blonde poker forum

The recent run of spelling programmes on the BBC irritates me, I was wondering if I was alone. I believe spelling and the English language is dynamic and should be allowed to evolve. I studied English at college and whether it was Shakespear, Chaucer or whatever, a large portion of the words were spelt differently. Our language is obviously made up af many different old languages and many of the 'rule' we have come from foriegn or even dead languages. Do we need C and K? Do we need Silent letters? should we be spelling phoneticaly. At the start of this post I had intended to try very hard on spelling correctly but decided harf way thu to spell in a way that makes moor sens. It wood take sum getting used to for most of us but spelling this way works fine. we dont actually need to spell wood and would differently because context takes care of it for us. wood you like a coffee isn't confusing.

I got this interesting email once. try reading it out.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the
wrod as a wlohe.

amzanig huh?
 

goes to show spellings not as important as many wood say

                     ^^^^^How's it spelt???

peoples urge to correct others spelling. pet hate of mine. I just don't think it matters. also people who are fasists about where apostrophies should go. I know what the rules are, I just think it's unnecessary.

Every single word we use today is the product of evolution, from a different language, from a bastardising of Middle English, or from  it's use int he vernacular - so language does evolve, as far as I am concerned :)

thats interesting :)

Its not the spelling as such that bothers me, its the abbreviated text message style that seems to be adopeded these days, its just lazy.  things like ure for you're for example.

Peoples urge to correct others spelling are a pet hate of mine. I just don't think it matters. Also people who are facists about where apostrophies should go. I know what the rules are, I just think it's unnecessary.


I agree  ;D

I find it difficult to read, but that's because I'm already conditioned to worry about spelling.
luv instead of love makes sense.
u instead of you
etc

Robert, you love to press peoples' buttons don't you

Hey EdamM, how do you think Snopsy/Snoppy/Ponsy feels?


I'm a stickler, so I am staying out of this thread


can't stand poor and lazy spelling....."I'm wearing a pear of trousers", "I went to there house" that sort of thing

I fully accept that my view is anachronistic and diametrically opposed to yours Edam!

It is a sad fact that I read formal statements day in and day out and the grammar and spelling of the makers is poor, I have had to put it down to our education system and a lack of pride in one's output.

My spelling is sometimes lacking, I am not sure what causes it but at least I make the effort.

Don't mistake poor work for evolution.

Now this is what I was trying to say, only Robert said it more eloquently

I hate poor spelling, if you didn't pay attention at school then you deserve abuse for it!!
The worse thing for me though is the american influence on spelling and pronunciation, lieutenant is a great example of the latter, i go nuts at my kids when they get it wrong, an example of the former is realize or patronize.......it's spelt with an 'S' FFS.
Typo's are one thing i don't mind though.
Shortening words i dont mind i.e. tho for though etc.
My kids knew thier alphabet before they entered nursery school and each (3 of 'em) were the only ones in their respective classes who did.
Ian

My vocabulary is pretty good and I like to think of myself as being fairly intelligent but I don't spell well. It's not lazy, I just don't 'see' it right. I often shy away from using long words in post, not because I don't know the meaning but because I can't spell them. Increasingly good spelling is a sign of good education rather than intelligence. Spelling, grammer and punctuation can often be used as an intellectual weapon against less well educated but equally intelligent people.
The examples of small words yu give are irritating to me too, but only because they're so easy.
I would however suggest that we don't need
Pair/pear
there/their/they're
would'wood
whether/weather
a single spelling to make the sound and context would work fine

thier??!?!?! ;)

grrr, a pet hate of mine: recieve, thier etc etc

I know ifm that your was a typo, only joking!!!

there are spelling mistakes in your post Ian and no-one 'deserves abuse' for anything.
a child reaction to traditional education isn't always straight forward and a kid that doesn'tlearn well in a strict enviroment isn't necessarily naughty/stupid/lazy

i reckon it was a deliberate mistake given the topic of the post to stir things up a bit :)

Oh and nitpickers (sp?) ;D

i before e except after c except for these words...
that's stupid and pointless. the time wasted teaching kids to spell could be spent teaching them something useful

There is one spelling typo, not a mistake as in i didn't know the spelling or was too lazy to try.

ifm, touche....


