EPTspelling reform in English speaking countries - Page 4
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eight.BiT
United States240 Posts
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Weedk
United States507 Posts
On January 29 2011 02:33 muse5187 wrote: 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? I believe he meant we always attack instead of defending ourselves. Which I agree with. Edit: Not morally agreeing, agreeing with Kwark. | ||
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muse5187
1125 Posts
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KahunaNui
Spain257 Posts
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 29 2011 02:59 eight.BiT wrote: Anyone in the US notice the kids who try and be a little different and use the extra 'u'? (like colour) What's the deal? -_- It depends on how you're taught. For whatever reason (can't remember when I learned it) I spell theater theatre and dialog as dialogue. I used to spell defense as defence until people on broodwar made fun of me for it. I don't think it has anything to do with "kids" trying to be different. I do it completely subconsciously. | ||
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Kale187
United States11 Posts
On January 29 2011 02:59 eight.BiT wrote: Anyone in the US notice the kids who try and be a little different and use the extra 'u'? (like colour) What's the deal? -_- I always liked armour and vapour and behaviour and honour better. I still spelled color and harbor without the u. I'm sure I must have picked it up subconsciously along the line because a 6th grade teacher had to tell me to stop spelling it that way. I didn't even know. As far as dialogue vs dialog, it just makes sense considering it is monologue and not monolog. | ||
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50bani
Romania480 Posts
There is no good Oxford English and bad American. Really. Why would you give a damn about how to spell harbor? All it comes down to is that in our countries, Romania for me and Germany for you we don't have spelling contests/game shows while they do. | ||
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Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:04 pfods wrote: It depends on how you're taught. For whatever reason (can't remember when I learned it) I spell theater theatre and dialog as dialogue. I used to spell defense as defence until people on broodwar made fun of me for it. I don't think it has anything to do with "kids" trying to be different. I do it completely subconsciously. Could be partially my own connotations but... I sat down in the theater. I like to act in the theatre. This wall will act as a good defence. We will mount a strong defense. Click off the dialog box. Wilde writes some pretty dialogue. | ||
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puckstop101
Canada132 Posts
P.S only canadian knows how many different ways you can say eh P.P.S currently in a music battle vs my roomate | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
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? No. Spelling and pronunciation are not an issue in English. I can understand someone from Britain, Canada, and Australia just fine. The slightly different way they spell things isn't at all difficult for me to understand, or the majority of people. You may think otherwise being from Germany, where regional dialects vary a lot more(the exception in English is Glaswegian. Seriously, someone explain that nonsense to me). The only possible issue is slang words, which, in the age of instantaneous communication, british slang becomes known over here within minutes, and vice versa. We no longer live in a time where languages develop separately for months or years at a time, like with british and american english changing so much. The only real problem English has is grammar, which is probably impossible to fix without destroying the language. Examples: Homophones are really annoying Words like 'so' that have no meaning or all the meaning, depending on how they're used Contractions are weird things Exceptions. Holy shit does English have a million rules, each with a million exceptions in certain circumstances. These are only really a problem for people who are learning English as a second language, though. | ||
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sharkeyanti
United States1273 Posts
Regarding the use of regional spelling, I always felt that the user can choose whatever suits them. "Dialogue" always looked preferable to "dialog" for me, for example. Having some standardized English wouldn't really accomplish much, especially considering non-native speakers have enough troubles grasping the language. | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:11 Jerubaal wrote: Could be partially my own connotations but... I sat down in the theater. I like to act in the theatre. This wall will act as a good defence. We will mount a strong defense. Click off the dialog box. Wilde writes some pretty dialogue. Yeah, there's certainly a sense of formality with the British way of spelling words, hence why some people, when referencing, say, a Shakespeare play will spell theatre, when normally they would just spell it theater, when there really isn't a difference. | ||
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blue_arrow
1971 Posts
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LarJarsE
United States1378 Posts
Whether the government tries to control it or not, people will say and spell things differently as they are used to growing up. I dont think its the greatest idea that we try to completely regulate English, as any native English speaker can read and understand different spellings of certain words. There is such a difference in education in people who speak English, who is this change really targeted at? | ||
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ggrrg
Bulgaria2716 Posts
