetically with roots. Presumably the affixes (eg "-s")
should stay about the same regardless what they combine with. I've
sketched out a feature-based approach elsewhere but haven't combined
it with this.


(*) Keysymbols, a kind of metaphoneme which allows the encoding of
multiple accents of English. Keysymbol approaches are used in some
speech synthesizers with acceptable results (**), so antireformers
need not inform me that it is "impossible".

(**) _The Generation Of Regional Pronunciations Of English For Speech
Synthesis_, by Susan Fitt

[Brian M. Scott]

On 04 Dec 2003 15:48:58 -0500, Tom Breton
[...]

Post by Tom Breton

Several regular posters to sci.lang, one in particular, will be
happy to give you several good arguments against spelling reform
of English in general.

Incorrect. I've as much experience with antireformers as anybody, and
they have chronically failed to give good arguments against spelling
reform. [...]

You're wrong. That there are legitimate arguments is not
questioned by anyone except nutcases; whether they are good
enough to outweigh the counterarguments is another question.

Brian

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Brian M. Scott
On 04 Dec 2003 15:48:58 -0500, Tom Breton
[...]

Post by Tom Breton

Several regular posters to sci.lang, one in particular, will be
happy to give you several good arguments against spelling reform
of English in general.

Incorrect. I've as much experience with antireformers as anybody, and
they have chronically failed to give good arguments against spelling
reform. [...]

You're wrong. That there are legitimate arguments is not
questioned by anyone except nutcases; whether they are good
enough to outweigh the counterarguments is another question.

Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
some people are not homophones, e.g. the query that started this thread:
Should "cot" and "caught" be spelled the same because some people (on
the other side of the Mississippi) don't distinguish them? Certainly not
-- or I would never know that the lady ran the Hawk Winery, not the Hock
Winery.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:15:52 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Brian M. Scott
On 04 Dec 2003 15:48:58 -0500, Tom Breton
[...]

Post by Tom Breton

Several regular posters to sci.lang, one in particular, will be
happy to give you several good arguments against spelling reform
of English in general.

Incorrect. I've as much experience with antireformers as anybody, and
they have chronically failed to give good arguments against spelling
reform. [...]

You're wrong. That there are legitimate arguments is not
questioned by anyone except nutcases; whether they are good
enough to outweigh the counterarguments is another question.

Ok, and I'm who Brian

Jim, actually; I'd probably have named you outright. Or just
given some arguments.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?
The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
Should "cot" and "caught" be spelled the same because some people (on
the other side of the Mississippi) don't distinguish them? Certainly not
-- or I would never know that the lady ran the Hawk Winery, not the Hock
Winery.

Brian

[David Bowie]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:


<snip>

: The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
: homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
: some people are not homophones, e.g. the query that started this
: thread: Should "cot" and "caught" be spelled the same because some
: people (on the other side of the Mississippi) don't distinguish them?
: Certainly not -- or I would never know that the lady ran the Hawk
: Winery, not the Hock Winery.

And it's good to know the spelling conventions of Modern English avoid
this scrupulously, so that there's never any confusion between words like
process, estimate, use, putting, routing, bow, row...and i only mention
some that come to mind because i've stumbled over them in reading myself.
(Not to mention my favorite stress-shift homograph, entrance.)

This isn't really a significant point in the larger scheme of things,
except to point out that you'd certainly have been able to figure out the
difference even if we spelled hawk as <hock>--when you went to look for
it, you'd have seen the bottle of wine from the <Hock Winery> labeled
quite properly with its name and a picture of the raptor you would
recognize quite easily as a <hock>.

David "Or a pig's ankle" Bowie

[A.B. Normal 65]

Post by David Bowie
<snip>
: The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
: homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
: some people are not homophones, e.g. the query that started this
: thread: Should "cot" and "caught" be spelled the same because some
: people (on the other side of the Mississippi) don't distinguish them?
: Certainly not -- or I would never know that the lady ran the Hawk
: Winery, not the Hock Winery.
And it's good to know the spelling conventions of Modern English avoid
this scrupulously, so that there's never any confusion between words like
process, estimate, use, putting, routing, bow, row...and i only mention
some that come to mind because i've stumbled over them in reading myself.
(Not to mention my favorite stress-shift homograph, entrance.)

This is a most excellent point! I don't think the homophone/homograph
argument is all that tough to counter. The benefits of phonetic
spelling far outweigh these kinds of arguments against it. Homophones
don't mess us up too much in everyday oral communication because good
communicators naturally know to avoid wordings that create confusion.

I was also looking at the question regarding regional pronunciation
differences, and I found that the RITE spelling system seems to have a
pretty good solution. Basically, their rule is that when more than
one common pronunciation exists for a given word keep the reformed
spelling that most closely resembles the original spelling. Like, for
instance if some accents drop the "r" in "far", but others don't,
reform the spelling based on the accent that pronounces it most like
it looks -- keep the "r". In many cases this means the spelling
doesn't change. That's ok, because the people who read it without the
"r" before the reform will still read it without the "r" after the
reform anyway. The ones who kept it in before will still keep it in
after. Everybody's happy. Happiness is good.

Will a phonetic system be accepted by the masses tomorrow? I think
that would be a very tough pill to get the majority to swallow. I
think we may be ready for smaller reforms, but not a total revamping
of the rules. Maybe several reforms from now we can approach
consistent phonetics in English spelling, but I think that might take
a couple of hundred years. I would advocate a major reform only about
once every century, and then it shouldn't be so drastic that it slows
people down at all. Make the reforms beneficial to all. Make them
readable to existing spellers and make them easier to learn by new
spellers. That's probably the only kind of reform that will ever be
acceptable by the English-speaking community at large.

[Tom Breton]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.

And this extra information misleads more than informs. Orthography
would lead us to conclude that "examples" are either related to
"exams" or are formerly "ample", that "complain" has something to do
with the plains or complacency, and that the idea of being "nice" may
have been invented in Nice, France. Just to pick a few words from
your paragraph. This is not a benefit.

Also notice that nobody suggests that the spelling of other
etymologically related words should reflect their kinship. Another
example that just floated by, "pronunciation", as related to
"pronounce", demonstrates this. If showing kinship is so great, how
come nobody wants more of it?

(Credit due to Justin B Rye for this argument)

Post by Peter T. Daniels
The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
Should "cot" and "caught" be spelled the same because some people (on
the other side of the Mississippi) don't distinguish them? Certainly not
-- or I would never know that the lady ran the Hawk Winery, not the Hock
Winery.

This seems to be based on the antireformer view that spelling
reformers can't be aware of and compensate for accent. Ironically,
this thread may have sprung indirectly from a counterexample to that
view. I know Erik is aware of my Ugh-Free Spelling reform, which as
it happens makes the "cot"/"caught" distinction you mention.

In any case, I refer you to my other posts in this thread showing that
regional accent variation can be compensated for.


I'd also point out -- note that this is not my main point -- that few
see non-homography as far superior when someone suggests adding more
of it. While homographs (eg "wound", "wind", "polish") are not as
numerous as homophones, few show any desire to cure them. Ironically,
AFAICT those who do are all spelling reformers (in the larger sense).
I gave some urls for what are known as "root and branch" proposals in
another post in this thread.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.
And this extra information misleads more than informs. Orthography
would lead us to conclude that "examples" are either related to
"exams"

And spelling "reform" would counter that how?

Post by Tom Breton
or are formerly "ample",

Is the prefix <ex-> 'former' often spelled without a hyphen?

[Tom Breton]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.
And this extra information misleads more than informs. Orthography
would lead us to conclude that "examples" are either related to
"exams"

And spelling "reform" would counter that how?

By not raising a false expectation that similar spelling signals word
kinship, if indeed English speakers have such an expectation, which I
believe they don't.

My point is that this expectation is unreliable. It misleads more
than informs. IMO, not a benefit.

[Brian M. Scott]

On 05 Dec 2003 19:57:20 -0500, Tom Breton

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.
And this extra information misleads more than informs. Orthography
would lead us to conclude that "examples" are either related to
"exams"

And spelling "reform" would counter that how?