Edam.....but when I see recieve, it makes me grimace.

Is this just a problem I have?

nit-pickers...... ;)

personally being of a primate background i find its more flea pickers, those pesky bugs go great with bananas though!!

either or Robert ;D

Sorry, I can resist anything but temptation (Wilde?)  ;D

sadly the vote's running away from me though. even those that appear to agree to an extent haven't voted that way

it's not laziness and I think it's a shame that trying to make it clear isn't enough. I conform to all the spellings and try really hard to get everything correct, I just think it's pointless and not very progressive. I know there are people much worse that me who get genuinely very upset by it. My entire childhood I remember my mother struggling with her shopping list (lettis being her least favourite word) and writing a note to school for me was a terrifying experience.

I just wish we could all just 'get over it' and accept the inevitable change instead of it taking decades

TightEnd, no it's not just you but recieve/receive you must admit it doesn't MATTER
That the biggest thing for me. It's that in the greater scheme of things it's so obviously unimportant yet pressure groups and campaigns keep turning up. Apostrophy protection society???? grow up

Lady Windermere's Fan
I meant the 'I' can be either upper or lower ;D ;D

Ambiguity in writing is also to be avoided  ;D

I take pride in myself for my spelling - always have and always will.

If I have to send a long text message and it goes over the normal 1, I cringe at myself as I have to revert to the horrible text speak that is used nowadays, but when it comes to choosing between money and slang texts - I guess the money always comes first.

I have found that the best way to learn to spell is to read - LOTS!!!  And I don't mean poker books.

When I was younger I always had my head buried in a book.  Nowadays I don't read as much, but only because I'm too lazy to walk to the market and buy some.

My grasp of grammar may be p*** poor, but my spelling can hold its own.  Any mistakes you see on here will be typos, if I'm not too sure on the spelling, I will more often than not put (?sp) after it.  Any others you spot are my careless mistakes.

Adam, in no way am I belittling those who genuinely struggle with language and spelling.

What irks me is laziness amongst those who do not have this problem and let it go uncorrected

I do accept though that my view is a little outdated

How old were they when they went to nursey school?

rediculous is the main one that makes me cringe atm

Same as

3 innit?

Adam, what do you think of the Book "Eats, Shoots, Leaves" by Lynne Truss?

I would imagine it got your goat!


Of course recieve/receive does not matter, but it still gets me. My problem...too much expensive education, ingrained in me

By the way, before I am criticised, my kids go to local schools, and will continue to go through the state system. A private single sex education did me no good whatsoever, apart from in academic qualifications...

Trace, I don't get why spelling well invoke 'pride' in anyone?

TE, the ammount of times I go back into my posts and correct mis-spellings and typos because I don't want to be looked down on is unreal. this thread has proved particularly difficult in that respect and I'm sure I've still missed some.

Ian, My little girl is a year 1 and she's getting really good with working out words and weekly spelling tests have just started. I'm determined she will spell well, but not because I think it's important in itself, but because, as with many things, I don't want her to be left behuind / left out. I think numeracy is FAR more important than good spelling.

dunno, I'm leaving it to the mrs to sort the school stuff out. how old were they when they could count to 10? just trying to compare my daughter to some clever, obviously well brought up children to see if I need to POOOSH her a bit more :D

Adam, you don't seriously think that because you might mis-spell a word in a post you will get looked down on?

I'm shocked. We might take the p*ss out of each other, I might get irked at something in real life but this is a poker forum, no one cares about spelling on here!

I also went so a single sex Grammar school (though it was state owned rather than private) The level of education ws certainly available to me but mainly due to an inate problem and also the discovery of girls I wasted my time there. I had to go back to college as an adult to prove to myself I was capable of much more than I achieved at Grammar school. I still spell really badly but I do it with some decent A-level results after all. was going to go to uni too but by that stage I'd spent about as much time around teenagers as I could stand  ;)

Lazy spelling/punctuation is something that drives me bonkers. I am one of the most laid-back, easy-going guys you'll ever meet, but seeing people write 'could of', 'your an idiot' etc, without even realising that there's anything wrong gets me in a tizzy. I worked as a book editor for four years and spent endless hours having to correct the text of authors who, it would appear, hadn't even bothered to read what they'd written back to themselves, so obvious were the mistakes.