On January 29 2011 00:35 HardCorey wrote: I think that Grammar is considerably more important than spelling. English grammar is very complicated and most people don't even understand the basics and just assume that they are grammatically correct because it, "just sounds right." The words of a man that hasn't studied any other languages. English grammar is kind of easy in comparison to Romance languages, a piece of cake in comparison to Slavic and Scandinavian languages, and not even comparable to something like Finnish. Mark Twain: "My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years." | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:36 ggrrg wrote: I don't see any particular reason why British English should be adopted all over the world. You haven't given one either. On the other hand, a worldwide readjustment to BE would cause complications in all countries involved. The words of a man that hasn't studied any other languages. English grammar is kind of easy in comparison to Romance languages, a piece of cake in comparison to Slavic and Scandinavian languages, and not even comparable to something like Finnish. Mark Twain: "My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years." I'm sorry but english grammar is pretty much the #1 reason why so much of the world has trouble learning english | ||
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Fraidnot
United States824 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:16 pfods wrote: No. Spelling and pronunciation are not an issue in English. I can understand someone from Britain, Canada, and Australia just fine. The slightly different way they spell things isn't at all difficult for me to understand, or the majority of people. You may think otherwise being from Germany, where regional dialects vary a lot more(the exception in English is Glaswegian. Seriously, someone explain that nonsense to me). The only possible issue is slang words, which, in the age of instantaneous communication, british slang becomes known over here within minutes, and vice versa. We no longer live in a time where languages develop separately for months or years at a time, like with british and american english changing so much. The only real problem English has is grammar, which is probably impossible to fix without destroying the language. Examples: Homophones are really annoying Words like 'so' that have no meaning or all the meaning, depending on how they're used Contractions are weird things Exceptions. Holy shit does English have a million rules, each with a million exceptions in certain circumstances. These are only really a problem for people who are learning English as a second language, though. I'd say that spelling is English's greatest problem! So many words are spelled completely different then how they actually sound. on top of that we have like 900,000 words and there is not a single spelling rule that holds true for them all. This is partially because English devours everything it comes in contact with and we have thousands of words with different origins, all of which have different ways to spell things. If these words had unified spelling rules it would make English so much simpler. Grammar isn't half the problem, you can screw that up and people will still understand what you're talking about. If you mix up good and well, people will still understand what you're saying. That's not true for every language out there. You mix up the o sound with ou in Hungarian they will stare you down because they don't know what you're even trying to say. | ||
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NoobSkills
United States1603 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:41 pfods wrote: I'm sorry but english grammar is pretty much the #1 reason why so much of the world has trouble learning english Every language has it's own rules. English has very little variation in those rules. I before E except after C. Sure there are 5 words that do not follow that rule, but in every other language there are 50. Now as far as sentence structure not following the norm of most languages, new grammar rules, vocab, ect it would be a hard language to pick up whereas learning French after knowing Spanish would be much easier. But then again why would you want to learn French. | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 29 2011 03:50 Fraidnot wrote: I'd say that spelling is English's greatest problem! So many words are spelled completely different then how they actually sound. on top of that we have like 900,000 words and there is not a single spelling rule that holds true for them all. This is partially because English devours everything it comes in contact with and we have thousands of words with different origins, all of which have different ways to spell things. If these words had unified spelling rules it would make English so much simpler. Grammar isn't half the problem, you can screw that up and people will still understand what you're talking about. If you mix up good and well, people will still understand what you're saying. That's not true for every language out there. You mix up the o sound with ou in Hungarian they will stare you down because they don't know what you're even trying to say. Spelling isn't an issue in English, especially between different dialects. It's just something you have to learn, and even if you can't, you can still be understood. Now take a foreigner has no grasp of grammar in english. Please tell me you can grasp the full meaning of what they're trying to say. Maybe for simple sentences like "May I have X" or "Y is blue". Anything deeper than descriptive sentence outside of the present tense and you might as well just give up trying to understand them. Oh yeah, verb conjugation is a blast in english. To be I am You are He is We are future tense I will be You will be He will be We will be past He was You were We were I was You need to add extra words and pronouns and nonsense to conjugate english verbs. Most languages just have a different suffix, not an entirely differen't word. Plus, there is no formal pronoun, no gender specific words or prefix, etc. That may seem easy to us but when you're used to du and Sie it's weird and confusing to mash them together. | ||
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Perscienter
957 Posts
On January 29 2011 02:50 kazansky wrote: Example: Kassa. Look it up if you don't know, not part of the topic. That's one word, that is no example for spelling differences. Furthermore, it is sometimes used in Germany as well. | ||
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