By not raising a false expectation that similar spelling signals word
kinship, if indeed English speakers have such an expectation, which I
believe they don't.
My point is that this expectation is unreliable. It misleads more
than informs. [...]

No, it doesn't. Those who are ignorant enough to be misled
frequently are unlikely to attempt to use the information in the
first place.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Post by Tom Breton
By not raising a false expectation that similar spelling
signals word kinship, if indeed English speakers have such an
expectation, which I believe they don't.
My point is that this expectation is unreliable. It misleads
more than informs. [...]

Brian> No, it doesn't. Those who are ignorant enough to be misled
Brian> frequently are unlikely to attempt to use the information
Brian> in the first place.

Do those people usually show a higher tendency of complaining about
how "difficult" the current spelling is?

[Brian M. Scott]

On 08 Dec 2003 22:13:08 +0100, LEE Sau Dan

Post by LEE Sau Dan

Post by Tom Breton
By not raising a false expectation that similar spelling
signals word kinship, if indeed English speakers have such an
expectation, which I believe they don't.
My point is that this expectation is unreliable. It misleads
more than informs. [...]

Brian> No, it doesn't. Those who are ignorant enough to be misled
Brian> frequently are unlikely to attempt to use the information
Brian> in the first place.
Do those people usually show a higher tendency of complaining about
how "difficult" the current spelling is?

Don't know. It wouldn't greatly surprise me, though.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On 05 Dec 2003 15:48:52 -0500, Tom Breton

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one comes from
one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.

Fine. But for some of us it is a significant advantage.

Post by Tom Breton
And this extra information misleads more than informs. Orthography
would lead us to conclude that "examples" are either related to
"exams" or are formerly "ample", that "complain" has something to do
with the plains or complacency, and that the idea of being "nice" may
have been invented in Nice, France. Just to pick a few words from
your paragraph. This is not a benefit.

This is a straw man: orthography leads you to such conclusions in
large numbers only if you're an idiot or an ignoramus.

Post by Tom Breton
Also notice that nobody suggests that the spelling of other
etymologically related words should reflect their kinship. Another
example that just floated by, "pronunciation", as related to
"pronounce", demonstrates this. If showing kinship is so great, how
come nobody wants more of it?

Actually, people do: <pronounciation> is an *extremely* common
misspelling.

[...]

[GEO]

On 05 Dec 2003 15:48:52 -0500, Tom Breton

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.
And this extra information misleads more than informs.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
some people are not homophones,

As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

Geo

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Brian M. Scott
On 05 Dec 2003 15:48:52 -0500, Tom Breton

Post by Tom Breton

Post by Peter T. Daniels
You complain about the <g> in <sign> -- but isn't
it nice to know that that's the same morpheme as in <signature>?

IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless one looks
for it. IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.
And this extra information misleads more than informs.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
The other major argument is that spelling what for some people are
homophones differently is far superior to spelling the same what for
some people are not homophones,

As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.

[GEO]

On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 05:13:52 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.
--

Apparently you did not read carefully the message you replied to.
The message did say exactly the opposite of what you undestood.

Geo

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by GEO
On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 05:13:52 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.
--

Apparently you did not read carefully the message you replied to.
The message did say exactly the opposite of what you undestood.

What spelling reformer, other than one with a Spanish accent, would ever
propose spelling those three words the same?

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.

Apparently you did not read carefully the message you replied to.
The message did say exactly the opposite of what you undestood.

What spelling reformer, other than one with a Spanish accent, would ever
propose spelling those three words the same?

I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way too. And my
response is, people with spanish accents can write the way they speak if
they want to, and anybody reading their stuff will know they have an
accent. The better they learn to communicate in written english, the
less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a process. No
big deal. If necessary they can use spellcheckers, just like now only
easier.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.

Apparently you did not read carefully the message you replied to.
The message did say exactly the opposite of what you undestood.

What spelling reformer, other than one with a Spanish accent, would ever
propose spelling those three words the same?

I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way too. And my
response is, people with spanish accents can write the way they speak if
they want to, and anybody reading their stuff will know they have an
accent. The better they learn to communicate in written english, the
less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a process. No
big deal. If necessary they can use spellcheckers, just like now only
easier.

And you think your magic MRI machine will be able to read what they
write?

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way too. And my
response is, people with spanish accents can write the way they speak if
they want to, and anybody reading their stuff will know they have an
accent. The better they learn to communicate in written english, the
less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a process. No
big deal. If necessary they can use spellcheckers, just like now only
easier.

And you think your magic MRI machine will be able to read what they
write?

You seem to be unclear on the concept. The MRI machine would read
inkspots on paper. No problem there. The only benefit to something
like MRI is that nobody has to handle the books, if you don't mind
hiring human beings to do the work they can scan all the books in 2
pages at a time -- which we need anyway.

The result would be something that OCR could read. No problem there,
that does moderately well now and it keeps getting better.

We already have almost-adequate text-to-speech software. That would
only get easier with a phonetic alphabet. Given time and incentive we
would get stuff that could read Shakespear or Uncle Remus. This has
nothing to do with reading phonetic text written in a foreign accent.
The phonetic text could and would be read phonetically. No problem.

Given text-to-speech software, it's trivial to get
speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software. That's much easier than
speech-to-english-text software, which is being done almost-adequately
in technical terms, though the result tends to look stupid because of
homonyms etc which are extremely difficult to program since they tend to
be difficult even for human beings who have some of the needed social
context.

There is nothing magic here. It's extensions of existing work, and in
text-to-speech and speech-to-text it's *simplification* of existing
work! OCR could be made simpler also if we don't mind using characters
that are easier to do OCR on.

This isn't rocket science. It's things we can almost do already with
crippled spelling.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas
I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way too. And my
response is, people with spanish accents can write the way they speak if
they want to, and anybody reading their stuff will know they have an
accent. The better they learn to communicate in written english, the
less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a process. No
big deal. If necessary they can use spellcheckers, just like now only
easier.

And you think your magic MRI machine will be able to read what they
write?

You seem to be unclear on the concept. The MRI machine would read
inkspots on paper. No problem there. The only benefit to something
like MRI is that nobody has to handle the books, if you don't mind
hiring human beings to do the work they can scan all the books in 2
pages at a time -- which we need anyway.
The result would be something that OCR could read. No problem there,
that does moderately well now and it keeps getting better.
We already have almost-adequate text-to-speech software. That would
only get easier with a phonetic alphabet. Given time and incentive we
would get stuff that could read Shakespear or Uncle Remus. This has
nothing to do with reading phonetic text written in a foreign accent.
The phonetic text could and would be read phonetically. No problem.

You think your magic TTSS will be able to interpret whatever any
idiosyncratically spelling person with any sort of native-language
interference or just plain irregularity might happen to write?

That's even more absurd than Clarke & Kubrik's supposition that
computers in 2001 would be huge and would have mastered speaking
English.

Post by jonah thomas
Given text-to-speech software, it's trivial to get
speech-to-phonetic-alphabet software. That's much easier than
speech-to-english-text software, which is being done almost-adequately
in technical terms, though the result tends to look stupid because of
homonyms etc which are extremely difficult to program since they tend to
be difficult even for human beings who have some of the needed social
context.

Let's see some _actual_ examples of homophony impairing communication.

Post by jonah thomas
There is nothing magic here. It's extensions of existing work, and in
text-to-speech and speech-to-text it's *simplification* of existing
work! OCR could be made simpler also if we don't mind using characters
that are easier to do OCR on.
This isn't rocket science. It's things we can almost do already with
crippled spelling.

Is not.

[jonah thomas]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by jonah thomas

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And you think your magic MRI machine will be able to read what they
write?

