Thoughts on English Spelling Reform

There are half as many dyslexic Italians as there are English ones (source). Why? Because, while dyslexia is a symptom of differences in the brain, the way it manifests depends on how complicated the spelling system is, and Italian spelling is much simpler than English.

American schools spend 12 years teaching spelling, only to have half of American interweb writers misspell separate and definite. Italian schools spend two years on spelling. Imagine what kids could be taught if spelling only took two years! Maybe they'd have time for some statistics.


Because of these facts, I'm trying to put aside my crotchety resistance to English spelling reform. Like any endeavor, it's a complex undertaking with many approaches and advocates. My take on it, though, is that a new, more regularized spelling system would have to meet these requirements:

• The new words would have to maintain as much similarity as possible to current spellings to aid the transition from current spellings to reformed ones.
• No diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, etc.) and no introduced characters should be used.
• The new spellings should be based as much as possible on the meanings of the words rather than just the sounds, although sounds will clearly be taken into account in many cases. For example, most plurals end in s. The fact that plural s is sometimes pronounced ess (as in cats) and sometimes z (as in dogs) doesn't mean the plurals should vary their endings to s or z, depending on pronunciation. Consistently signaling pluralness is more important than making the letters represent the sounds. (Whether we should get rid of the variant plurals such as oxen is another question.)

Two proposed systems that look interesting are called SoundSpel and Cut Spelling. In addition to regularization, they also shorten texts (4 percent for SoundSpel, 8 to 15 percent for Cut Spelling), which is an important side benefit in terms of paper-usage.

When transforming English spelling, the biggest challenge is the vowels. We only have 5 (or 6), used to represent over 20 sounds. Of course, there are pronunciation variations across English-speaking countries and regions, mostly in the vowel sounds. But one standard has to be chosen.

SoundSpel has been in development for about 50 years and is endorsed by the American Literacy Council. It uses all of the existing letters, and deals with the vowel shortage by creating two-vowel combinations. The Wikipedia entry lists all of the vowel assignments, including the basic five as a = sat, e = set, i = did, o = dot, and u = cut. Long vowels are made by adding an e to to the basic vowel: ae = sundae, ee = see, ie = die, oe = toe, ue = cue. Double vowels are used for some of the others sounds, such as aa = alm, oo = moon, uu = book.

All of the consonants are kept as is, including the wh in why, with the addition of zh to create the z sounding azure. C and K are both kept (not the simplest choice, but obviously better for the transition), and there is still no differentiation of the th sound in the vs. thing. Qu is simplified to Q.

Some exceptions are made, again for aiding the transition, I assume. No change is made to the short, common words was, as, of, the, he, she, me, we, be, do, to, and off. The letter s is used for plurals, whether it is pronounced ess or z (yay!).

Here's a sample:

It was on the ferst dae of the nue yeer the anounsment was maed, allmoest siemultaeniusly frum three obzervatorys, that the moeshun of the planet Neptune, the outermoest of all planets that wheel about the Sun, had becum verry erratic. A retardaeshun in its velosity had bin suspected in Desember. Then a faent, remoet spek of liet was discuverd in the reejon of the perterbd planet. At ferst this did not cauz eny verry graet exsietment. Sieentific peepl, however, found the intelijens remarkabl enuf, eeven befor it becaem noen that the nue body was rapidly groeing larjer and brieter, and that its moeshun was qiet different frum the orderly progres of the planets. – H.G. Wells (from the Wikipedia page)

Cut Spell, on the other hand, removes letters more than it reassigns them. Unpronounced letters are generally zapped, although the silent helper e at the end of words is kept and made more consistent (so peace becomes pece). Unstressed vowels (the source of all those misspelled examples of separate and definite) are also removed, so symbol becomes symbl, waited becomes waitd, and most disconcertingly to me, the becomes th. Most double consonants are also dropped, ph becomes f, g as in judge becomes j, and igh (as in high) becomes y.

Here's a sample:

Wen readrs first se Cut Spelng, as in this sentnce, they ofn hesitate slytly, but then quikly becom acustmd to th shortnd words and soon find text in Cut Spelng as esy to read as Traditionl Orthografy, but it is th riter ho really apreciates th advantajs of Cut Spelng, as many of th most trublsm uncertntis hav been elimnated. (from the Wikipedia page)

Of the two reform systems, I think I prefer SoundSpel because it appears to be more consistent in its changes, and less reliant on knowing traditional spellings. Some oddities from the Cut Spelling sample:

• who becomes ho. How would anyone know how to pronounce that correctly?
• Readrs isn't changed to Redrs? What good is that extra a?
• The ys in slytly are pronounced differently. How would a new reader have any way of knowing that?
  

