by gadfyl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jan 24, 2007 at 08:38 PM
Steve wrote:
> wie shud wee hav too put uhp with silee thingz liek the sielent "h" in
> "why"(ts) foer instans? wie ...
What happened with 'what', 'where', 'which', and 'why' (inter alia) is th=
at the initial hw came to be spelled wh.
To this day, many people pronounce 'why' >hwie<; whereas 'wye' (e.g., the=
letter after X) does not have the initial aspirant.
Likewise, 'which' >hwitch< is not a true homonym for witch; 'where' >hwae=
r< is not a true homophone for 'wear' >waer<.
The widespread use of SMS and instant messengers guarantees certain spell=
ing reforms like 'ur' for 'your' will be understood.
Any use of accents will be next to impossible. Typing must be as simplif=
ied as possible.
Anything that uses accents isn't going to work out.
How often do you see 'r=E9sum=E9' spelled correctly in English? Most Eng=
lish spellcheckers don't even recognize it!
Most people just type 'resume' which is an entirely different word.
Look at the trends in other languages that "rely" on accents.
Many e-mails and most chat messages are composed without accents and ofte=
n without capitalizations.
It is pointless to reform English spelling to use more accents in the fac=
e of the clear trend toward dimini****ng use of accents in most languages.=