You seem to be unclear on the concept. The MRI machine would read
inkspots on paper. No problem there. The only benefit to something
like MRI is that nobody has to handle the books, if you don't mind
hiring human beings to do the work they can scan all the books in 2
pages at a time -- which we need anyway.
The result would be something that OCR could read. No problem there,
that does moderately well now and it keeps getting better.
We already have almost-adequate text-to-speech software. That would
only get easier with a phonetic alphabet. Given time and incentive we
would get stuff that could read Shakespear or Uncle Remus. This has
nothing to do with reading phonetic text written in a foreign accent.
The phonetic text could and would be read phonetically. No problem.

You think your magic TTSS will be able to interpret whatever any
idiosyncratically spelling person with any sort of native-language
interference or just plain irregularity might happen to write?

Ah, I see your problem. No, of course it doesn't need to interpret
anything. The person reading the script has to interpret from the
sounds. If their accents result in illegible writing, and if they don't
learn how to write in ways that other people can read, then they'll be
in as much communication difficulties as they would be if their accents
kept people from understanding what they say.

But having the english spelling be phonetic would make it easier for
others to learn, too. At least if they could hear the sounds they'd
have a better idea how to spell them than they do now. Words like plow
and flow and psychology are all hard to spell for anybody who isn't good
at learning spellings.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> Ah, I see your problem. No, of course it doesn't need to
jonah> interpret anything. The person reading the script has to
jonah> interpret from the sounds.

Wrong assumption. When I read, I don't think about the sounds. That
would just slow me down manifold, and won't help me understand a text
better.


jonah> If their accents result in
jonah> illegible writing, and if they don't learn how to write in
jonah> ways that other people can read, then they'll be in as much
jonah> communication difficulties as they would be if their
jonah> accents kept people from understanding what they say.

jonah> But having the english spelling be phonetic would make it
jonah> easier for others to learn, too.

I don't think so. Learning the spellings doesn't consume much time,
when compare to the time spent on learning the whole language.
German, for instance, has pretty regular spellings. So, I don't need
to spend as much time to learn the spellings. But I still have to
spend time learning what the words (and sounds) mean, as well as the
grammar. The time saved on learning the spellings is so negligible.
(And thanks to the increasing number of English loans (and a small
number of frequently used words loaned from French), German spelling
is not as ideal as you would imagine.)


jonah> At least if they could hear the sounds they'd have a better
jonah> idea how to spell them than they do now.

That still doesn't help me understand what is spoken.


jonah> Words like plow and flow and psychology are all hard to
jonah> spell for anybody who isn't good at learning spellings.

I don't think so. The point is that many people are lazy and don't
want to learn how to write. Instead of blaming themselves for their
own laziness, then turn to blame that the thing they have to learn is
difficult.

I as a ESLer do not find English spellings difficult at all. How come
the native speakers think it is difficult?

[A.B. Normal 65]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> Ah, I see your problem. No, of course it doesn't need to
jonah> interpret anything. The person reading the script has to
jonah> interpret from the sounds.
Wrong assumption. When I read, I don't think about the sounds. That
would just slow me down manifold, and won't help me understand a text
better.
jonah> If their accents result in
jonah> illegible writing, and if they don't learn how to write in
jonah> ways that other people can read, then they'll be in as much
jonah> communication difficulties as they would be if their
jonah> accents kept people from understanding what they say.
jonah> But having the english spelling be phonetic would make it
jonah> easier for others to learn, too.
I don't think so. Learning the spellings doesn't consume much time,
when compare to the time spent on learning the whole language.
German, for instance, has pretty regular spellings. So, I don't need
to spend as much time to learn the spellings. But I still have to
spend time learning what the words (and sounds) mean, as well as the
grammar. The time saved on learning the spellings is so negligible.
(And thanks to the increasing number of English loans (and a small
number of frequently used words loaned from French), German spelling
is not as ideal as you would imagine.)
jonah> At least if they could hear the sounds they'd have a better
jonah> idea how to spell them than they do now.
That still doesn't help me understand what is spoken.
jonah> Words like plow and flow and psychology are all hard to
jonah> spell for anybody who isn't good at learning spellings.
I don't think so. The point is that many people are lazy and don't
want to learn how to write. Instead of blaming themselves for their
own laziness, then turn to blame that the thing they have to learn is
difficult.
I as a ESLer do not find English spellings difficult at all. How come
the native speakers think it is difficult?

Interesting perspective. Did I understand your native language is
Japanese? I'm not surprised that you had little difficulty learning
English spelling since it's at least partly phonetic. Don't you think
the connection between sounds and the written language has helped in
your overall learning of the language? It's true, that alone doesn't
help very much with learning the meanings of words, but I can imagine
the difficulty would be multiplied in a language where there was no
phonetic connection at all.

How about the serious difficulty many Orientals seem to have in
learning to speak English plainly? Wouldn't consistent phonetic
spelling at least help a little in that regard? I can imagine that if
the written words more closely described sounds it would help those
who are studying to be able to improve their pronunciation without
being tutored as much.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
I as a ESLer do not find English spellings difficult at all.
How come the native speakers think it is difficult?

A> Interesting perspective. Did I understand your native language
A> is Japanese?

Cantonese.

But I have a general impression that the Asians tend to spell English
correctly more often than many American-born, American-educated
people.



A> I'm not surprised that you had little difficulty learning
A> English spelling since it's at least partly phonetic.

The "phonetic"/phonemic nature doesn't help much, as English spellings
are very bad when you treat it as a phonetic system.

If you treat it as a mnemonic system, then it is quite adequate.


A> Don't you think the connection between sounds and the written
A> language has helped in your overall learning of the language?

Little. It turns out to be more useful to know a dozen of Latin and
Greek roots. It is just so complicated that in English, one meaning
can have as many as 3 roots: an Anglo-Saxon one, a Greek one and a
Latin one. e.g. "two" vs. "bi-" vs. "duo-". Japanese has a similar
complication, where they often have roots in both Japanese origin and
Chinese origin. However, they tend to write both with the same
grapheme, making reading and understanding easier.


A> It's true, that alone doesn't help very much with learning the
A> meanings of words, but I can imagine the difficulty would be
A> multiplied in a language where there was no phonetic connection
A> at all.

Which is that? You should read more about the Far East Asian writing
systems instead of basing your hypothesis on common myths in the West.


A> How about the serious difficulty many Orientals seem to have in
A> learning to speak English plainly?

It's the inflectional system that hurts progress. Plural forms are
difficult to learn to use, however regular they are in English (when
compared to German, Dutch, Arabic). Tenses are a completely alien
concept, and moods are even more difficult. Not allowing the omission
of the subject is another difficult thing, esp. when you have to stuff
in a placeholder (e.g. "it" in "it rains") just to create a subject in
a sentence to fulfill that inflexible grammatical rule.


A> Wouldn't consistent phonetic spelling at least help a little in
A> that regard?

Little.

Do you think Orientals would have bigger success in learning Spanish
and Finnish, then?


A> I can imagine that if the written words more closely described
A> sounds it would help those who are studying to be able to
A> improve their pronunciation without being tutored as much.

That would create an illusion that they can pronounce all words. The
major problem with the English pronunciation by Japanese does not lie
on the spellings, but the complicated phonological system of English.
Japanese, for instance, has only 5 vowels. English has more than 3
times of that. Consonants are also a difficulty. How many languages
have the two "th" sounds in English!? And the most difficult thing
for the Japanese must be the consonant cluster. "Spring": 3
consonants in a row. For a CV-only (mainly) language like Japanese,
those consonant clusters in English are simply "impossible" to
pronounce. Last but not least, word stress in English is a very
difficult concept to grasp. Few, if any, teachers or textbooks are
able to teach the Orientals what exactly "word stress" is, and how
"stressing" is realized in pronunciation. The stress-based rhythm is
another thing that is "impossible" for teachers to explain and
Oriental students to learn. The teachers simply assume that this
concept is so intuitive that all human beings should already know it
at the time of birth. But this assumption is unfortuntely false.


BTW, how would word stress be marked in a proposed reformed spelling
of English?

[Nathan Sanders]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
But I have a general impression that the Asians tend to spell English
correctly more often than many American-born, American-educated
people.

I assume you're only talking about Asians who can spell English, not all
Asians (which would include those who haven't been exposed to English at
all).

