Should some spellings be removed?

[red the fister]

See, this is a forum. In forums we put our idea's across and since I didn't want to put a post about grammar in with "how do you choose your badges", I thought I would start my own thread and get some thoughts on my own thoughts ... is that okay with you? I think it would be a nice subject to talk about and as far as I know hasn't been done before ... which in these times of the internet is somewhat of a rarity, I think you would agree.

I think I put in my OP that I don't want to change anything and I know 1 silly little thread wont so, where is the problem?

Now kindly pull the stick from your arse and be polite. I don't consider myself to be on Mr. Fry or Mr Wilde's level ... shit, they are smarter than most people on this planet and anybody who consider themselves smarter than them is either very stupid or very smart!

When you post stupid crap, don't be surprised if people call you stupid for doing so.

You say stupid crap, I say it's something to have a little think about ... called an opinion.

I don't see how that comment was helpful in putting your thoughts about the subject across, so why post it?

let me start this one by asking for permission to start by telling you that i'm from America!
it has bearing, hear (read) me(the) out(rest).

we have hour precious 1st Amendment witch guarantees us the Right to say wii believe. that miens our federal government, fuck up as it is(i plead the first!), Kant tell us what we can and Kant say. four short, my thoughts are as valid as anyone others. butt that doesn't mean that my more bat-shit crazy thoughts are right no matter how "well-reasoned" i think they are.

you posted this for us to think about. we have. and through independent thought, we have, four the most part, come to the agreement that you're "idea" is stoopid and has know merit.

you may have noticed that i've used homonyms, deliberately, in a further attempt to demonstrate the ridiculous nature of the OP.

Well, I would have put that as my OP but to be honest I thought I would get enough abuse without it. I have posted enough threads to know that I always come across the wrong way, it's a curse really, so I always end up getting flak for it.

I think our language is beyond stupid, how can you argue that it's clever with the K at the start of knife? Or the B at the end of bomb? Or how Phone starts with PH? Just read the post above this one!

I never went down that route though.

phone: it's greek for voice.

the unpronounced K that so many of our words have? the "K" is pronounced in whatever language we picked the word up from, but the english speakers found it too damn hard to pronounce.

bomb is onomatopoeia for the sound explosions make. at some point it became a noun, verb and an adjective.

Origin:
1580?90; 1960?65 for def. 17; earlier bom ( b ) e < Spanish bomba ( de fuego ) ball (of fire), akin to bombo drum < Latin bombus a booming sound < Greek bómbos

sorry i didn't quote more than one dictionary entry, i googled away what i had while looking for bomb

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

I completely agree with OP, infact, what do we need different spellings for ANY words for?

I think every single word should be spelled the same.
Infact, this should also be extended to the spoken language. Remove all these unnecessary letters and sounds, all we need is a good sharp grunt.
We can pick up the meaning of said grunts through the context they're being used in.

It would be far more efficient, easier to learn, and it's definitely the smartest way to go. Really, its the only logical step for the evolution of the english language. Why bother with all these intermediate steps like taking 'u' out of 'colour', or spelling where we're and were all the same, when we can skip straight to grunts for everything?

gnh, gnh gnh gnh, gnh.

((sorry OP, i know you're already getting given a hard time, but it was just too good to resist ))

 

[Galite]

No. Imagine yourself as someone who is trying to learn English for the first time, it's confusing enough that "they're, their and there" are pronounced in the same way but now there is no way to tell in writing which word is being used either. English is bad enough for random silent letters and exceptions to rules and exceptions to exceptions no need to confuse people more.

I think it is the other way round, while I am typing or writing I am just saying what I want in my head and it translates on to what ever I am doing, so when I get to "there" or "where" I just type it ... no need to think about context just bam! It's down.

Such as any other word, I can't think of a word that looks like .... "letters", so when I get to "letters" I don't have to think "what context am I using it in?".

What? You are ignoring the fact that all of these words have vastly different meanings and in the case of "where" "were" and "we're" are pronounced completely differently to boot. Why not combine, oh say, Water and book into one word? I mean it'll be obvious by the context what you mean. Seriously you can't read a water and you can't swim in a book. Yes it is a ridiculous example but to me that's what it sounds like arguing that "where" should be a single word

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

Because removing such creates ambiguities in the language?

This.

If we just had 'were' as a cover all word for where, were, we're etc, it would be confusing as hell.

Would it? I doubt it. You can quite easily distinguish between them in spoken language from the context of which they are used so why not in text?

John and Jill where clothes. John and Jill where at home. Where are John and Jill. Where john and Jill.

Are you telling me these confuse you? That you can't tell what each where supposed to mean?

What about "There ball was there" is that also confusing even though the either there can only have one meaning based on it's context?

Yes this is confusing as hell.