Despite this, reading the passages of Cut Spelling and SoundSpel is not horrendously hard (although it's also not comfortable). But I think I could get used to reading this way within six months or a year, maybe less. It would take me much longer (or maybe never) to write them.

But automatic translation such as this is what we have computers for, right?

Another Argument for Spelling Reform

I've long known that English language readers are much more likely to be dyslexic than readers of languages where the spelling closely mirrors pronunciation. (Here's an earlier post that includes that fact.) But this recent article from the Atlantic made me realize that English is a dead weight tied around the necks of American (and Canadian and British) students.

Masha Bell, the vice chair of the English Spelling Society and author of the book Understanding English Spelling, analyzed the 7,000 most common English words and found that 60 percent of them had one or more unpredictably used letters. No one knows for sure, but the Spelling Society speculates that English may just be the world’s most irregularly spelled language.

Mastering such a language takes a long time and requires abilities that most children don’t develop until the middle or latter part of elementary school. Many children struggle to meet unrealistic expectations, get discouraged, and never achieve a high literacy level—all at an enormous cost to themselves and to society.

The story included some cool facts I'd never heard before (or don't remember hearing), despite a college class on the history of English and reading a number of books on the topic:

The first English printing press, in the 15th century, was operated by Belgians who didn’t know the language and made numerous spelling errors (such as "busy" in place of "bisy"). And because they were paid by the line, they sometimes padded words with extra letters; "frend," for example, became "friend." In the next century, other non-English speakers in continental Europe printed the first English Bibles, introducing yet more errors. Worse, those Bibles were then copied, and the writing became increasingly corrupted with each subsequent rendition.

The effect of all this:

...languages such as Finnish and Korean have very regular spelling systems; rules govern the way words are written, with few exceptions. Finnish also has the added bonus of a nearly one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters, meaning fewer rules to learn. So after Finnish children learn their alphabet, learning to read is pretty straightforward—they can read well within three months of starting formal learning, Bell says. And it’s not just Finnish- and Korean-speaking children who are at a significant advantage: A 2003 study found that English-speaking children typically needed about three years to master the basics of reading and writing, whereas their counterparts in most European countries needed a year or less.

Moreover, English-speaking children then spend years progressing through different reading levels and mastering the spelling of more and more words. That means it typically takes English-speaking children at least 10 years to become moderately proficient spellers—memorizing about 400 new words per year—and because they forget and have to revise many of the spellings they’ve previously learned, "learning to spell is a never-ending chore," Bell says.

On the other hand, the American concept of "reading level" doesn’t even exist in countries with more regular spelling systems. (emphasis added)

The solution, other than a complete overhaul of English spelling, which doesn't seem very likely?

Bell...says a good "tidying" will suffice while ensuring that nearly 600 years’ worth of modern English literature remains accessible. She advocates tweaking the 2,828 most-common irregularly spelled words to align them to conform with the main English spelling patterns.

There's also a techie solution that's described at length in the article.

Fascinating. Make it so!

Early Seuss on Spelling

Dr. Seuss, it turns out, had an interest in spelling reform. I recently ran across a collection of his early writings and cartoons called The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough, which contained this series of drawings and captions:

Ough! Ough! Or why I believe in simplified spelling

It was forty-five years ago, when I first came to America a young Roumanian student of divinity, that I first met the evils of the "ough words." Strolling one day in the country with my fellow students, I saw a tough, coughing as he ploughed a field which (being quite near-sighted) I mistook for pie dough. Assuming that all ough words were pronounced, the same, I casually remarked, "The tuff cuffs as he pluffs the duff!" "Sacrilege!" shrieked my devout companions. "He is cursing in Roumanian!" I was expelled from the school.


The ministry being closed to me, I then got a job as a chore boy on the farm of an eccentric Mr. Hough, who happened to spend most of his time in the bough of a tree overhanging a trough. I was watering a colt one morning when I noticed that Mr. Hough's weight had forced the bough down into the water. "Mr. Hoo!" I shouted. "Your boo is in the troo!" Thinking I was speaking lightly of his wife, Mr. Hough fired me on the spot.


