Should the English language have a spelling reform?

[AY1975]

Do you think that the English language could do with a spelling reform to make it easier to work out how a word is pronounced from how it is spelt? This would make it easier for foreigners trying to learn English. By far the biggest stumbling block for them at the moment is o-u-g-h, which has at least seven different pronunciations:
"ur" as in borough or thorough
"o" as in although or furlough (not a word that was used much until the Covid pandemic!)
"oo" as in through (the American spelling of through, thru, is more phonetic, though (or should it be tho or thoe?))
"ou" as in drought or Slough
"aw" as in ought or bought
"off" as in cough
"uff" as in rough

There are several other examples of letters or combinations of letters that aren't always pronounced the same way, such as "wh" which is sometimes pronounced like "w" as in which and sometimes like "h" as in whole (which should maybe be spelt "hoal" or "holl" to distinguish it from "hole" as in a hole in the road). Some people pronounce both the "w" and the "h" when saying words such as which, but they often pronounce it as if the "h" were before the "w".

I would guess that if the English language were to have a spelling reform, then all the English speaking countries in the world would have to collectively agree to it. Or one country could actively try to encourage the other countries to follow suit.

The Wikipedia entry on spelling reform makes interesting reading:

Spelling reform - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

This thread on spelling and Americanisms from 2011 is also interesting: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/spelling-and-americanisms.56657/

 

[xotGD]

Americans should revert to proper English spellings. And stop turning nouns into verbs.

The standard of English spoken by people who have learnt it as a second language is often extremely high. This suggests it is not too difficult to learn.

 

[nlogax]

Americans should revert to proper English spellings. And stop turning nouns into verbs.

The standard of English spoken by people who have learnt it as a second language is often extremely high. This suggests it is not too difficult to learn.

You're kidding, yes? They can do what they like with their use of English. It's none of our business and hasn't been since 1776.

 

[Domh245]

The language will naturally evolve over time and I expect that in the fullness of time most of the tricky oughs will be replaced by more phonetically accurate spellings

Like you say, the problem is trying to get others onboard, it won't even be anything as powerful as a country, it'll be a bunch of academics who think that everyone should follow their rules but without any way of implementing it. Trying to force a "spelling reform" will just result in confusion as some people try to use it and most completely ignore it. Case in point would be French, ask a francophone the last time they paid any attention to the Académie Française (perhaps you could get un mot-diese trending sur la twitterspehere - a hashtag trending on twitter) and that's an official body with legislative might behind it

This is an opportunity to remind everyone at least of my favourite, ever relevant XKCD

How Standards Proliferate:
Situation: there are 14 competing standards

Person 1: 14? Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases
Person 2: Yeah!

[soon] Situation: There are 15 competing standards

 

[talltim]

Americans should revert to proper English spellings.

You do realise that in many cases the current US English spellings are the older ones and that it is UK English that has changed?

 

[Peter C]

The English language has changed significantly over time, and quite a bit in just the last couple of hundred years. Cases where people have attempted to reform the language 'out of the blue', so to speak, have pretty much always failed; see this video:

You do realise that in many cases the current US English spellings are the older ones and that it is UK English that has changed?

And, as mentioned in the above video, many US English spellings which differ from their UK counterparts are as such because Noah Webster was writing the dictionary and he said certain words should be spelt differently.

I agree with people on here so far in that the English language probably will be reformed at some point, but it will almost certainly be a change over a long time: as a result of so many millions of people speaking this one language, reforming it won't happen in a short amount of time.

-Peter

 

[Abpj17]

It's easier to leave it alone. English is an organic and widely used language with a wealth of regional variations - and has been so for centuries. This contributes to it's flexibility and high-take up. And would render any attempt to tame and standardise it fairly pointless in the long term - it wouldn't be adopted or would just evolve again.

It's worth noting that spoken English is easier to learn - and that what you'd normally see from those learning it as a second language. It also avoid a lot of the spelling challenges. Learning perfect written English is somewhat harder - even for native speakers...

French is better for some precise use-cases but just doesn't have the same flexibility.