I have had to resist the urge to go through this thread and correct the spelling/punctuation of blondites' posts in which they are correcting someone else's post as it would make me appear to be the world's biggest pedant.

A stand must be made against today's feckless youth and, seeing as the powers that be won't let me do it with guns, I choose the apostrophe as my weapon  :)

*re-reads post ten times before pressing the Post button*

counting to 10? 2 years old at the earliest, 3 more usually.

but as we all know they all progress at their own paces.....

crikey, better concentrate  :o

Maybe it's my age, maybe it's just me, maybe it's because it's one thing in life I know I am bloody good at. 

(Well there are other things too, but this is a good, clean, wholesome (?sp) site.   lol)

I don't know why I take pride in my ability to spell - I just do.  It's probably something I was praised for at Primary School that lurks in my subconsience, I do remember that at the age of around 9, I had a reading and spelling ability of a 13 year old.  Again I put this down to having a passion for reading.

No richard, not you but it's a real fear for those of us that don't spell well. thank god (intentional small g, that's another controvertial thread for another day) for spell checkers. I've been in posted argument with people when the focus has turned to belittlin people for their spelling. It's a way for classically educated people to bully naturally intelligent but less educated people.
(you're not doing a good job of staying out of this one. good job though)

this has become a tough thread, my view on incorrect spelling is not that of intelligence, but of not applying oneself at school.
I understand this can be affected by many things, peer pressure, home life etc.
My eldest daughter is frighteningly intelligent, never had a grade below A and has been moved up classes at school, yet when we chat in MSN (i live alone) it's all slang and text talk and it drives me nuts (she knows this).
You can see intelligence in your posts, your spelling doesn't affect that.
I guess the fact that i didn't do as well at school as i should makes me feel all others should (i actually did very well at school just only bothered to go to 2 exams, oddly english and chemistry).

I taught my 5 year old to count to 1000 today on the walk to school. Not by counting it in order but getting her to understand the pricipled of the decimal system. this is a much more important skill than spelling. in 500 years, we'll spell everything differently, dispite all the opinions currently held. we'll still could the same

Oh and btw - I only got my GCSE in English in June 2003.

The English teacher at High School was a moron, and due to his lack of interest/big headedness, and my downright laziness and boredom, I left High School without an English qualification.

So i retook it online with The Sheffield College and passed with an A.    ;D

Who said they were well brought up!!
The thing is all kids can do this stuff at this age, barring learning difficulties.
I have 3 daughters, all could do their alphabet, count etc. before school yet only 1 has really showed academic ability since.

You've certainly hit the nail on the head about application at school but I wish people would let go of the idea that bad spelling is laziness. Many people argue that the rebelious non-conformist kids at school, the 'trouble-makers' are actually the catalyst for most social change. those that buckle down, conform and behave don't drive society forward, they keep it stagnent. miss spelin is the way forword

hurray, another vote for dynamic

At the risk of winding myself up, what about handwriting? I distinctly remember at age 11, first week of Grammar school being catagorically told by a history teacher "You'll be a failure your whole life with handwriting like that boy." god I hated that school

I also remember going in 6 years later with a friend to collect our exam certificates (3 between us) wearing Leather Jackets and our hair having proudly grown past collor length for the first time. Head of middle school By the name of Vaughan walks past dragging two first years by their side burns and saying to them, "...and if you don't buck your ideas up you'll end up like them." That one actually tickles me these days. could have thumped him at the time

Handwriting, that takes me back.

Ah, the memories of my youth; fingers going numb after writing out tens sides of A4 essay, a well developed lump on the inside of my middle finger where the pen would rest - what ever happened to handwriting? I do everything now on computers - I can't remember the last time I had to write out anything longer than an address on an envelope.

My handwriting was (and, I assume, still is) dreadful - 'child-like scrawl' doesn't even begin to cover it. Hurrah for keyboards!!