In which case, you aren't talking about a fair comparison, since any
ESL-er has demonstrated a higher level of education or intelligence in
order to learn a second language. And I would expect someone with a
higher education or intelligence to spell better than someone on the
lower end of the scale.

If you compare ESL-ers with Americans who have demonstrated the
capability to learn a second language, I think you'd see more equality
in spelling ability.

Nathan

[Torsten Poulin]

Post by Nathan Sanders
In which case, you aren't talking about a fair comparison,
since any ESL-er has demonstrated a higher level of education
or intelligence in order to learn a second language. And I
would expect someone with a higher education or intelligence to
spell better than someone on the lower end of the scale.

Most of us ESL'ers learned how the words are spelled at the
same time as we learned the words. A rather different situation
than the one a native speaker experiences. A funny thing I have
noticed in my own writing is that as my proficiency in English
has improved over the years, so has my tendency to make a kind of
mistake that at first seemed to be almost solely restricted to
native speakers, namely confusing homonyms. Writing "there" for
"their", etc.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Nathan Sanders

Post by LEE Sau Dan
But I have a general impression that the Asians tend to spell English
correctly more often than many American-born, American-educated
people.

I assume you're only talking about Asians who can spell English, not all
Asians (which would include those who haven't been exposed to English at
all).
In which case, you aren't talking about a fair comparison, since any
ESL-er has demonstrated a higher level of education or intelligence in
order to learn a second language. And I would expect someone with a
higher education or intelligence to spell better than someone on the
lower end of the scale.
If you compare ESL-ers with Americans who have demonstrated the
capability to learn a second language, I think you'd see more equality
in spelling ability.

And that's the sort of statement that makes one wonder what you're doing
teaching linguistics, even in a one-man program -- what on EARTH does
"intelligence" have to do with language-learning ability?

[Nathan Sanders]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And that's the sort of statement that makes one wonder what you're doing
teaching linguistics, even in a one-man program --

What on EARTH does a statement in a Usenet post have to do with what I
teach in my lectures? I spend a few minutes at best thinking about a
typical Usenet post, and almost never do any research for one. In
contrast, I spend HOURS in the library researching material for a
typical one-hour lecture.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
what on EARTH does
"intelligence" have to do with language-learning ability?

Keep in mind that we were talking about spelling, not speaking,
listening, or even reading. That wasn't stated explicitly in my
statement about ESL-ers, so I can see how you might have overlooked it.

Do you have evidence that neither pattern recognition (a key component
of just about anyone's definition of intelligence) nor memory (a
component of some people's definition of intelligence) play a role in
learning how to spell a foreign language? I searched for a while (as
much as I'm willing to do for Usenet) and found nothing to support or
contradict such a position. If you've got sources that say one way or
the other, I'd love to see them.

Until I see data to the contrary, I'll fall back on what seems to be the
most obvious of the two alternatives: a person with better pattern
recognition skills or better memory would tend to be a better speller of
a foreign language than someone with poorer pattern recognition and
poorer memory, all else being equal. Intuition can be wrong, of course,
so I'm open to learning something new.

Nathan

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Nathan Sanders

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And that's the sort of statement that makes one wonder what you're doing
teaching linguistics, even in a one-man program --

What on EARTH does a statement in a Usenet post have to do with what I
teach in my lectures? I spend a few minutes at best thinking about a
typical Usenet post, and almost never do any research for one. In
contrast, I spend HOURS in the library researching material for a
typical one-hour lecture.

The fact that you can state that "any ESL-er has demonstrated a higher
level of education or intelligence in order to learn a second language"
suggests that your mental baggage has not been impacted in the least by
any HOURS of study you may have done on the facts of language
acquisition. The reason for having an education is to get stuff into
your mind so that it's there when you need it, and don't repeat ignorant
prejudices that may have been there before you allegedly took up the
study of the topic.

Post by Nathan Sanders

Post by Peter T. Daniels
what on EARTH does
"intelligence" have to do with language-learning ability?

Keep in mind that we were talking about spelling, not speaking,
listening, or even reading. That wasn't stated explicitly in my
statement about ESL-ers, so I can see how you might have overlooked it.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
In which case, you aren't talking about a fair comparison, since any
ESL-er has demonstrated a higher level of education or intelligence in
order to learn a second language.

Again: What does "education or intelligence" have to do with
language-learning?

Post by Nathan Sanders

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And I would expect someone with a
higher education or intelligence to spell better than someone on the
lower end of the scale.

Do you have evidence that neither pattern recognition (a key component
of just about anyone's definition of intelligence) nor memory (a
component of some people's definition of intelligence) play a role in
learning how to spell a foreign language? I searched for a while (as
much as I'm willing to do for Usenet) and found nothing to support or
contradict such a position. If you've got sources that say one way or
the other, I'd love to see them.
Until I see data to the contrary, I'll fall back on what seems to be the
most obvious of the two alternatives: a person with better pattern
recognition skills or better memory would tend to be a better speller of
a foreign language than someone with poorer pattern recognition and
poorer memory, all else being equal. Intuition can be wrong, of course,
so I'm open to learning something new.

So you change your claim to the spelling of a foreign language.

Why would that differ from the spelling of a native language?

[Nathan Sanders]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
The fact that you can state that "any ESL-er has demonstrated a higher
level of education or intelligence in order to learn a second language"

You know, I originally wrote "...second language well enough to be able
to write it", but I figured this was a smart enough bunch that they
could keep up without needing to be reminded of the context of the
discussion in every paragraph, so I (apparently unwisely) deleted the
excess in my general routine of cleaning up my posts. I'll keep in mind
that some people around here forget what previous paragraphs in the same
post were about.

Back to the real issue: Do you contend that someone with a higher
education or higher intelligence[1] is not more likely to be a better
speller of a foreign language than someone with both a lower education
and a lower intelligence?

If so, I'd love to see the data or sources to back it up, since I can't
find any sources relating to the topic at all, and am having to fall on
what seems intuitive about the way spelling works.

Nathan

[1] To repeat what I've said before, for those who can't be expected to
remember such things, by "intelligence", I mean to include such aspects
of thinking as pattern recognition and memory (among other things). It
seems clear to me that learning how to spell is based a lot of pattern
recognition and memorization. Again, I ask for sources that can correct
any misconception I might have, because the study of spelling isn't
really my speciality.

[LEE Sau Dan]

Nathan> Back to the real issue: Do you contend that someone with a
Nathan> higher education or higher intelligence[1] is not more
Nathan> likely to be a better speller of a foreign language than
Nathan> someone with both a lower education and a lower
Nathan> intelligence?

I do. There are many highly educated people (I can't assess their
intelligience, though) who never care about their spellings. They
just write with wrong spellings (and with almost illegible
handwriting), and rely on secretaries or others to help them correct
the spellings and word-process it neatly. "Too busy to bother with
the spellings" is their excuse, which I can't tolerate at all.


Nathan> [1] To repeat what I've said before, for those who can't
Nathan> be expected to remember such things,

Why should one not expect these people to remember such things? I
expect every educated people (at least completed secondary education)
to be able to "remember" spellings and the multiplication table.

I say "remember", because I don't require them to rote-memorize these
things. If they have found easier rules to derive such knowledge, and
can do the derivation in real-time (i.e. as fast as other can achieve
by rote memorization), I won't care.


Nathan> by "intelligence", I mean to include such aspects of
Nathan> thinking as pattern recognition and memory (among other
Nathan> things).

Englishs spellings do have patterns (as well as exceptions), not
unlike its irregular verb system. The patterns are just too difficult
or complicated to be described in words. Every intelligent being can
acquire them through repetition and practice.


Nathan> It seems clear to me that learning how to spell
Nathan> is based a lot of pattern recognition and memorization.

It depends on what you mean by "memorization". I haven't
rote-memorized English spellings (other than a few exceptions,
esp. loan words) since grade 3. The patterns are internalized, not
rote-memorized. Much like how you can handle the irregular verb
system in English.

[LEE Sau Dan]

But I have a general impression that the Asians tend to spell
English correctly more often than many American-born,
American-educated people.

