Should some spellings be removed?

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

No.

In speech it's fine, (which is mainly what Mr Fry is talking about) as long as you are understood, but if we start removing spellinsg from the lnaguage then we run into problems where we would need then.

The difference between affect and effect may not actually have much bearing on a conversation, or when writing a letter to your friend, but when you're writing a formal report about whether inflation has hurt or profited the company you're going to need to make damn sure you use the right meaning.

Most of the completely useless spellings have been eliminated from the language already, and while you may not see the point about the difference between wheres, whichs, whyfores and theres, someone somewhere (like myself earlier this afternoon) is writing a report about international education systems and how they impact upon the role of marketing overseas, and I have to make sure that my grammar is perfet or else not only might my work be misinterpreted in the office, but when it gets translated into Chinese it could suddenly have an entirely different meaning.

A better way to put it would be like this:

I have to go to bed

I have two beds

These are words which sound the same and are spelled very similarly, but they don't mean even remotely the same thing, they are homonyms to use the correct term. But you wouldn't suggest eliminating one of those spellings because suddenly no one would know what you were talking about. While you msay not have to use correct grammar to describe their, there or they're, there are people who absolutely have to have a differentiated method of spelling them.

 

[Soviet Steve]

ire thikn wer gt rly gud frm spel simplr y ppl no sprt no clu lol.

But seriously, written communication functions differently to language. If you present yourself as shortly as possible with no regard as to what the reader expects then you insinuate that you have no respect for the reader or the subject matter.

 

[omega 616]

Remove spellings because people are too lazy to learn their native tongue? Evolution of language is not the same as simplifying it.

Really? Well hasn't text speak become it's own language and that is the height of simplified.

Also, explain how we aren't still using ye ol' English? Seems to me that it was too complex and confusing, so they simplified it and made it easier to understand.

If you pronounce "where", "were" and "we're" the same way then you are pronouncing at least two of them completely wrong, except for the first letter of course.

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.

 

[Semudara]

They may be spelled similarly, but they're different words. Spelling them all the same might make things easier for writers who don't like to think, but if you can't remember that "they're" is a contraction of "they are" and therefore not spelled the same as the possessive "their", I don't want to read it.

I'm all for removing unnecessary complexities in language, but having different words be spelled differently just makes sense. It's easier for the reader, and therefore makes for better writing. Plus, as people have pointed out, many of those words DO have different pronunciations!

Some people also want to make "literally" mean "seriously" because they use it that way. But if we caved in, we wouldn't have a word that means what "literally" does. Language evolution is great, but it has to make SENSE or it becomes language devolution...

...iff u n0 wut i m33n.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

.

I'm seriously getting tired of people quoting that video when advocating against proper spelling and grammar.

I blame David Mitchell. People think that Fry's video can just be used as a retort against Mitchell's one about 'I could care less' but they're actually discussing subtly different things, which is of course entirely the point. Without a solid understanding of the language that they're talking about you won't spot how they're referring to different thing.

And of course, Stephen Fry is not the sole dictator as to what the English language should and shouldn't be used.

 

[Micalas]

Because that's just lazy.

"There, they're there!" vs. "There, there there!"

"There, they're their own show now." vs. "Their, their their own show now."

Which one is easier to read?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

 

[lacktheknack]

Because that's just lazy.

"There, they're there!" vs. "There, there there!"

"There, they're their own show now." vs. "Their, their their own show now."

Which one is easier to read?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Touche.

(I actually sat down and took five minutes to figure this sentence out. I DID IT!)

 

[bojac6]

Because I like to know what the hell people are talking about. I really do not know how anybody could actually think what your suggesting is a good idea. I mean who the hell actually wants to endorse people being idiots. To top it off you linked that rediculous video. The only thing that shows is that the guy who made it is proud to be stupid.

Really, that's the conclusion you drew from the video? A well spoken man (assuming you aren't already aware of who Stephen Fry is) berating pendants for their strict orthodoxy is someone who is "proud to be stupid." The obvious fun and subtle wordplay of the video does nothing to convince you that maybe he really enjoys language and likes to see it grow and twist?

Also, it's spelled "ridiculous" with an "i" not an "e," a rather common mistake on these forums despite the fact that every modern browser today has a spell check that automatically puts a squiggly red line under the spelling "rediculous."

 

[Naeo]

Let's just change our writing system to the IPA. There, now every disjunction between orthography and pronunciation is fixed. But with is comes oftentimes extreme ambiguity in the written language, so there's always that downside to consider.