I don't mind bad handwriting. Just as well

I'm left handed and it's difficult to use fountain pens etc without smudging.

I write with my writing hand curled round, as if I'm writing upside down as when I was in my private school I HAD to use fountain pens and got marked down if I smudged. Fascists!!!

My thoughts:

I think that we need to retain rules on spelling and grammar etc. (even though I am really bad at them, i try my best though. Sidenote: my handwriting is awful, I was put in special classes for it at school). My reason is simple, once you staart saying you can spell things how you like then people will and it will make a lot harder (and take more time) to tell what people are saying. Take a look at any forum that is use mainly by teenagers and you'll probably get an example (things like "txtspk").

Also there are lots of tools out there to help people who have difficulties (e.g. spell checkers, grammar checkers, google etc).

I don't think anybody should be looked down on because they have difficulty though.

but the tenagers and Americans are right, thats the thing. when it's over abbreviated it's hard for me to read but the generation of the future understand it fine.

No, I'd venture that they just don't care/realise that it is harder for others to read (like people who post in all capitals), but that could just be from my experience.

Everyone says this and yet people who have difficulties still are looked down upon. My brother endured 15 years of being called "thick" and "slow" before somebody actually bothered to take the time to look into the problem and found that he was dyslexic. By then my brother had all but given up on school and ended up with about 3 f-grade gcse's.

The problems all started in primary school where he had the misfortune of the teachers always telling him that "you'll never be as good as your brother" as he had the same teachers i did as i am 2 years older. Not only did he resent me but then he began to resent the whole academic establishment. These "teachers" were supposed to be the foundations for his academic upbringing but ended up turning him against it.

Speaking of teachers, the thing that worries me most is that the friends I know who have become teachers are the ones I would least want to be teaching my kids.

"Spelling is Dynamic and should be allowed to evolve"
"spelling is important and should be rigorously taught"

I believe both of these statements are correct and not mutually exclusive.  

It is important that "there", "their" and "they're" are taught and used properly because they all have different meanings!  English is one of the most difficult languages to learn because of the quirks in spelling and grammar, but it doesn't mean we should submit to linguistic anarchy because of the difficulties it causes.  

Use of English language is important because it is a tool for comunication within our society.  

Adam, you are a businessman, I'm sure you endeavour to use correct English on your website or on your t-shirts (perhaps with the exception of "jopke") because this communicates your message clearly; that you are professional and so are your products.   Obviously there are times and places for more or less formal use of English.  Personally I would suggest that a forum like this would be a more relaxed environment.

Just for AndrewT; Robert, its fascist!

Buger!

Thanks, that was one of the itches I was trying not to scratch  :)

It's not the only one, mind...

I'm off before it gets too unbearable for you  ;D

One of my big problems, is I use commas when they are unnecessary, as a result my sentences become magnum opei, instead I should punctuate more accurately with use of full stops in appropriate places.


Another thing who out there honestly uses ; correctly?

not many, including me!

Its more misuse of words that annoy me.

Like pear and pair.

Wether and weather.
 
I find it makes the sentence harder to read. You have to go back over it. A mis-spelt word or two doesn't annoy me. But mis-use of a word does. If you know what I mean. I always try to spell everything correctly but as Robert occassionally points out to me I have a Tendency To Overuse A Capital Letter At the start of a word a Little Too Often.

Yogi ;D

i use it all the time ;)

see!!!

but that was covered earlier in the thread. I use te correct there/their and the right to/too because I think they're very easy to get right. however there doesn't need to be different spellings because context takes care of it.
its there fault
and
It's their fault
are just as clear if you let go of the traditional spelling. it can only mean one thing.

I just wish we could strip away all the unecessary stuff from the language.
Knee to nee
phobia to fobia
programme to program
etc etc

Not many people use the semi colon nowadays - even I tend to use the hyphen as a way of connecting sub-clauses (see?). It's a shame as it's such a fantastic punctuation mark.

BTW, ten out of ten for effort in attempting to pluralise magnum opus, except the plural of opus is opera :-(

I beg to differ (with a former editor: help!)

it's magnum opei.