Nathan> I assume you're only talking about Asians who can spell
Nathan> English, not all Asians (which would include those who
Nathan> haven't been exposed to English at all).

Or those Asians who can speak English comfortably.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> The result would be something that OCR could read. No
jonah> problem there, that does moderately well now and it keeps
jonah> getting better.

OCR cannot read. An OCR system only converts data from one format to
another. It doesn't _understand_ the contents.


jonah> There is nothing magic here. It's extensions of existing
jonah> work, and in text-to-speech and speech-to-text it's
jonah> *simplification* of existing work! OCR could be made
jonah> simpler also if we don't mind using characters that are
jonah> easier to do OCR on.

You'd better read/write in barcode.


jonah> This isn't rocket science. It's things we can almost do
jonah> already with crippled spelling.

Fantasy is no rocket science, of course.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way
jonah> too. And my response is, people with spanish accents can
jonah> write the way they speak if they want to, and anybody
jonah> reading their stuff will know they have an accent. The
jonah> better they learn to communicate in written english, the
jonah> less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a
jonah> process. No big deal. If necessary they can use
jonah> spellcheckers, just like now only easier.

How can a spell checker help you correct "shit" to "sheet" (or "me" to
"be", "bug" to "buck")? Does you spell checker read your mind?

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way
jonah> too. And my response is, people with spanish accents can
jonah> write the way they speak if they want to, and anybody
jonah> reading their stuff will know they have an accent. The
jonah> better they learn to communicate in written english, the
jonah> less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a
jonah> process. No big deal. If necessary they can use
jonah> spellcheckers, just like now only easier.
How can a spell checker help you correct "shit" to "sheet" (or "me" to
"be", "bug" to "buck")? Does you spell checker read your mind?

A phonetic spell-checker would be primarily a dictionary. We'd develop
variants for people with different accents. If you used an online
spellchecker it could track the relative frequencies of different
mistakes and suggest the most common ones sooner.

This isn't rocket science. I don't understand why it isn't intuitive
for you.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> I wasn't sure what he meant but I took the meaning that way
jonah> too. And my response is, people with spanish accents can
jonah> write the way they speak if they want to, and anybody
jonah> reading their stuff will know they have an accent. The
jonah> better they learn to communicate in written english, the
jonah> less trouble they'll have with this sort of thing. It's a
jonah> process. No big deal. If necessary they can use
jonah> spellcheckers, just like now only easier.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
How can a spell checker help you correct "shit" to "sheet" (or
"me" to "be", "bug" to "buck")? Does you spell checker read
your mind?

jonah> A phonetic spell-checker would be primarily a dictionary.

What do you mean by a phonetic spell-checker?


jonah> We'd develop variants for people with different accents.

So, after writing a text, you want the user to say it out once more so
that the machine can "spell-check" it? That sounds stupid.


jonah> If you used an online spellchecker it could track the
jonah> relative frequencies of different mistakes and suggest the
jonah> most common ones sooner.

So, whenever I write "be", it would tell me that's 'maybe' spelt wrong
and then suggest that I 'correct' it to "me"? No thanks. It's a
nuisance rather than help. That'd a very unusable spell-checker.


jonah> This isn't rocket science. I don't understand why it isn't
jonah> intuitive for you.

Naive != intuitive.

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan

Post by LEE Sau Dan
How can a spell checker help you correct "shit" to "sheet" (or
"me" to "be", "bug" to "buck")? Does you spell checker read
your mind?

jonah> A phonetic spell-checker would be primarily a dictionary.
What do you mean by a phonetic spell-checker?

Think about it. If you have a phonetic alphabet, you don't need a
spellchecker to tell you how to spell things. You can spell them the
way you say them. But if your accent is peculiar then maybe people
won't know what you mean. So if you aren't sure you have the
pronunciation right, check a dictionary to make sure that what you said
is the word you want people to understand. If it isn't, you need to
find a better word. Your ear doesn't hear the way english-speakers say
it, otherwise you could just write it that way. You could ask the
spellchecker for suggestions, or try out the best possibility you can
think of yourself.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> We'd develop variants for people with different accents.
So, after writing a text, you want the user to say it out once more so
that the machine can "spell-check" it? That sounds stupid.

No, I'm saying that people with different accents will make different
patterns of mistake. So there would be a market for different
spellcheckers for them, that tend to give them the kind of suggestions
they need. Or they can just spell the way they talk and hope that the
people who read what they write can figure it out.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> If you used an online spellchecker it could track the
jonah> relative frequencies of different mistakes and suggest the
jonah> most common ones sooner.
So, whenever I write "be", it would tell me that's 'maybe' spelt wrong
and then suggest that I 'correct' it to "me"? No thanks. It's a
nuisance rather than help. That'd a very unusable spell-checker.

No, of course not. What I'm saying is that when the spell-checker makes
a fix that you agree is correct, it should remember it so it can suggest
the most common fixes the next time it seems a closely similar mistake.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> This isn't rocket science. I don't understand why it isn't
jonah> intuitive for you.
Naive != intuitive.

I see. OK, don't worry about it, you'll get less naive as you keep
asking questions and thinking about it.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> A phonetic spell-checker would be primarily a dictionary.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
What do you mean by a phonetic spell-checker?

jonah> Think about it. If you have a phonetic alphabet, you don't
jonah> need a spellchecker to tell you how to spell things. You
jonah> can spell them the way you say them.

There can still be typos, at least. Spell-checkers are nice to find
typos in many cases. (Of course, they're helpless in case "me" is
mistyped as "be".)


And you still haven't told me what a "phonetic spell-checker" is.


jonah> But if your accent is peculiar then maybe people won't know
jonah> what you mean. So if you aren't sure you have the
jonah> pronunciation right, check a dictionary to make sure that
jonah> what you said is the word you want people to understand.

I don't have to do it with the current spelling system of English. I
don't even know how to pronounce "paranoid" and "lieutenant" (For the
latter, I mean the English pronunciation, which I didn't know until a
month ago, and was surprised by the way it is pronounced in the UK, as
opposed to the US pronunciation.) However, not knowing how to
pronounce them doesn't prevent me from understanding them or using
them in my own writing. This is the advantage of a mnemonic writing
system.

So, your hypothetical "phonetic" writing system would make it harder
for me to use English to communicate.


jonah> If it isn't, you need to find a better word.

There are many English words that I find appropriate, even though I
don't know how they should be pronounced.


jonah> Your ear doesn't hear the way english-speakers say it,
jonah> otherwise you could just write it that way. You could ask
jonah> the spellchecker for suggestions, or try out the best
jonah> possibility you can think of yourself.

So, isn't it just a normal, text-based spell-checker? And you still
owe me the explanation how it could correct a "me" misspelt as "be".



jonah> If you used an online spellchecker it could track the
jonah> relative frequencies of different mistakes and suggest the
jonah> most common ones sooner.

That doesn't have anything to do with being online or offline.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
So, whenever I write "be", it would tell me that's 'maybe'
spelt wrong and then suggest that I 'correct' it to "me"? No
thanks. It's a nuisance rather than help. That'd a very
unusable spell-checker.

jonah> No, of course not. What I'm saying is that when the
jonah> spell-checker makes a fix that you agree is correct, it
jonah> should remember it so it can suggest the most common fixes
jonah> the next time it seems a closely similar mistake.

So, it would still insist on correcting my *correctly* typed "be" to
"me", just because I have mistyped "me" as "be" many times? That's
not what is desired, is it!?

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> A phonetic spell-checker would be primarily a dictionary.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
What do you mean by a phonetic spell-checker?

jonah> Think about it. If you have a phonetic alphabet, you don't
jonah> need a spellchecker to tell you how to spell things. You
jonah> can spell them the way you say them.
There can still be typos, at least. Spell-checkers are nice to find
typos in many cases. (Of course, they're helpless in case "me" is
mistyped as "be".)