 

[Senex]

And if you were going to reform the spelling system, which version of pronunciation would you base the spelling on? The choice would be even harder today than 70 or 80 years ago, when you might still have got away with the claims of the so-called "Received Pronunication". But that wouldn't do now. Quite apart from national differences — not just UK v. USA, but treating Scots and Irish English as proper national languages rather than the provincial dialects that so many of the English still seem to see them as — what do you do with some of the very different pronunciations to be heard in English English? It's a minefield besst avoided — unless we want to end up with spellings like the well-known George Bernard Shaw "ghoti".

 

[AY1975]

German had a spelling reform in 1996 but it was fairly minor. The four German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) all collectively agreed to the changes, which mainly concerned things like compound words and the use of upper case letters, and were designed to simplify the language. Luxembourg didn't sign up to the agreement but did eventually adopt the reforms.

Obviously they only had to get four countries to agree on the changes, whereas with English a lot more countries would have to be involved. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996

I believe that Dutch had a spelling reform in 1947. I think the main change was that in words that previously contained the letters "sch" (as in German) this was replaced by an "s" on its own, presumably to distinguish Dutch from German.

 

[birchesgreen]

I don't think English as a language does formal changes, any changes are organic and local and if they are better or have a strong cultural backing then they will become a defacto world standard. An example is American spellings which is the most common English spelling worldwide now.

 

[biko]

It's worth noting that spoken English is easier to learn - and that what you'd normally see from those learning it as a second language. It also avoid a lot of the spelling challenges. Learning perfect written English is somewhat harder - even for native speakers...

I think it depends on the way it is taught. I was taught English from a textbook so I saw in many cases the written versions before I heard the pronunciation. Still I meant that I wrote a lot of words wrong in exams though.

People with dyslexia really struggled learning English as the pronunciation nearly never corresponds to the spelling meaning you really have to learn the pronunciation belonging to an individual word. And learning the connection between a word and the pronunciation is the whole problem of dyslexia.

I believe that Dutch had a spelling reform in 1947. I think the main change was that in words that previously contained the letters "sch" (as in German) this was replaced by an "s" on its own, presumably to distinguish Dutch from German.

Dutch has had many reforms in the mean time, the most recent one, albeit small, was in 2006. The 1946 reform indeed changed words ending on -sch to -s. I am not sure about the reason, but I believed it had more to do with getting rid of unpronounced letters.

 

[Gloster]

I fear that texting is going to badly affect spelling and grammar, with an ‘anything goes’ attitude becoming more prevalent. This might be acceptable, although not by me, in casual communications, but there are plenty of situations where you need to be exact.

 

[Cowley]

I fear that texting is going to badly affect spelling and grammar, with an ‘anything goes’ attitude becoming more prevalent. This might be acceptable, although not by me, in casual communications, but there are plenty of situations where you need to be exact.

Ikr

 

[GusB]

I fear that texting is going to badly affect spelling and grammar, with an ‘anything goes’ attitude becoming more prevalent. This might be acceptable, although not by me, in casual communications, but there are plenty of situations where you need to be exact.

Instant messaging and texting has already had a significant effect. Since I started moderating part of the forum, it has struck me that formality has gone and there is a great deal of "lazy posting". For example, "Seen 123 456 yesterday" instead of "I saw 123 456 yesterday". It drives me barmy, but it reflects how people would say it, rather than write it. The mixing up of "there", "their" and "they're" is another example, but they sound the same and a sentence will still make sense.

My biggest bugbear is when people post long passages of text without capital letters or punctuation. When I recently issued some guidance to a forum user about it, his reply was, "It's only an internet forum, not Harvard"!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Americans should revert to proper English spellings. And stop turning nouns into verbs.

....and learn to sound correctly the letter "T" in speech instead of their current perceived need to pronounce "T" as "D".

I remember well a speech by Madeleine Albright, the United States Secretary of State in the Clinton presidency, in which she kept referring to NATO as "nay-dough".

 

[AY1975]

I fear that texting is going to badly affect spelling and grammar, with an ‘anything goes’ attitude becoming more prevalent. This might be acceptable, although not by me, in casual communications, but there are plenty of situations where you need to be exact.

Yes, and I've even heard of schoolchildren being marked down for using text message shorthand (such as gr8 for great and 2mw or 2moz for tomorrow) in their school work. At one time I feared that it would become the usual way of writing. That kind of shorthand doesn't seem to be used as much now as in the 1990s or early 2000s, though I still sometimes use it when texting. I think that's probably because smartphones don't have limits on the number of characters per message whereas ordinary 2G mobile phones did or at least the older ones did.