* ducks*

i'm with Andrew T on this one - i always understood it to be opera...

you are wrong... ;D

or maybe I am  >:?

but I've just cross referenced.....it's magnum opei.....

I can confirm AndrewT is correct

Believe it or not, I once on a £100 bet on this

i'm going to have to get my oxford english dictionary out when i get home....

only another 2 hours of work to go  :'(

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mplurals.html

"Yet another group of Latin nouns in -us follow different rules. If you're still taking notes, these form another subset of the third declension. Typically in these cases the singular does not include the full root. The plural of genus is genera (not genuses and certainly not geni). In English the plural of opus (meaning a creative work) is opera (or opuses). In Latin, opera was originally the plural of opus, but in both Latin and English, opera can correctly be treated as a singular. In English the plural of opera (the thing that ain't over till the fat lady sings) is operas. When opera is used as a singular in Latin (where it meant more of less the same thing as opus), the correct plural is operae, but this is rarely if ever used in English."

I didn’t have very much schooling, I taught myself to read because I enjoyed reading, so now I am very well read and have a wide vocabulary. I had no use for writing and so I didn’t learn to write, my spelling is terrible and my handwriting is indecipherable, thank heaven for keyboards and spell checkers.

My problem is, I have suddenly come to love writing, I admire writers so much, the written word can convey so many things, and it is a beautiful tool in skilled hands

It’s so hard to try to learn something like this when you are my age, but I ache to do it. One of the hardest things for me is punctuation, when does a sentence end, when do you start a new paragraph?

I think standards should be maintained, why deprive future generations of an art form that is so accessible that most of you can afford to take it for granted

I'm with danmonkey, this poll is daft - I wanted to vote for both options! Language is a form of consensus, and a dictionary just a yearly snapshot of the current held consensus. Part of the reason English has become the world's most prevalent language is because of its ammenibilty to evolve, while maintaining cogency. As such, the two options specified aren't mutually exclusive.

Buy If you get your meaning across, well then hey, are mispellings any different to abbreviating your words when you speak. So hey whats the problem? As long as communication is successful job's done! But then why does it wind so many people up?

Well, for many it's about respect for the person you're addressing. There is an accepted consensus of the language, and poor spelling make's it appear that you can't be bothered to get it right, that you'd rather force the reader the extra effort of working out the meaning, instead of getting it right yourself. Obviously this might not be true, but unfortunately that's the effect - which hence comes across as rudeness. And of course, this sort of interaction, is all part of what the makes the world go round ;)

My personal hate: people mispelling lose with loose. gdammit, your belt or a lady of poor reputation (none on blonde of course) is loose, it ain't difficult...

bugger!

I have since looked up "magnum opei" on google and it certainly is the common use

one classical education (Latin and Greek "O" levels, yes I am that old) wasted....

o (m)
s
t
mus
tis
nt

thats about all i can remember from my latin classes :(

oh and the phrase "Cerberus est canis" because it was the first latin phrase we were taught at age 11

I thought you were cracking a subtle Magnum PI joke TE

you see thinking about Latin "O" levels gets me cross, he says quickly changing the subject having lost the argument!

The exam paper involved the translation of Latin text back into English, from one of a number of set texts

Because I had such a good memory, and because of the work ethic of the school, I basically achieved an A grade in the exam merely by learning by rote the whole of texts by Pliny and Homer and spewing the translation out

I have nothing against learning Latin, though of course it's teaching is these days dying out, because it's a fantastic grounding in the derivations of the English language. However as life moved on and the outside world beckoned how much more useful would it have been for me to do metalwork or DIY or home economics or childcare?

To this day I struggle to put a set of shelves up for example, yet can talk b*ll*cks about all sorts of subjects of absolutely no use to me in day to day life!

Magnum calls his agent about his upcoming opera.

(http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/rogue/magnum.jpg)

"By the way, what's this you say about my long-lost brother posting on some poker forum and cracking silly jokes all day?"

No, Ad!

 They're not just as clear. I read the second one instantly, but the first one took a few seconds to work out what the hell it meant. Honestly, dead set, it took more of the old brain processing to understand the first. Now if I had to read a book, or a long post like that, well it'd be a nightmare.