If you want to look for typos, you could still be warned of strings of
characters that don't mean anything when pronounced. It's the same
concept exactly.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> But if your accent is peculiar then maybe people won't know
jonah> what you mean. So if you aren't sure you have the
jonah> pronunciation right, check a dictionary to make sure that
jonah> what you said is the word you want people to understand.
I don't have to do it with the current spelling system of English. I
don't even know how to pronounce "paranoid" and "lieutenant" (For the
latter, I mean the English pronunciation, which I didn't know until a
month ago, and was surprised by the way it is pronounced in the UK, as
opposed to the US pronunciation.) However, not knowing how to
pronounce them doesn't prevent me from understanding them or using
them in my own writing. This is the advantage of a mnemonic writing
system.

If we had a phonetic spelling, you wouldn't lose any of that. You could
memorise spellings without ever thinking about how to pronounce the
words, it would be just as good for you that way.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
So, your hypothetical "phonetic" writing system would make it harder
for me to use English to communicate.

No, it wouldn't. You could treat it exactly the same way.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> Your ear doesn't hear the way english-speakers say it,
jonah> otherwise you could just write it that way. You could ask
jonah> the spellchecker for suggestions, or try out the best
jonah> possibility you can think of yourself.
So, isn't it just a normal, text-based spell-checker? And you still
owe me the explanation how it could correct a "me" misspelt as "be".

It can't, any more than a spell-checker can with today's bad alphabet.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> If you used an online spellchecker it could track the
jonah> relative frequencies of different mistakes and suggest the
jonah> most common ones sooner.
That doesn't have anything to do with being online or offline.

No, just an online one can get the experience of many people. The
trouble with a spellchecker that learns how you do things is that you
have to be pretty inflexible to learn slower than it does.

Post by LEE Sau Dan

Post by LEE Sau Dan
So, whenever I write "be", it would tell me that's 'maybe'
spelt wrong and then suggest that I 'correct' it to "me"? No
thanks. It's a nuisance rather than help. That'd a very
unusable spell-checker.

jonah> No, of course not. What I'm saying is that when the
jonah> spell-checker makes a fix that you agree is correct, it
jonah> should remember it so it can suggest the most common fixes
jonah> the next time it seems a closely similar mistake.
So, it would still insist on correcting my *correctly* typed "be" to
"me", just because I have mistyped "me" as "be" many times? That's
not what is desired, is it!?

<sigh> I get the impression you're being intentionally obtuse. Forgive
me if I've misjudged you. Since the system can't know that "be" is
wrong unless you tell it, most likely you'll know what's wrong about it
when you notice it's wrong.

[LEE Sau Dan]

jonah> Think about it. If you have a phonetic alphabet, you don't
jonah> need a spellchecker to tell you how to spell things. You
jonah> can spell them the way you say them.

There can still be typos, at least. Spell-checkers are nice to
find typos in many cases. (Of course, they're helpless in case
"me" is mistyped as "be".)

jonah> If you want to look for typos, you could still be warned of
jonah> strings of characters that don't mean anything when
jonah> pronounced. It's the same concept exactly.

"mean". So, you're now pulling out semantics. Don't you know how
handicapped computers are when they're to handle semantics in natural
languages? The classical NLP example:

Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

demonstrates how much more intelligent we are.


jonah> But if your accent is peculiar then maybe people won't know
jonah> what you mean. So if you aren't sure you have the
jonah> pronunciation right, check a dictionary to make sure that
jonah> what you said is the word you want people to understand.

With the current spelling system, I don't need to do so. As long as I
know the spelling, I can write and others can read my words. No need
to worry about the various English accents.

I remember a Taiwanese who told me that when she first got to London
and asked for "hot water" in a restaurant, she wasn't understood at
all, because her learning of English was mainly based on some heavy
American accent.


jonah> If we had a phonetic spelling, you wouldn't lose any of
jonah> that. You could memorise spellings without ever thinking
jonah> about how to pronounce the words, it would be just as good
jonah> for you that way.

No. Speech sounds change quickly over time. Spelling remains the
same for centuries. You can't avoid the discrepancies between
spelling and pronunciation. I don't think it makes any sense to
reform the spellings every 20 years.

So, your hypothetical "phonetic" writing system would make it
harder for me to use English to communicate.

jonah> No, it wouldn't. You could treat it exactly the same way.

Well... until you reform the spellings AGAIN.


jonah> It can't, any more than a spell-checker can with today's
jonah> bad alphabet.

Bad alphabet? You want another alphabet?

OK. The Latin alphabet is really inadequate for English. English has
so many more sounds than the Latin alphabet has letters. The 5 vowel
letters (or 6 if you count "y" in) simply can't represent all the
(phonemically) distinct vowels in English. The Cyrillic or Arabic
alphabet may serve you better. But why not consider the Shavian
alphabet?


jonah> If you used an online spellchecker it could track the
jonah> relative frequencies of different mistakes and suggest the
jonah> most common ones sooner.

That doesn't have anything to do with being online or offline.

jonah> No, just an online one can get the experience of many
jonah> people.

Again, you're going into your own fantasy.

Practically, updating the dictionary of a spell checker once a week is
far more than enough. Building an online server that serves people
24x7 is expensive. But if people simply upload their updates once a
week and download new dictionaries once a week, the system is much
easier (hence cheaper) to build. It's also stupid to have to get
on-line just to spell-check your document. (Imagine those 'poor'
people who have to work on their Laptops during flights, where they
can't get online.)



jonah> The trouble with a spellchecker that learns how you do
jonah> things is that you have to be pretty inflexible to learn
jonah> slower than it does.

My spell checker does learn new words when I 'teach' it: when it
encounters a correct word that isn't in the built-in dictionary, I can
tell it to insert that new word into the "external" or "personal"
dictionary. This often happens with technical terms and words newly
coined in the field. It's that simple. No rocket science. Has been
working like that for over a decade.


jonah> No, of course not. What I'm saying is that when the
jonah> spell-checker makes a fix that you agree is correct, it
jonah> should remember it so it can suggest the most common fixes
jonah> the next time it seems a closely similar mistake.

Mine already does that.

So, it would still insist on correcting my *correctly* typed
"be" to "me", just because I have mistyped "me" as "be" many
times? That's not what is desired, is it!?

jonah> <sigh> I get the impression you're being intentionally
jonah> obtuse. Forgive me if I've misjudged you. Since the
jonah> system can't know that "be" is wrong unless you tell it,
jonah> most likely you'll know what's wrong about it when you
jonah> notice it's wrong.

When I notice that a "be" is incorrect, I'd find it much faster to
directly change it to "me" than asking the spell-checker to do it for
me.

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> Think about it. If you have a phonetic alphabet, you don't
jonah> need a spellchecker to tell you how to spell things. You
jonah> can spell them the way you say them.

There can still be typos, at least. Spell-checkers are nice to
find typos in many cases. (Of course, they're helpless in case
"me" is mistyped as "be".)

jonah> If you want to look for typos, you could still be warned of
jonah> strings of characters that don't mean anything when
jonah> pronounced. It's the same concept exactly.
"mean". So, you're now pulling out semantics. Don't you know how
handicapped computers are when they're to handle semantics in natural
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
demonstrates how much more intelligent we are.

No, all you have to do is look for words that aren't in the dictionary,
exactly like a current spell-checker. I don't know why these concepts
are hard for you. It's the same thing exactly. You lose nothing with a
phonetic spelling except the current spellings that don't do anything in
particular for you except you've already learned them.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> But if your accent is peculiar then maybe people won't know
jonah> what you mean. So if you aren't sure you have the
jonah> pronunciation right, check a dictionary to make sure that
jonah> what you said is the word you want people to understand.
With the current spelling system, I don't need to do so. As long as I
know the spelling, I can write and others can read my words. No need
to worry about the various English accents.

As long as you know the spelling, you can write with a phonetic alphabet
too. It's only when you don't know the spelling, and you guess, and you
have an accent, and you don't remember (or don't hear) the usual accent
that you run into trouble.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> If we had a phonetic spelling, you wouldn't lose any of
jonah> that. You could memorise spellings without ever thinking
jonah> about how to pronounce the words, it would be just as good
jonah> for you that way.
No. Speech sounds change quickly over time. Spelling remains the
same for centuries. You can't avoid the discrepancies between
spelling and pronunciation. I don't think it makes any sense to
reform the spellings every 20 years.