 

[birchesgreen]

With smart phone virtual keyboards its easier to spell things correctly than mix up letters and numbers as you have to switch the keyboard layout.

 

[A Challenge]

With smart phone virtual keyboards its easier to spell things correctly than mix up letters and numbers as you have to switch the keyboard layout.

I have numbers on my phone keyboard, but thanks to autocomplete/autocorrect and swipe typing it is quicker to type out words in full and correctly than attempt to do it in shorthand, as it means that for long words you don't necessarily have to type the whole thing, and if you have autocorrect on then it would correct your shorthand to something that makes no sense at all.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do you think that the English language could do with a spelling reform to make it easier to work out how a word is pronounced from how it is spelt? This would make it easier for foreigners trying to learn English. By far the biggest stumbling block for them at the moment is o-u-g-h, which has at least seven different pronunciations:
"ur" as in borough or thorough
"o" as in although or furlough (not a word that was used much until the Covid pandemic!)
"oo" as in through (the American spelling of through, thru, is more phonetic, though (or should it be tho or thoe?))
"ou" as in drought or Slough
"aw" as in ought or bought
"off" as in cough
"uff" as in rough

You could add this one to this list above:-

"ow" as in plough

 

[43096]

You're kidding, yes? They can do what they like with their use of English. It's none of our business and hasn't been since 1776.

They can stop calling what they use English. Call it American or Yank or something instead.

 

[nlogax]

They can stop calling what they use English. Call it American or Yank or something instead.

American English, Scottish English, Ugandan English, Canadian English.. at their heart they're still all English and that's that. I've never understood the animosity specifically towards the United States' use and modifications of the language, it's plain daft.

 

[Senex]

American English, Scottish English, Ugandan English, Canadian English.. at their heart they're still all English and that's that. I've never understood the animosity specifically towards the United States' use and modifications of the language, it's plain daft.

Of course they're all perfectly valid regional varieties of English, and American English in particular retains quite a few older usages and pronunciations from the regional British English of several centuries ago where it's British English that has done the changing. If we look at all varieties of English today, it's almost certainly the USA that's the innovating centre for the language, with us being one of the peripheral dialects (and within the USA it might well be California that's the innovating centre). Why the animosity? I suspect to a large extent because we're not the top dogs for the English language any more. (And in part perhaps because some of us hate the way organisations like the BBC gtry to thrust Americanisms on us whenever they can when surely they should defend and support our usages.)

 

[nlogax]

Why the animosity? I suspect to a large extent because we're not the top dogs for the English language any more. (And in part perhaps because some of us hate the way organisations like the BBC gtry to thrust Americanisms on us whenever they can when surely they should defend and support our usages.)

I'm admittedly a little biased. My employment and personal life involve both sides of the Atlantic and I've been happily 'bi-lingual' in both countries' usage of English for the best part of three decades. Whilst the desire to preserve and protect UK usage is understandable, you're blaming the wrong folks. Our usage of English is not being influenced by the BBC per se, but by the age of the people that now work there. Younger generations are inevitably going to be swayed and influenced by US English as so much of their social media consumption is based in it. This works its way into general usage as these things have done for decades right across society. Not just via BBC.

If it's any small comfort to you examples of our English usage do make their way west. I recommend you explore https://notoneoffbritishisms.com

Not One-Off Britishisms - British words and expressions that have got popular in the US

 

[Senex]

I'm admittedly a little biased. My employment and personal life involve both sides of the Atlantic and I've been happily 'bi-lingual' in both countries' usage of English for the best part of three decades. Whilst the desire to preserve and protect UK usage is understandable, you're blaming the wrong folks. Our usage of English is not being influenced by the BBC per se, but by the age of the people that now work there. Younger generations are inevitably going to be swayed and influenced by US English as so much of their social media consumption is based in it. This works its way into general usage as these things have done for decades right across society. Not just via BBC.