Now I'm thinking that because you don't connect with spelling, to you it is probably just as clear. But to most people, the second line is much easier to read. (and I don't have to work out who "fault" is), and unfortunately you are stuck in our world ;)

Adam, you may not like "their", "there" and "they're" but they are three entirely different words.  Combining the three into one just would not make any sense.

Just imagine this passage without the distinction:

Jane ran crying into the kitchen, "Mother! I've lost the puppies".
"There, there dear, don't cry.  Look in the garden, they're over there with their mother".

Oh, this happened at university too. Annoyed me greatly that people who knew nothing about the subject could get good marks.

i agree with you TE, for the first two years at my school Latin and French were compulsory then you got the choice of a third language, either German, Russian or Greek - but only if the school thought you were good enough at both Latin and French (not that we were told this when we started). At the time i thought it was a waste of time learning Latin as it was a dead language and didnt really show much of an interest and because of this i was never given the opportunity to learn an extra language.

I complained that this was unfair and that i'd rather learn German than Latin as at least it could possibly serve some purpose in later life (not that i've since used French in any form since i left school but thats beside the point!! ;)) I can see sometimes where words in the english language derived from because of my Latin studies but unless i wanted to graduate into becoming a doctor or Alan Titchmarsh the words "less" and "point" are two that spring to mind.

now i just wish i'd been taught how to play poker profitably at an early age instead :)

you're not concentrating. what I'm saying is we're conditioned to recognise the different words and if a single spelling was agreed me and you would probably always struggle.

what I'm saying is
"There, there dear, don't cry.  Look in the garden, they're over there with there mother" is just as understandable. They're is obviously two word abbreviated so is a slightly different case. Context guys, context

I built a career around a good memory, and absolutely no common sense.

 :-[

if you tried REALLY hard I'm sure you could come up with sentances that are ambiguous because of spelling but their can't be many  ;)

incidently it's nice to se Blonde back to it's old self. polarised views on a subject and a nice friendly intelligent debte on it. can you imagine what his contribution would be like to this

This is exactly why I spent most Latin lessons in the pool hall attaining my only 'U' grade.  I managed to write a short story about Postman Pat and some aliens from Mars in on the exam paper. I often wonder the thoughts going through the markers head as they read it. The one line I always remember for some reason is 'Caecelius est in urto'.

works pretty much as well for my online poker exploits!!! :D

that's a bit patronising Ad....


And again, no, that is harder to understand. The word's are different specifically to make it easier to understand (words sounding the same are by chance), so that you don't have to use any mental processing to work out context. There's a huge amount of linguistics research on this if you wanna go looking for it...

by the way great topic ;)

Shame on you Adam  :)

The problem that many people have with English is how there can sometimes be a lot of difference between the way a word is written from how it is spoken (low phonemic orthography, for those of you who like big words  :)). There is a movement of people who wish to simplify the language to try and remove many of these inconsistencies, as it would make it easier for non-native English speakers to follow the language, but I like things the way they are - mucking about could cause us to lose the subtleties of the language.

I'd have loved to have studied Latin at school. What little I have comes from studying the etymology of words - there are some fascinating stories behind some common words. For example, alumnus/alumni (meaning an ex-pupil/ex-pupils of a school) come from the Latin alere, which means 'to nourish'. So ex-pupils are literally, 'those who have been nourished', which is a fantastic way of describing someone who has been educated.

you are one heck of a clever chap Andrew!

my problem was not learning Latin per se, but the way it was taught and examined


the actual language itself is fascinating

I loved Latin when I took it at school - sadly I also took French and German in the same year, and they got inextricably mixed up in my head during the exams hence I failed all my languages.

I have, however, always loved the way our language evolved and moulded latin and the way you can trace things back.

Now if only I could have the same feelings for mathematics which I was also crap at, but now just reduces me to tears at the thought of long division :). I do have dyscalculia which is my only defence at said numerical deficiency.

It is a damn good thread :)

Heid
xx

partonising unintentional, sorry.

I think context isn't work, it's natural. there are many writen languages that don't produce sound alikes like there/their. languages that are phonetic and/or symbolic. I just think we're far too uptight about spelling and we have too many letters and rules. another few questions?
 