Why not? We're reforming the dictionaries at least that fast now, as
the slang terms come in and the technical terms change. It does us no
particular good to petrify the spelling as the language changes. That
just gives us the mess we have at the moment.

Post by LEE Sau Dan

So, your hypothetical "phonetic" writing system would make it
harder for me to use English to communicate.

jonah> No, it wouldn't. You could treat it exactly the same way.
Well... until you reform the spellings AGAIN.

Yes, of course.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> It can't, any more than a spell-checker can with today's
jonah> bad alphabet.
Bad alphabet? You want another alphabet?
OK. The Latin alphabet is really inadequate for English. English has
so many more sounds than the Latin alphabet has letters. The 5 vowel
letters (or 6 if you count "y" in) simply can't represent all the
(phonemically) distinct vowels in English. The Cyrillic or Arabic
alphabet may serve you better. But why not consider the Shavian
alphabet?

That sounds like a good choice to me. But it isn't my call. I figure
it will take at least 50 more years of working it out before we can get
anything like a consensus, and whatever consensus we get is how it will
go. I hope the shaw alphabet gets a fair hearing.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> The trouble with a spellchecker that learns how you do
jonah> things is that you have to be pretty inflexible to learn
jonah> slower than it does.
My spell checker does learn new words when I 'teach' it: when it
encounters a correct word that isn't in the built-in dictionary, I can
tell it to insert that new word into the "external" or "personal"
dictionary. This often happens with technical terms and words newly
coined in the field. It's that simple. No rocket science. Has been
working like that for over a decade.

Yes. And there are no new problems doing that with a phonetic alphabet.

[LEE Sau Dan]

There can still be typos, at least. Spell-checkers are nice

to >> find typos in many cases. (Of course, they're helpless
in case >> "me" is mistyped as "be".)

jonah> If you want to look for typos, you could still be warned of
jonah> strings of characters that don't mean anything when
jonah> pronounced. It's the same concept exactly.

"mean". So, you're now pulling out semantics. Don't you know
how handicapped computers are when they're to handle semantics
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
demonstrates how much more intelligent we are.

jonah> No, all you have to do is look for words that aren't in the
jonah> dictionary, exactly like a current spell-checker.

Current spell-checker don't use semantical information.


jonah> I don't know why these concepts are hard for you.

Not hard for me. But for you. You simply don't understand the
complexity of the problems you're looking at.


jonah> It's the same thing exactly. You lose nothing with a
jonah> phonetic spelling except the current spellings that don't
jonah> do anything in particular for you except you've already
jonah> learned them.

You lose the distinction between "fair" and "fare", "see" and "sea",
etc. with a phonetic spelling.

With the current spelling system, I don't need to do so. As
long as I know the spelling, I can write and others can read my
words. No need to worry about the various English accents.

jonah> As long as you know the spelling, you can write with a
jonah> phonetic alphabet too.

No, I can't. Because I don't know how you would pronounce my words.


jonah> It's only when you don't know the spelling, and you guess,
jonah> and you have an accent, and you don't remember (or don't
jonah> hear) the usual accent that you run into trouble.

It's a huge trouble for everyone, given the wide variety of English
accents already present in this world.

No. Speech sounds change quickly over time. Spelling remains
the same for centuries. You can't avoid the discrepancies
between spelling and pronunciation. I don't think it makes any
sense to reform the spellings every 20 years.

jonah> Why not? We're reforming the dictionaries at least that
jonah> fast now, as the slang terms come in and the technical
jonah> terms change.

No. The dictionaries are still not getting updated every day.

[jonah thomas]

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> If you want to look for typos, you could still be warned of
jonah> strings of characters that don't mean anything when
jonah> pronounced. It's the same concept exactly.

"mean". So, you're now pulling out semantics. Don't you know
how handicapped computers are when they're to handle semantics
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
demonstrates how much more intelligent we are.

jonah> No, all you have to do is look for words that aren't in the
jonah> dictionary, exactly like a current spell-checker.
Current spell-checker don't use semantical information.

Looking back I see what I said that caused your confusion here. What I
meant was simply that the spell-checker looks for words that aren't in
the dictionary, just as current spell-checkers do. I used "not mean
anything" to be "not have a dictionary meaning".

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> I don't know why these concepts are hard for you.
Not hard for me. But for you. You simply don't understand the
complexity of the problems you're looking at.

No, I misspoke once. There's no extra complexity here.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> It's the same thing exactly. You lose nothing with a
jonah> phonetic spelling except the current spellings that don't
jonah> do anything in particular for you except you've already
jonah> learned them.
You lose the distinction between "fair" and "fare", "see" and "sea",
etc. with a phonetic spelling.

Yes, those would all be spelled the same way. No big deal. On the
other hand some words like envelope (mail the envelope) and envelope
(envelope their army) would become different. It wouldn't completely
even out but it would tend to.

Post by LEE Sau Dan

With the current spelling system, I don't need to do so. As
long as I know the spelling, I can write and others can read my
words. No need to worry about the various English accents.

jonah> As long as you know the spelling, you can write with a
jonah> phonetic alphabet too.
No, I can't. Because I don't know how you would pronounce my words.

If you keep track of how they're spelled in the dictionary you won't
have any problem, just like now.

Post by LEE Sau Dan
jonah> It's only when you don't know the spelling, and you guess,
jonah> and you have an accent, and you don't remember (or don't
jonah> hear) the usual accent that you run into trouble.
It's a huge trouble for everyone, given the wide variety of English
accents already present in this world.

No worse than it already is dealing with nonphonetic spellings.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by LEE Sau Dan
You lose the distinction between "fair" and "fare", "see" and "sea",
etc. with a phonetic spelling.

Yes, those would all be spelled the same way. No big deal. On the
other hand some words like envelope (mail the envelope) and envelope
(envelope their army) would become different. It wouldn't completely
even out but it would tend to.

Try looking in a conventional dictionary for the spelling of the verb.

[GEO]

Post by jonah thomas

Post by LEE Sau Dan
You lose the distinction between "fair" and "fare", "see" and "sea",
etc. with a phonetic spelling.
As long as I
know the spelling, I can write and others can read my words. No need
to worry about the various English accents.

Yes, those would all be spelled the same way. No big deal. On the
other hand some words like envelope (mail the envelope) and envelope
(envelope their army) would become different. It wouldn't completely
even out but it would tend to.

If you don't mind, I will try to present this in my personal
experience.
I was able to read English quite well before I knew how to
pronounce most words; once I started speaking in English if I didn't
understand what was said I could always ask for the word to be spelled
for me. If what I said wasn't understood, I could spell it for the
other person. If there were more words with the same spelling, it
would be very difficult to clarify a meaning without presenting the
whole context in which the word is used, and even the there would be
room for confusion.
Earlier in this thread I tried to present the point that as a
Spanish speaker certain sounds were difficult for me to differenciate,
such as 'sheet' and 'shit'; PT Daniels replied that those were clearly
different sounds, which they are, but they were not so for me years
ago. If those, and many other words, were to be spelt the same it
would have made things more difficult for me.

Geo

[GEO]

On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 05:13:52 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.

I did say that I fail to see what advantage this proposed
simplification would have.
You seem to be misinterpreting and misrepresenting what I have
said.

Geo

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by GEO
On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 05:13:52 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

You mean, we're going to let people with Spanish accents spell English
the way _they_ pronounce it, too? Those three words (assuming by the
last you mean 'not Sunni') are utterly distinct.

I did say that I fail to see what advantage this proposed
simplification would have.
You seem to be misinterpreting and misrepresenting what I have
said.

I am opposed to spelling reform (with one small exception), and if you
think I don't understand what you said, then you did not say what you
meant.

