The Present24:24Why isn’t ‘sufficient’ spelled ‘enuf’? The absurdity of English spelling
Have you ever ever questioned why “choir” and “liar” rhyme, however “laughter” and “daughter” do not? Or why “sew” and “new” seem like they need to match, however sound nothing alike, whereas “kernel” and “colonel” are pronounced precisely the identical?
English spelling is famously inconsistent, and for New York-based author and editor Gabe Henry, that maddening inconsistency set off a deeper curiosity.
“I’ve all the time struggled with spelling in a average approach, and I am what you’ll most likely name a very good speller,” Henry instructed The Present’s host Matt Galloway.
“So I feel there’s one thing inherently mistaken in that — that you may be a very good speller within the language and nonetheless wrestle with it.”
In his new e-book, Sufficient is Enuf: Our Failed Makes an attempt to Make English Simpler to Spell, Henry explores the lengthy historical past of spelling reform. The e-book delves into the efforts of linguists, writers and thinkers who tried to make English extra phonetic and logical — typically at nice private {and professional} value.
“The extra I dug into the simplified spelling motion, researched the articles, the archives, the letters, the journals, I noticed how wealthy and complicated it truly was,” he mentioned.
He spoke to Galloway about his analysis. Right here is a part of the dialog.
The place does that simplified spelling motion start?
The primary simplified speller was a person named Orman. He lived in England within the twelfth century, and he was a monk.
His early try and simplify spelling was truly a far more difficult approach of spelling. On the time, the actual situation with spelling was easy methods to denote a protracted vowel versus a brief vowel. So the phrase “fir,” F-I-R, versus the phrase “fireplace.”
At the moment, they did not have the comfort of the silent “e” on the finish of the phrase “fireplace” that we might use at this time.
So Orman’s resolution was so as to add a second “r” when there is a brief vowel.
Now, that did not catch on. And it was a number of hundred years of silence within the simplified spelling reform group till [the] 1500s. They suggest concepts for brand new alphabets, for brand new letters, for extra phonetic variations of phrases.
It was actually the late 1700s when this motion actually kicked off.
Why did it explode then?
An vital factor occurred within the relationship between America and England, and that was the Revolutionary Warfare — America declares its independence from England.
It fights for its freedom. It wins it.
Then within the 1780s, there are these discussions about now that we have gained our independence, how are we going to differentiate ourselves from the tradition of our oppressors?
One of many ways in which they wished to differentiate themselves was in language. There have been some individuals within the early American Republic who wished to exchange English totally with French. There have been different individuals who wished to exchange it with Greek.
However a younger man named Noah Webster got here up with this concept to simplify our spelling.
On this approach, People would spell in another way than the English, and subsequently we might be declaring our linguistic independence.
What did [Webster] particularly wish to do?
His concept was to take out all silent letters and phoneticize as many phrases as doable, like spelling “chuckle” L-A-F, or “love” L-U-V, or “sufficient” E-N-U-F. It goes on and on.
And he wrote an essay explaining this. Then a yr later, he wrote a complete e-book written on this new spelling.
He was mocked, he was derided, and he was ignored.
And due to this, he withdrew his proposal. It did set off numerous different reformers who have been on this, however Noah Webster himself type of left that simplified spelling try behind.
Why do you suppose he was mocked?
I feel there’s one thing inherently humorous and ridiculous concerning the look of simplified spelling.
It simply declares itself as this dumbed down, low-class, uneducated model of language.
While you ask a toddler, a five-year-old to sound it out, they will offer you that simplified spelling model.
And that was Noah Webster’s intent. He desires spelling to be logical. He desires it to be extra scientific, extra mathematical. He did not like that right here we’re popping out of the scientific revolution, and we’re bringing sense and science and logic into each different side of our tradition besides language.
Within the e-book, you discuss how spelling reform was related to not simply this man and his one-person motion, however different types of counterculture and protest actions that had lots of people round them. What was happening there?
Within the mid 1800s, the simplified spelling motion tended to overlap with these different countercultural actions.
For example you have been a spelling reformer in 1850. There was a powerful probability you’ll even be concerned within the motion for alcohol temperance, for vegetarianism, for mysticism [and] homoeopathy.
And most prominently of all was abolition. So many abolitionists considered simplified spelling as a instrument to speed up literacy amongst newly freed slaves.
Within the years after the Civil Warfare, many spelling reformers, and even some former slaves, would journey the South educating the rudiments of phonetics, simplified spelling to those newly freed communities.
The concept amongst these abolitionists was not that they have been giving some sanded down or dumbed down model of spelling to newly literate individuals.
The concept was that they got a extra fashionable spelling, probably the spelling of the longer term — right here we’re standing on this precipice of a doable linguistic revolution, and the primary individuals who would get that leg up are these individuals who have not had the chance to learn or write their whole lives.
However it wasn’t simply an American factor, proper? This has occurred — some reform of spelling — within the dwelling of the English language, in the UK.
Yeah, this wasn’t restricted to America. This wasn’t restricted to at least one type of social reformer. The fascinating factor about simplified spelling is that no matter biases or beliefs or priorities you could have already going into it, you are likely to see it mirrored again at you.
For those who’re Noah Webster at first of the American Republic, you are going to see simplified spelling for its patriotic worth, a strategy to distance your self from the tradition and language of your oppressor.
For those who’re an abolitionist, you may see it for its social reform worth.
If you’re a money-minded businessman on the flip of the twentieth century, perhaps you personal a newspaper or a manufacturing unit, you will note simplified spelling for its capability to enhance productiveness and effectivity and shave off these prices on the margins, issues like saving ink, saving paper, and subsequently saving time, saving cash.
On the finish of the e-book, you discuss the place we’re at now with language. How have telephones and computer systems and the way in which that we talk now modified the dialog round how we spell issues?
The digital world strikes quick.
Typically talking, the web breeds shorter and faster content material to fulfill our tempo of life.
There’s TikTok and Snapchat and YouTube shorts. In text-based media, Twitter, texting, acronyms and different short-form, quick-paced communications. The sheer effectivity of this digital know-how simply selects for these shorter spellings, this extra casual approach of speaking with one another.
Typing “although” as T-H-O, or “you” because the letter U are quite common now.
And these precise reforms have been proposed dozens of occasions by dozens of reformers over tons of of years.
The distinction is there’s little resistance to it now as a result of it’s bottom-up. It’s being pushed by everyone who has a telephone of their fingers. It isn’t being pushed from some elite mental reformer on the prime.
When left as much as its personal units, language naturally takes that easier path. It’s extra democratic. Each time we sort to our pal the letter Okay as a substitute of “OK,” as an example, we’re all collaborating in it now. And due to that, it is casual. It is unconscious.
I feel that that may result in the long-term reforms that these early reformers had hoped for.
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