 

[Keava]

Hey another one not getting it, I am getting a collection going! How fun. This is just a topic, not a request to change it.

Lets be honest, how much of the English language do you actually use on a day to day basis? For example when was the last time you used ... livid? hyperbole? Asinine? They aren't even that uncommon. It's not like we struggle to find words, I bet most of the dictionary goes unused.

Although, if we went back to pictures it would probably make life easier for people who travel ...

First of, English isn't even my first language and second - You would be surprised, not to mention hyperbole is Greek not English. Another thing is You are now giving examples of words that can be used as replacements, while Your first post clearly pointed towards issues with primary words.
If I understand Your sentiment correctly You would prefer a phrase like, and excuse me the complete lack of sense in it, "They were, where their wares with a wild witch which wears a hat. They're headed there." to be somewhat simpler? How exactly would You write it without the difference in spelling between the words?
When people read they do not read it letter by letter, we use patterns imprinted in our brains.

If You have a lot trouble to distinguish they're and their or there's and theirs stop using the apostrophe, write the whole expression. So "they are" instead "they're" and "there is" instead of "there's".

English language was lacking when it comes to words already, there's a reason why Shakespeare had to come up with nearly 1700 words, many of which You do use every day.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Aluminum.
Mom.

What horrible form's of lingual mutation is this? When the original is Aluminium and mum.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

the original is Aluminium

Oh, hey...look at that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology]. It was "alumium" first, then "aluminum":

"The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [...] Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy [...]"

 

[Robert Ewing]

the original is Aluminium

Oh, hey...look at that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology]. It was "alumium" first, then "aluminum":

"The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [...] Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy [...]"

>>Implies that we still speak the same language as we did 200 years ago.

Because we basically don't.

 

[Estocavio]

That would be a bad idea. I think you should just work on using correct spelling. No sense dumbing down the language because you can't keep up.

This.
I see no reason why you cant just write it out properly. Heck, imagine having to write LATIN whilst speaking ITALIAN.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

>>Implies that we still speak the same language as we did 200 years ago.

Implies no such thing. You said the original was "aluminium", and I showed it was actually "alumium" first, then "aluminum". Quod erat demonstrandum and all that.

It only became "aluminium" after some crank complained about the word not sounding "classical" enough in a review of Davy's book.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

I think if you remove the rules and "proper" usages of language, it causes everything to be ambiguous. Without standards of quality, it's hard to determine what is proper. And the last thing that would help us be more clear is to allow everyone to make up the rules of spelling and grammar according to what is difficult for them. Legal documents and instructions would be particularly hard to nail down.

What Stephen Fry is talking about in that video is not changing the rules to conform to misspellings. It's about allowing room for changes in the language, but in the sense of new words or usages of words. The difference being he wants to encourage changes that add new words and meanings to the language that cannot more efficiently be expressed by any other word. For example, the way "googling" has become the standard verb for using a search engine. Using whatever you want to when it comes to "which, were and where" contributes nothing to usage or clarity. In fact, it only makes things more unclear.

 

[FoolKiller]

I would love to hear you pronounce them, I don't mean record yourself for this exact purpose but just in general life. Record yourself saying these words in normal conversations and listen to them back, I can pretty much guarantee that unless you are rubbing elbows with the queen of England that you will pronounce every were, there and which all the same way.

No. I always pronounce them differently. I mean always. As does everyone I know. It's just how they're pronounced.

"Where" is supposed to sound like air.
"Were" is supposed to sound like fur.
"We're" is supposed to sound like weird.

Sweet. I can sit back and relax. I was going to come to your defense but you've got it covered.

I think that just even words like there and their should have their distinct spellings. While reading I like being able to, you know, just read the sentence rather than decipher its meaning.

Now if the OP would like to take up arms against language, then get the powers that be to fix the mess that is its/it's. The stupid apostrophe is supposed to either be a contraction (where's = where is) or mean possession (Bob's cat means the cat that belongs to Bob). When dealing with it the rules change. It's only means it is. Its is the version that means possession. WTF???

 

[Odbarc]

I heard/read somewhere that the amount of words people know today is like half or a quarter of what people USED to know.

Could you imagine knowing 4X as many English words as you do now? I love my vernacular.

Is that words we know total or we only use a quarter of the words they used back then? I'm sure we only use a quarter of the words used back then because we created new words, but if you mean they had 4x (or even double) the vocab I would be a lot more skeptical.

A time when every person talked like Shakespeare? Language was a very prominent thing for some time. You needed to know your language to write love letters to women or they wouldn't marry you... probably.

All I know is the difference is significant. And I'm not talking about there being less or more words in general. I'm talking about the average persons vercabulary being much greater than it is today. With the dumbing down of words like 'u' and 'ur' and garbage words people use in texts.