If it's any small comfort to you examples of our English usage do make their way west. I recommend you explore https://notoneoffbritishisms.com

Thanks for the reference to that — it makes very interesting reading. (I also rather like the various articles one can frind in Franch and Germany about the presence of British (and American) English terms in their languages and what the "correct" attitudes towards them should be. As I said, we have to recognise the USA as the centre of world English today. That's where most of the innovation comes from, and that's what most of us will pick up bit by bit and follow, and it's the sort of English that those learning the language as a foreign language will more and more come to acquire (especially as we lose international significance after Brexit, to be contentious). For me, the point is to recognise the difference between those things that are purely personal prejudices/preferences and those things which can be backed up by proper academic argument. I may not like to hear US English around me in Britain, but I really can't claim there's anything wrong with it, that it's a degenerate dialect, or anything like that. Rather, it's a product of the political and economic realities. Far worse is to hear any variety of English badly used, to hear intonation patterns alien to the language, grammar that is simply wrong for the dialect and register in use, and so on. (And to hear language that just doesn't communicate.)

 

[nlogax]

Far worse is to hear any variety of English badly used, to hear intonation patterns alien to the language, grammar that is simply wrong for the dialect and register in use, and so on. (And to hear language that just doesn't communicate.)

Completely agree with this. It grates in a way that I can't quite describe. Those who communicate wholly in grunts and half-arsed sentences, those who delight in using rising intonation, etc. As for language that doesn't communicate, frustratingly I find an awful lot of this in the corporate world. Why use ten words in a sentence to communicate something straightforward when you could use fifty words and veil the clarity of the message in linguistic fluff?

 

[xotGD]

You write a word in English. The spellchecker claims it is wrong and tries to get you to change it into American. Grrr!

 

[Calthrop]

Do you think that the English language could do with a spelling reform to make it easier to work out how a word is pronounced from how it is spelt? This would make it easier for foreigners trying to learn English. By far the biggest stumbling block for them at the moment is o-u-g-h, which has at least seven different pronunciations:
"ur" as in borough or thorough
"o" as in although or furlough (not a word that was used much until the Covid pandemic!)
"oo" as in through (the American spelling of through, thru, is more phonetic, though (or should it be tho or thoe?))
"ou" as in drought or Slough
"aw" as in ought or bought
"off" as in cough
"uff" as in rough

You could add this one to this list above:-

"ow" as in plough

And -- at the risk of getting a bit silly --

"up" as in hiccough (a unique occurrence, I think)

and: the "Irish-English" word for a lake -- "lough"; pronounced like its Scottish equivalent "loch"; but this one -- with its getting into realms of use confined to those countries, and with the words effectively "borrowed" from their Celtic tongues -- is maybe cheating.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Do you think that the English language could do with a spelling reform to make it easier to work out how a word is pronounced from how it is spelt? This would make it easier for foreigners trying to learn English.

No. You'd be solving a relatively small problem and creating in its place a far bigger problem: Every English-speaking person above the age of about 8 would be suddenly required to learn what amounts to a new written language and use it correctly. And for all children who have yet to learn to read and would presumably be primarily taught the reformed spelling, the entire existing body of English writing (in books, on the web, etc.) would become inaccessible. Imagine going to the library or to a bookshop and finding that every book published before 2021 is - for all practical purposes - indecipherable: The only way to avoid that would be to teach children both ways of spelling. Oh, and you'd have to teach those foreigners that you want to help both ways of spelling too, which means you've just made their lives harder instead of easier.

Instant messaging and texting has already had a significant effect. Since I started moderating part of the forum, it has struck me that formality has gone and there is a great deal of "lazy posting". For example, "Seen 123 456 yesterday" instead of "I saw 123 456 yesterday". It drives me barmy, but it reflects how people would say it, rather than write it. The mixing up of "there", "their" and "they're" is another example, but they sound the same and a sentence will still make sense.

You could argue that different spellings for words that sound the same but have different meanings is an advantage for written language because it removes ambiguity (at least, when used correctly). I wonder whether perhaps the ambiguity of words sounding the same is more acceptable in spoken language because, in normal conversation, people tend to speak in smaller chunks, there's a lot more surrounding non-verbal context to assist understanding, you're more likely to know the person you're talking to quite well, and it's very easy to ask people to clarify potential misunderstandings. In written language, where that's often less true, being able to distinguish words that have the same pronunciation is perhaps more important.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Should English have a spelling reform?

Kno.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

As a rebellion against Americanisms at work, I started using the phrases like "midwicket conference", "opening the batting" and "close of play" instead of their baseball equivalents before I retired.