 

[DigitalSushi]

No. Learn to speak/write. It's the easiest thing in the world to take a little bit of time to understand which of these meanings goes where. In fact, I bet if you'd put the same amount of thought into correcting your confusion as you did into writing your post, you'd have this figured out by now.

I don't think that is fair on people who have dyslexia, spell blind or English isn't their first language.

Its much like what Stephen Fry said on the video Omega posted, within the context or circumstance's then some things should be allowed instead of demanding a certain way of writing a language.

 

[Micalas]

Because that's just lazy.

"There, they're there!" vs. "There, there there!"

"There, they're their own show now." vs. "Their, their their own show now."

Which one is easier to read?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Touche.

(I actually sat down and took five minutes to figure this sentence out. I DID IT!)

Yay! There's actually an entire wiki article on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

 

[OriginalLadders]

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.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you pronounce "where", "were" and "we're" the same way then you are pronouncing at least two of them completely wrong, except for the first letter of course.

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.

I've done this (school speeches FTW!) and I pronounced "where" as "wehr" and "we're" as "wee-er". It's how I've always done it. I also pronounced "there" as "thehr" and "they're" as "thayur", and while I didn't say it in the speech, I'm positive that I pronounce "their" as "thur".

This was a casual speech, too, so it's not like I was trying to do perfect diction.

I'll give you "which witch is which", but come on. How do you mix those up in text?!

 

[Varrdy]

As many people have already said, why should the most commonly spoken language in the world be dumbed-down because people can't spell? I am no genius, nor am I a literary prodigy but I know the difference between there and their, lose and loose (people spelling "lose" with two "o"'s is a pet hate of mine), break and brake.

It's not rocket science but if English is not your first / native language then I will forgive every little spelling, punctuation and grammar mistake but, to a native English speaker, this should all be basic knowledge.

"Americanisation" (or should that be "Americanization"?) is more or less OK but all they do is swap "s" for "z" a lot (presumably to get better scores in Scrabble) and miss out the odd letter here and there. I say it's ok because the words in question usually have only one spelling and/or meaning anyway so the scope for confusion is miniscule at best. "Centre" / "Center", "Doughnut" / "Donut" and "Colour" / "Color" - all these are examples of what I mean.

While pronunciations do indeed sound the same, different spellings help readers put things into context better and taking this away would be confusing as hell! Language evolves for a reason and the changes that have endured have done so because they've vastly improved the way we speak, read and interact.

Wardy

 

[teqrevisited]

Absolutely not. Spelling them incorrectly is just laziness.

As for pronunciation: Where, were and we're sound nothing alike. Whir sounds more like were than the other two.

 

[Mau95]

Did you read George Orwell's 1984 and do you plan to implement Newspeak because of the aforementioned fact? Cause that would be ungood. Plusungood, even.

 

[Continuity]

So how about it, should there, where and which all be combined into just these (or which ever, I am not fussy)? I know this wont change anything in the real world, I am just asking for your opinions.

I don't mind the language evolving naturally to some degree, but I'm against modifying language intentionally because its not rational. Language is more than just a practical tool, its also part of our history and cultural heritage. Shakespeare is already almost incomprehensible to most kids these days, how much more great literature will be lost to future generations if we start meddling with English with no good reason other than to make it slightly easier to learn?

 

[Reaver570]

Did you read George Orwell's 1984 and do you plan to implement Newspeak because of the aforementioned fact? Cause that would be ungood. Plusungood, even.

Ninja'd damn..

Seriously though I was really surprised no one had mentioned newspeak already.

 

[ultimateownage]

That's all well and good, but none of that excuses you for not caring enough to be able to use the language eloquently. Learning how to isn't far away, and if you know how to then just caring is even closer. Text is not the same as speech, different rules should apply to them. Not being able to differentiate between words in speech I understand, but what reason is there for refusing to differentiate them in written language?

Remembering to spell things differently is no more of a 'torment' than learning how to talk loudly or quietly. There's a large difference between incorrect usage and evolution of a language.

Yes, saying that '5 items or less' should be '5 items or fewer' is pedantic and completely irrelevant. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the basic rules of grammar, which make up the foundations of our entire language. This is purely our form of other languages' accentuations, tones, and genders. Chinese has 4 different tones (and a neutral) for words, we have three different spellings for the words.

*EDIT*
You would not believe how fast I went to change an error in my grammar when I saw it. Worst time to write while tired.