If Q is always (with one or two exeptions) followed by U, why do we need to bother. Qestion certainly LOOKs wrong to us, but does it need to be?
Do we need the digraph PH? wouldn't F do? playing I spy with a 4 year old gets complicated when Knife comes up. should it not just be Nife?

oops, a grocers apostrophy. now that is annoying

Adam, I gather from your posts that your child (children?) is in the early years of school

I'm not a teacher but I gather the system for teaching language changed with the introduction of the national curriculum with a far greater emphasis on the use of Phonetics in early years/Year 1.

I personally found this difficult as an adult to help my children (it wasn't ingrained in me) but coincidentally appears to me to be a way in which the education system is changing

How do you find this when helping your kids?

I started learning chinese and its a bizarre language. For a start there are only about 40,000 words (compared to hundreds of thousands in english), but only a few thousand words that are actually said differently - and those that are different, can be composed by the exact same letters, just said with a different 'tone'. In Mandarin context is everything, and i gotta tell you, it makes it bloody hard to learn. (The word "zhi" for example has over 70 seperate meanings depending on context. 70!)
 

yeah, that's a different matter, that's phonetics. Not sure I can argue with you there. Although...

UK - colour, US - color
UK - jewellery, US - jewelry (!)
UK - aluminium, US - aluminum

You'll end up sounding american ;)

quite right, my daughter is in year 1, having done reception last year. she taught us about phonemes and digraphs and was probably taking to it easier than us. she's a bright kid and I'm trying to keep her ahead of the game. the system does highlight some of the daftness of the language because almost from day 1 the kids are being show rules that have exeptions all the way.

fascinating . learning chinese languages is on my 'to do' list but it's daunting

I used to get annoyed at American spellings but,damn it I think their right
(although Aluminium depends who you think says it right)
if you want leiutenant (whatever) spell it leftenant then we win that one. I presume it's a french word, how do they say it?
program color makes sense
customise /customize personalise/personalize not sure

I don't even know where to begin with this...  :)

Many of the inconsistencies that you mention in your last post, Adam, are because the root of the word is from a different language. For example, the 'ph' thing is because many words which use that (like 'photograph') come from Ancient Greek, and the 'ph' comes from the Greek letter phi - there is no 'f' in Greek. English does have the 'f', though (from Latin, via French, probably) which has the same sound.

It is interesting to contrast with Spanish, which has the 'f' from Latin, but didn't have the Greek influence, hence 'fotografía' - no problems with 'ph' there.

or niphe even.......

exactly. we have all these word from different languages and we mispell them given the alphabet we have at our disposal. We have the 'f' so use it instead of 'ph'
what about 'gh'?
through? thru
Bough / Bought
I'm sure the history is interesting but it's out of date

also

"I read the paper." ambiguous
led / read
lead / read
red / read
there are so many inconsistancies in the language. I think that's what annoys me most about the purists. They ignore that.

gordon bennett - I leave the office for a 2 hour meeting - which incidentally I fell asleep in - and come back to find pages and pages of this to read.


Fantastic topic!

Ah, bless.

I have visions of you, face down asleep on the desk, before suddenly waking up with a start, with post-it notes stuck all over your head (this is what I did to the guy who fell asleep next to me in a meeting once).

I  have only got up to page 3 on this thread but before it ends up 20 pages long I want to just add my two pence worth to the mix….. I grew up moving several times from country to country, between Canada and England mostly, this did nothing for my spelling as we are all aware of the “Americanisms”  I had to learn a whole host of new ones after every move and my spelling has suffered as a result. I had on many occasions, rewrite work for the amount of mistakes I had, this was understandable at the time I guess as it wasn’t as acceptable as it is now (or so I thought until today) My spelling gradually improved and got to quite a high standard but, and here’s the rub, I had children!

You would not believe how much the lack of concentration, or a busy mind has affected my spelling, I have been told that your memory gets worse after having children, but this is beyond that I think. I second guess nearly everything and have now got to the point ( for the last 18 months approx) that everything I write I run through spell check first. I write everything in Word and copy paste!!! So Adam, I totally understand where you are coming from, and do think that people will look down on me, or view me differently as a result of words spelt incorrectly. Bad spelling isn’t always a sign of laziness or lack of intelligence,  I am currently taking a degree and doing very well thank you very much!