[Tom Breton]

Post by GEO
As my first language is Spanish I would have to agree that English
spelling is not easy, but on the other hand I would say that speaking
in English presents ( at leat for me) a bigger problem. I don't see
how a simplified spelling in which the words 'sheet', 'shit', and
'shiite' would be written the same way would make life any easier.

FWIW, I doubt any spelling reform would combine those, because
essentially all native English speakers distinguish them.

Post by GEO
(It might cause some diplomatic problems)

Especially when you have to tell someone you are going to the beach?
}:)

[LEE Sau Dan]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ok, and I'm who Brian was talking about, the principal one
comes from one of your examples. You complain about the <g> in
<sign> -- but isn't it nice to know that that's the same
morpheme as in <signature>?

Tom> IMO, no, it isn't noticably nice, or noticable at all unless
Tom> one looks for it.

No. To me, that's so obvious.


Tom> IMO it just isn't a big deal, certainly not comparable to the
Tom> difficulty of teaching kids and ESLers conventional spelling.

I (ESL) didn't find it hard, and never complained about it.


Tom> Also notice that nobody suggests that the spelling of other
Tom> etymologically related words should reflect their kinship.
Tom> Another example that just floated by, "pronunciation", as
Tom> related to "pronounce", demonstrates this. If showing
Tom> kinship is so great, how come nobody wants more of it?

I do. It's nice that "fair" is not spelt "fare", so that "fairness"
is obviously related to "fair" and not "fare". And "seashell" is
obviously related to "sea" and definitely not "see". Spelling "read
(past)" like "read (present)" let's me establish the association.
OTOH, spelling "means" the same way whether it means "averages" or
"has a meaning of" or "methods" is so confusing.



Tom> I'd also point out -- note that this is not my main point --
Tom> that few see non-homography as far superior when someone
Tom> suggests adding more of it. While homographs (eg "wound",
Tom> "wind", "polish") are not as numerous as homophones, few show
Tom> any desire to cure them.

I do. Cure "means" as mentioned above. Also "just (adv.)" from "just
(adj.)" and "just (noun)".

[Javier BF]

Post by Tom Breton
And because English is so far gone, some
people treat the use of conventional spelling as some sort of mark of
education or intelligence, and therefore denigrate spelling reform.
Perverse. It would never happen in, say, Spanish.

It actually does happen in Spanish.

Spanish orthography, although a lightyear from the
inconsistencies of English spelling, still contains
a number of irregularities which quite a few
educated speakers use to denigrate those who make
a mistake. Let alone nowadays a spelling reform to
eliminate those irregularities would encounter as
much opposition as it would in English, because
most educated Spanish-speakers would be horrified
to see Spanish spelled in a thoroughly phonemic
orthography like this:

De écho okúrre en kastelláno.

La ortografía españóla, áunke a áños-lúz de las
inkonsisténzias de la ortografía inglésa, todabía
kontiéne ziérto número de irregularidádes ke no
pókos ablántes kúltos empléan para denigrár a los
ke se ekibókan. Por no ablár de ke úna refórma
ortográfika ke elmináse táles irregularidádes se
enkontraría ói en día kon tánta oposizión komo en
inglés, pues la mayoría de ispanoablántes kúltos
se orrorizarían de bér el kastelláno eskríto en
úna ortografía komplétamente fonémika komo ésta.

Cheers,
Javier

[Miguel Carrasquer]

Post by Javier BF
De écho okúrre en kastelláno.
La ortografía españóla, áunke a áños-lúz de las
inkonsisténzias de la ortografía inglésa, todabía
kontiéne ziérto número de irregularidádes ke no
pókos ablántes kúltos empléan para denigrár a los
ke se ekibókan. Por no ablár de ke úna refórma
ortográfika ke elmináse táles irregularidádes se
enkontraría ói en día kon tánta oposizión komo en
inglés, pues la mayoría de ispanoablántes kúltos
se orrorizarían de bér el kastelláno eskríto en
úna ortografía komplétamente fonémika komo ésta.

¿Porké el azénto en "úna", i no (nó?) en "komo", "para"?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
***@wxs.nl

[Javier BF]

Post by Miguel Carrasquer

Post by Javier BF
De écho okúrre en kastelláno.
La ortografía españóla, áunke a áños-lúz de las
inkonsisténzias de la ortografía inglésa, todabía
kontiéne ziérto número de irregularidádes ke no
pókos ablántes kúltos empléan para denigrár a los
ke se ekibókan. Por no ablár de ke úna refórma
ortográfika ke elmináse táles irregularidádes se
enkontraría ói en día kon tánta oposizión komo en
inglés, pues la mayoría de ispanoablántes kúltos
se orrorizarían de bér el kastelláno eskríto en
úna ortografía komplétamente fonémika komo ésta.

¿Porké el azénto en "úna", i no (nó?) en "komo", "para"?

Pórke en mi pronunziazión de dícho téksto "komo" i
"para" no lléban azénto primário. Reflejándo tódos
los azéntos primários i sekundários tál i komo yó
pronúnzio el téksto, éste kedaría así:

"De écho okúrre en kàstelláno.

La ortògrafía españóla, áunke a áños-lúz de las
inkònsisténzias de la ortògrafía inglésa, todabía
kontiéne ziérto número de irrègularidádes ke nò
pókos ablántes kúltos empléan pàra denigrár a lòs
ke se èkibókan. Por nò ablár de ke úna refórma
òrtográfika ke elimináse táles irrègularidádes se
enkòntraría ói en día kon tánta opòsizión kòmo en
inglés, puès la mayoría de ispànoablántes kúltos
se òrrorizarían de bér el kàstelláno eskríto en
úna ortògrafía komplétamènte fonémika kòmo ésta."

Saludos,
Javier

[Miguel Carrasquer]

Post by Javier BF

Post by Miguel Carrasquer

Post by Javier BF
De écho okúrre en kastelláno.
La ortografía españóla, áunke a áños-lúz de las
inkonsisténzias de la ortografía inglésa, todabía
kontiéne ziérto número de irregularidádes ke no
pókos ablántes kúltos empléan para denigrár a los
ke se ekibókan. Por no ablár de ke úna refórma
ortográfika ke elmináse táles irregularidádes se
enkontraría ói en día kon tánta oposizión komo en
inglés, pues la mayoría de ispanoablántes kúltos
se orrorizarían de bér el kastelláno eskríto en
úna ortografía komplétamente fonémika komo ésta.

¿Porké el azénto en "úna", i no (nó?) en "komo", "para"?

Pórke en mi pronunziazión de dícho téksto "komo" i
"para" no lléban azénto primário.

Para mí, "una" tampóko lo lléba (kuando és artíkulo).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
***@wxs.nl

[Javier BF]

Post by Miguel Carrasquer

Post by Javier BF

Post by Miguel Carrasquer
¿Porké el azénto en "úna", i no (nó?) en "komo", "para"?

Pórke en mi pronunziazión de dícho téksto "komo" i
"para" no lléban azénto primário.

Para mí, "una" tampóko lo lléba (kuando és artíkulo).

Llebas razon en ke "una" komo artikulo suele
llebar solo azento sekundario, aunke segun el
ritmo enunziatibo o el enfasis puede reforzarse
a primario. Kreo ke me ekszedi reflejando el
aspekto fonetiko mas ke el fonemiko.

Ai varias opziones para sistematizar la
azentuazion grafika: markar todos los azentos
primarios, todos los primarios i sekundarios,
o no markar ninguno salbo en kaso de anbiguedad
(a semejanza de la bokalizazion grafika en arabe).
Esta ultima es la mas sinple (i la mas a prueba
de tontos), ya ke en la mayoria de los kasos
el konteksto es sufiziente para indikar a los
ablantes natibos la azentuazion korrekta.

Post by Miguel Carrasquer

Post by Javier BF

Post by Miguel Carrasquer

Post by Javier BF
úna ortografía komplétamente fonémika komo ésta.

Aora ke kaigo, "kompletamente" deberia aber sido
"konpletamente", uniformizando asi la ortografia
del archifonema -N de manera analoga al baskuenze.

Saludos,
Javier