102-year-old man creatively critiques English spelling

Usually, complaints about the inconsistencies of English spelling are cliche and uncreative. But this friendly rant from a very old man is pretty crafty (especially at the end)…

Read more: http://twentytwowords.com/102-year-old-man-creatively-critiques-english-spelling/

18 responses to “102-year-old man creatively critiques English spelling”

  1. gina says:

    that’s what I was going to say!

  2. Mike says:

    Saying “Aitch” is just being lazy. In England, where we speak ‘English English’, we pronounce the H.You probably think “Herb” sounds like ” ‘erb”.

  3. Tom says:

    I’m just a dumb ol’ Scandinavian, but isn’t it pretty stupid to not have the sound of a letter in that letter’s name?Or should be just call letter completely random things now?If so, I vote we pronounce ‘B’ as “Erl”.

  4. logical says:

    Doesn’t change the fact that american English was simplified for a largely immigrant nation who didn’t have English as their first language. Hence why everything which american has changed (e.g color) is written in the way that it would be if a spanish/romance language speaker were spelling it.

  5. Deep Thinker says:

    Proper language is strict with grammar, spelling and pronunciation Colloquial is much looser with grammar spelling and pronunciation.The use of Colloquial vs Proper only reflects social status or access to education and the consequent use and reuse environment of either. Those who spend more time on the streets or “blue collar” environments than in academia or business and government environments are likely to be colloquial more often than proper.Those who value you precision in communication are more likely to value Proper language.

  6. Bruce says:

    Don’t need explanations…just listen to Americans speak!

  7. Brad says:

    What a warrior.

  8. logical says:

    Program and programme are two different things. Program is british english as is programme but they mean completely different things, hence the different spelling.

  9. Katie K says:

    He obviously meant “come”, so if you were creeped out by it your mind is in the gutter.

  10. Love2Live says:

    Wow… you go kid! ๐Ÿ™‚

  11. Mu_Lton says:

    you’re not wrong, but in my opinion you’re overseeing the inhomogeneity of the population in the US at the time. ‘pure’ english was bound to undergo alterations and assimilate elements from other languages, such as dutch or german. Also, the originality factor comes hand in hand with the provenance of the language, so there you go!

  12. dowdicus says:

    This is a gallagher bit, and so, while it was craft when Gallagher did it in the 70s, it certainly can’t be said to not be creative or cliche.

  13. Bill says:

    The main problem that I have with the American way of spelling is that it doesn’t really fix anything. For example, making -ise/-ize always be -ize is pointless if you’re not going to change “rise”, “despise”, “surprise”, “franchise”, and so on. Words like “paradise” (“paradice” would make more sense), “chase” (“chace” would make more sense) and “premise” (pointless final letter) would have been better candidates for spelling reform, and then there are words like “expertise”.P.S. It is foolish to criticise Americans for using “ain’t” and “gonna” when both words originated in England. In some parts of England these words are the norm, and, in places like the West of England (Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, etc.), where poor people are leaving the area because many wealthy people have moved there and the cost of living has skyrocketed, such words are increasingly becoming culturally important.P.P.S. Saying “aitch” is not lazy. “Haitch” is correct in Scotland and Ireland, but, generally, “aitch” is the correct word. Not that it particularly matters.

  14. Igor Terrible says:

    Far from butchering English, Americans have homogenized it and made it more accessible. The range of incomprehensible accents is much higher in UK. If you want to hear English being butchered come to France. Though, I agree that sometimes US goes too far at times, practically ignoring the rules of grammar but that is the nature of a living and developing language, in the future the UK will eventually adopt the Euro and spell programme as program….but we will not give up Shakespeare for Eminem so easily..haha!

  15. Annie says:

    Well Done, Good Lad!! ๐Ÿ™‚

  16. Igor Terrible says:

    If wi start spelin werds az wi spik dem, datz gonna corz meni problems, ai ken ashor u…the explanation is simple, there aren’t enough letters and combinations to accurately produce all the sounds of English- a phonetic (written as spoken)language such as Spanish only has 5 vowel sounds, English has 20 (including the so called diphthongs which aren’t really. Some spellings are used to distinguish similar pronunciations- sum vs. some, to/too/two, wait/weight, and vice verse- row vs. row…there are always fairly good reasons why a language has anomalies- many French letters aren’t even pronounced but if we go too far with the logical spellings we’ll end up speaking some weird American Globish, the French would love that!

  17. meh says:

    I can think of a couple other examples where the “sound of the letter” wouldn’t be in the spelling (or “name”) of the letter. Q = kyou (no “kw” sound), W = dubbleyou (no “w” sound). So no, I don’t think it’s pretty stupid as you suggested.

  18. Eric says:

    Read “The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way” by Bill Bryson. It explores why our language is so crazy. To sum it up: It’s based on many different languages: Greek, Spanish, Latin, German, and even English! So the idea that American English is “dumbed down” is ignorant.

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