On January 29 2011 00:25 Perscienter wrote: English is the most important lingua franca in the world and it still lacks a coherent spelling and pronunciation. Especially the former needs to be reformed. Since English has been introduced as a second language in so many countries, it often deteriorates in this regions. Then again not even the U.S.-Americans speak Oxford British English. They had to invent their own style for whatever reasons in the first place.
My suggestion is this: adopt the British spelling. U.S.-exclusive vocabulary should be included in the language. Only one English language should be taught in today's schools over the world.
Is it really so difficult to write harbour with a 'u'?
What do you think?
English as a language has been introduced as a second language because of the USA not because of England. So, if people are learning English to talk to those from the USA then it would probably be a good idea to learn the United State's way of spelling and pronuciation. I myself know 3 languages and all of them have many dialects. It doesn't all form into one narrow picture just because we want it to.
Is it really so difficult to exclude the 'u'?
It makes more sense to drop the u, because it isn't pronounced, and it's easier to write without the "u."
I agree to the issue of internet lingo needing to be abolished. I hate people who say "We aren't in English class." No, we aren't, but you should still make your writing understandable, and when you type like a fucking retard, it's not understandable. It's barely above jibberish at that point, and most of what gets written on the internet is jibberish. Seriously, how fucking hard is it to hit "y" and "o" before the "u?" GAH! It drives me crazy. It took me like 3 seconds to write "you" with quotes around each letter, it takes less than a second to write out the whole word. It's like Newspeak from 1984, I swear.
I know there isn't really a correlation between proper spelling and intelligence, but I'll be damned if I've ever met someone I consider very intelligent that types like a fucking retard. My grammar online (and even in writing for classes) is not perfect, but it's very understandable.
I guess to be more on topic, I can see the sense in a standardized form of the English language, but I think the focus is on the wrong issue. The difference in "color" and "colour" is insignificant: trivial, pointless; it doesn't matter. The difference between "your" and "you're" is massive, as both words carry very different meanings, but the average halfwit coming out of high school can't understand the difference, and somehow they graduate.
On January 29 2011 00:25 Perscienter wrote: English is the most important lingua franca in the world and it still lacks a coherent spelling and pronunciation. Especially the former needs to be reformed. Since English has been introduced as a second language in so many countries, it often deteriorates in this regions. Then again not even the U.S.-Americans speak Oxford British English. They had to invent their own style for whatever reasons in the first place.
My suggestion is this: adopt the British spelling. U.S.-exclusive vocabulary should be included in the language. Only one English language should be taught in today's schools over the world.
Is it really so difficult to write harbour with a 'u'?
What do you think?
English as a language has been introduced as a second language because of the USA not because of England. So, if people are learning English to talk to those from the USA then it would probably be a good idea to learn the United State's way of spelling and pronuciation. I myself know 3 languages and all of them have many dialects. It doesn't all form into one narrow picture just because we want it to.
Is it really so difficult to exclude the 'u'?
It makes more sense to drop the u, because it isn't pronounced, and it's easier to write without the "u."
I agree to the issue of internet lingo needing to be abolished. I hate people who say "We aren't in English class." No, we aren't, but you should still make your writing understandable, and when you type like a fucking retard, it's not understandable. It's barely above jibberish at that point, and most of what gets written on the internet is jibberish. Seriously, how fucking hard is it to hit "y" and "o" before the "u?" GAH! It drives me crazy. It took me like 3 seconds to write "you" with quotes around each letter, it takes less than a second to write out the whole word. It's like Newspeak from 1984, I swear.
I know there isn't really a correlation between proper spelling and intelligence, but I'll be damned if I've ever met someone I consider very intelligent that types like a fucking retard.
ur prejudice against improvement is doubleplusungood
I don't really care. Colour me pink because color can be spelled both ways. I usually spell it with a u because that is how I was taught. If i see color I won't be like OMG you need the u in there.
Harbour Honour Colour Armour Humour
How about this...
Practice to Practise Centre to Center Capitalise to Capitalize.
English sucks for those who have to learn it. You can go on and on about the different exceptions to spelling and context. I cannot see making it uniform viable in the world. (If you grew up with English you are very lazy to the proper use of it)
it still lacks a coherent spelling and pronunciation.... adopt the British spelling.
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
British spelling is just as incoherent as American spelling. I think it might be a good idea to gradually introduce truly phonetic spelling for the English language, as that would make learning the language infinitely easier for everyone. I think the odds of that ever happening are between slim and none, because linguistic changes are very difficult to enforce from the top.
Also, what about the Canadians? They have their own way of spelling, which is like a hybrid of British and American.
To hijack your thread, I believe the Chinese government should get rid of Chinese characters and move to pinyin for everything. Chinese is probably on its way to becoming a lingua franca (perhaps in parallel with English), but it's not going to get there easily and nobody is going to enjoy it if they keep those impossible to remember characters around.
On January 29 2011 00:29 KwarK wrote: I'm much more worried about 'payed' and 'layed'. It seems I see these abominations more regularly than I see the correct spelling recently and it makes me sad. Before we get to work on using just one set of acceptable spellings we should teach people to spell.