So I drifted into the prize ring. But here again the curse of the oughs undid me. One night at the Garden, I was receiving an unmerciful trouncing from a mauler twice my size. Near the end of the sixth round I could stand it no longer. I raised my feeble hand in surrender. "Eno! Eno!" I gulped. "I'm thruff!" "Insults like that I take form no man," bellowed my opponent, and he slugged me into a coma! Something snapped! ...a maddening flash...and all became black. Fifteen years later I awoke to find myself the father of three homely daughters named Xough, Yough and Zough. I had become a thorough-going Augho-maniac.

Not Seuss's best verbal work, I realize, but you can see glimpses of his later illustrations (Horton, the way he renders trees) in the drawings. And he's right about the ough words, of course.

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My past posts about English spelling reform.

Pour One Out for Spelling Reform

Yesterday on social media, I saw someone use the word "pore" as in "pore over a document" correctly.

The fact that I noticed it told me how unusual the correct usage is.

I was remarking on this to my other half tonight, and it made me wonder about the etymology of the verb pore. I assumed it's not related to the noun pore, since they seem to have no meaning in common.

It turns out I was right about that. Pore, the noun, has a clear etymology from Old French, Latin and Greek, and before that Indo-European.

The verb pore, however, is a word of unknown origin from the 13th century. "Perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *purian, suggested by spyrian "to investigate, examine" (cognate with Old Norse spyrja) and spor "a trace, vestige."

Pore (two different meanings)... pour... poor. Who really needs those different spellings? The more I think about it, the more I remember I like spelling reform.

One Reason Spelling Reform Would Be Bad

The NPR Sunday Puzzle by Will Shortz reminded me of something that would be lost if we ever managed to bring about English spelling reform (here's my earlier post on that topic).

Shortz provided a two-word hint phrase. The contestant was supposed to think of a synonymous two-word phrase in which the words look like they should rhyme, but they don't. (Listen to it here.)

The phrases were:

hears bears
shows cows
clasps wasps
gives wives
bans swans
rolls dolls
wounds hounds
halves valves
sands wands
breaks streaks
does toes

It's pretty silly that those sets of words don't rhyme, but the fact that they don't makes for a nifty puzzle.

We Now Resume Our Normal Spelling

The point of this ad from one of my local papers was to say that sorting paper résumés is as out of date as typing on typewriter:


But the thing I noticed was the use of the word "résumés" without accents. I realize this is a common way to spell this French word, but in this headline -- which suffers from a deficit of clarity to begin with -- it's almost unintelligible.

I'm extra-sensitive on this point, since a proofreader I work with constantly adds both accents in the help-wanted section of a publication I produce. In the midst of a bunch of classified ads, I find the accents less important for clarity, but in a headline in a full-page ad that ran in the front section of a newspaper, I feel differently.

I admit, the accents generally strike me as a bit precious, especially the first one. To me, the final accent is helpful to the reader for pronunciation and differentiating from the verb "resume." But, of course, dropping one accent while keeping the other would be a mishmash of convenience.

An excellent comment thread among grammar curmudgeons on painintheenglish.com makes many interesting arguments for and against the use of the accents. Some authoritative-sounding commenters claim that when a word moves into English, it automatically loses its accents because we don't use 'em in this here part of the world. Others make my point -- that résumé needs the accents in order to be clear. Some even advocate for the one accent approach.

Many commenters explain the loss of the accents because it's hard to type them when using a computer. One commenter shared this minor nightmare:

Whether the accents are appropriate or not I wouldn't recommend you use them. I've submitted several resumes thru job sites and just found out that they convert e's with accents over them to i's. So everywhere I spelled resume with accents came out as risumi. That looks really dumb when you're applying for professional level positions!!

Another commenter adds this fairly definitive point:

For what it's worth, the current edition -- the Fourth -- of the American Heritage College Dictionary (which, as suggested by its title, gives preference to American usage practice), lists resumé first, followed by resume, and then résumé.

And then there's the Wikipedia to the rescue:

A number of loanwords are sometimes spelled in English with an acute accent used in the original language: these include sauté, ... café, touché, fiancé, and fiancée. Retention of the accent is common only in the French ending é or ée, as in these examples, where its absence would tend to suggest a different pronunciation. Thus the French word résumé is commonly seen in English as resumé, with only one accent (but also with both or none).

It is common to see English uses of those other French words without their accents, of course. Cafe and fiancee don't bother me when they're unaccented, because everyone knows what they are on sight and how to say them. Saute, fiance, and touche, however, always rankle me.

The long-term solution is spelling reform, of course. Let's see. Rezuhmay, anyone?