another O/T - spelling

[AndrewT]

back to it's old self

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.

[TightEnd]

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

[Heid]

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

[AdamM]

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?

[AdamM]

incidently it's nice to se Blonde back to it's old self.

oops, a grocers apostrophy. now that is annoying

[TightEnd]

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?

[jammer]

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!)
 

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?

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

[AdamM]

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.

[AdamM]

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

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

You'll end up sounding american

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

[AndrewT]

oops, a grocers apostrophy. now that is annoying

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.

[matt674]

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?

or niphe even.......

[AdamM]

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.

[Trace]

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!

[AndrewT]

I leave the office for a 2 hour meeting - which incidentally I fell asleep in

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).

[Ginger]

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.