Oh god... I didn't see what was wrong with 'payed' or 'layed' at first.
blue with an E through with an ough colour with a u
it clearly(doesnt) make(s) sense why we made english more complicated than it needs to be
silly americans making things easier!
You do realize that we spell it blue, and through right? Yeah there's no u in color though.
Our traffic signs and fast food signs spell it thru, tho.
They do spell it thru on some signs, but that's an abbreviation and not a correct spelling of the word. The only thing I can think of that is spelled blu is bluray... and that's japanese ;D haha.
In English-speaking websites on the Internet, you're likely to find a number of people who speak British English and a number of people who speak American English. I have yet to see a case where speakers of one were unable to understand speakers of the other. Does it really matter whether or not we spell "harbor" with or without a 'u' when everyone who reads the word knows that we're talking about a place where ships can dock? The globalization (or spelled with an 's' if you prefer) caused by the Internet, at least in some part, seems to suppress the capability for radical language changes over time.
In order to maintain mutual comprehensibility on the Internet, English speakers themselves tend to speak in ways that other English speakers would understand. Not to mention the prevalence and easy access to media of other countries that the Internet provides - American and British users can watch TV shows from the other respective countries, and through those means, pop culture references and slang can be interchanged. This is a phenomenon that would have been unheard of 100 years prior. It's hard to see the English language as a whole develop in a way that speakers in Australia will become unintelligible with speakers in America, who will in turn become unintelligible with speakers in England. There's too much interaction between the different speakers to allow that.
On January 29 2011 02:08 Landok wrote: And its Defense, not defence!!!!!!
Don't be silly. The American spelling of defence is attack.
It always seemed ironic to me that the British spelling of defense, at least by the laws of English prefixes, would imply some sort of removal of a barrier around an area. Sounds like an attack to me.
On January 29 2011 02:08 Landok wrote: And its Defense, not defence!!!!!!
Don't be silly. The American spelling of defence is attack.
Well, like my daddy always said, the best defense is a good offense. Funny thing, google actually says defence is incorrect spelling, while you can spell offense either way offence/offense.
On January 29 2011 00:59 GloomyBeaR wrote: I used to teach ESL. Teaching the difference between British and American English is a pain in the ass, but that's what dialects do. Also, there is no Academie Francaise (sp? lol) for English, i.e. no governing body determines what is official. The highest level of authority you have to report to is your grammar teacher.
Interesting note: apparently MSWord thinks all passive sentences are grammatically incorrect
Not gramatically incorrect, but it's often poor choice of wording in formal writing, because it shifts the focus of your sentence away from the subject.
On January 29 2011 01:17 gongryong wrote: Language only needs two things to be successful: to communicate and be flexible. The communication part may not always be absolute hence the second part. Yet, flexibility is itself checked by the limits of communication. Language can only remain relevant if it evolves with the context and consciousness of the users. A fixed and final language easily dies or becomes a novelty.
I have no problem with that. Our German (unified) language still changes. If there was a governing body for English language as a whole, then this would not impede the evolution of the English language.
On January 29 2011 01:17 gongryong wrote: As an aside, English as a lingua franca is a function of power, and not an innate strength of the language.
It's not only a function of power. English was elected to be the lingua franca because of its clear alphabet for example. It's really to most people less difficult to learn than Spanish and especially German and French.
English also has the most words of any language, allowing for the greatest amount of expression.
For instance the word subtle has over 20 different synonyms that each have slightly different meanings. http://thesaurus.com/browse/subtle
This is the primary reason that english is considered the premier language to convey ideas with, as well as to write literature in.
I don't really see the problem, it's not like you cant communicate because of spelling or pronunciation. Besides inside American English there are multiple spellings/pronunciations for words. Kwark our parents always tell us "the best defense is an offense" is that an American saying?
It's not possible. Language and cultures are inseparable. No one would like their spelling to be changed. And also English does not have an Institution that makes rules like Real Academia Española (where they have to take into account what's said in Mexijo, Honduras, Spain,etc)
On January 29 2011 00:25 Perscienter wrote: English is the most important lingua franca in the world and it still lacks a coherent spelling and pronunciation. Especially the former needs to be reformed. Since English has been introduced as a second language in so many countries, it often deteriorates in this regions. Then again not even the U.S.-Americans speak Oxford British English. They had to invent their own style for whatever reasons in the first place.
My suggestion is this: adopt the British spelling. U.S.-exclusive vocabulary should be included in the language. Only one English language should be taught in today's schools over the world.
Is it really so difficult to write harbour with a 'u'?
What do you think?
I actually don't understand your problem. For international english, OBE is the spelling of choice, so its normed. Well, the americans spell differently when they're with themselves. But who is bothered? As a German you might know that Austria and Switzerland has a different spelling aswell, and it is no problem whatsoever.
No one is for themselves any more. What's the difference between Austrian, Switzerland and German spelling?
Example: Kassa. Look it up if you don't know, not part of the topic. To be honest, I don't think this is a reasonable OP, especially from a non-native speaker. The spelling differences don't result in any reasonable problems. And accents are natural, and that you can't understand people from Ireland or New Zealand is the same that they can't understand Bavarians or Allemans. Language lives.
EPT