My hand writing, once beautiful ( I had two friend that asked for lessons ) is nowhere near what it use to be, but I put this down to the lack of use. I spend approximately 95% of my time typing, possibly more. I can go months without writing more than a few lines by pen! I suppose the majority of my handwriting is now used for helping the children.

with the handwriting, it was 4 1/2 years after that teacher has berated me that a guy I was sat next to in a class said, "you know your tall letters aren't the same height. Maybe if you concentrated on that it'd be an improvement." which of course it was. I a teacher over that 5 years had cared enough to think about it, who knows. being an elitest grammar school covert streaming went on pretty much from day one.

just to say the american version of aluminium is actually correct ;D
though i'd never admit it ::)
BTW a great topic and i hope noone got upset over it in any way, just love a debate.

lol, love the new member!!

Tikay could ask the forum fixer to add a spellchecker to the forum if it was wanted, i would assume it was free.

 This is an interesting thread, but i am sure most of us have a view on it one way or another. I was a bad lad at school, in the sense that i didnt go. We as a family< in my school days> moved home from 1 town to another to another to another to another, infact 17 schools i have been to, because my old man had an aerospace contract or somthing like that, and we went all over the place. Now my point is, i consider myself to be pretty well educated to the point that i can hold a conversation about most things i know a little bit about, i am confident for things like interviews, i spell better than most, i have a good understanding of long and unusual words and my grammer is not too bad. Now my point is.we have various spellings of words that sound phoenetically the same for a variaty or reasons, and its not the most thought of reason people think of, which is accent, it is infact because we speak a language consisting of many language adaption, mostly latin. I dont know too much latin, but if you study a common word, trace it to the root, you will see the translation is more often than not, latin based. Therefor we muct spell our words differently so not to confuse 2 similer sounding words with the same meaning. I hope this makes sense.

Please could you add an apostrophe to Peoples.  ::)

if i wanted to write proper i would but i aint getting marked for my english exam on here

You need to set an example Ironside!  *r *r *r *r *r

An excellent idea ifm! :)up :)up

For a start, nice thread, reminds of my university days sitting in lectures listening to stuff about Foucault, Barthes and semiotics.

Personally i sit on the spelling is important side of the fence for a couple of reasons. A dynamic approach to spelling would allow levels of creativity which are almost impossible to understand, spelling fish as ghyti and the like (enough, myth, station). Giving intellectual bastards even more ammo to piss you off with. If you go down the phonetic spelling route, then regional accents become the problem (around the world "bit" is pronounced as bet, but, bat etc). So unless everyone writes as per the phonetic pronunciation of the Queen's English it's unworkable. Having  spelling set in stone removes regional differences (to a degree, damned americans).

With regards to evolution, changes in spelling require concensus and with the sheer numbers of people speaking english it's practically impossible. The only way is to slowly introduce new words and phase out old ones.

True, it doesn't matter how you spell a word so long as people understand what you mean, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Meaning is derived from convention, a tree means a tall woody plant thing because of the conventional spelling, spell it unconventionally and the meaning becomes blurred or lost.

The whole ph instead of f stuff, personally i think this is just part of what makes the langauge interesting, the diversity and all.

Poor spellers don't annoy me at all, just lazy spellers, but I hate textspeak with a passion. using the number 8 in words is criminal, and if someone can tell me if "boi" means something more then "boy" i'd appreciate it, because i really don't see the point in the change.

I don't claim to be great at spelling, but i can hold my own in a game of scrabble. My grammar isn't exceptional but it will do. I only get pedantic with spelling and make people look stupid when someone is slagging me off about my creative plays...

if I had my way the first thing you mention wouldn't be a factor because gh would no longer have an f sound and ti wouldn't sound as sh. The regional accent thing had occured to me aftere starting the thread and is a good point. that neednt stop us dropping the silent letters and the ph stuff.

the difference between boy and boi is the latter has a slight 'e' sound on the end of it.