Chris' Babel Blog - Languages - Comments

Me fail English? That's unpossible! - Chris

Chris — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:44:11 +01:00

Wow, my blog has become a place for heated debate...

Me fail English? That's unpossible! - George Jelliss

George Jelliss — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:55:23 +01:00

Roger says: "Starting again with a completely new system is about as unworkable as it gets." But what I'm advocating is not really "a completely new system". It is just using the existing alphabet in a consistent way.

Starting agein widh a kompliitly nyuu sistem iz abaut az unwrrkabal az it getz. Ai kudn't biiliiv dhat ai kud aktyuwali undrrstand wot ai woz riiding.

This is one stage short of my complete reform. using "ii" and "uu" for the long "Ee", "Ooh" and "Err" sounds and "dh for the voiced "th", with "a" and "u" remaining ambiguous.

Me fail English? That's unpossible! - Roger Mould

Roger Mould — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:22:11 +01:00

Starting again with a completely new system is about as unworkable as it gets. At least evolution carries everybody along the same path, albeit reluctantly for some. I was recently sent the following on Facebook and, dammit, it's easier to read.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

On a different tack I would like to defend laziness, and I speak as a congenitally lazy person. There are two ways to be lazy:

Try to do bugger all with no particular objective in mind.

Use your intelligence to find quicker, simpler, easier, less expensive ways of doing things. This is creative problem solving driven by laziness. It frees up energy and time to either fart about or do something else that's productive. Both equally legitimate.

I was on the bus last week listening to my new Raconteurs album, when it was interrupted by a text. My longhand reply took so long that my musical pleasure was severely impaired.

I shld def lrn shrthnd txtng

Me fail English? That's unpossible! - George Jelliss

George Jelliss — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:29:53 +01:00

Are our "linguistic traditions" such as the spellings of "choir", "through", "accommodation" and suchlike "embarrassments" really worth preserving?

Ai advoukeit ei komplytly founetik speling, ywzing ounly jy egzisting alfqbet. Wij jis yw kan dyust spel wrdz egzaktly jq wei yw sei jem. Jy ounly tyeindzhez ar jat "x" and "j" rypleis jy tw saundz ov "th", "c" reprezents jy "u" saund in "hut" and "q" iz jy indefinit vawel.

This could be adopted immediately as an alternative spelling wordlwide, and then who would want to go back to the old illogical system?

Me fail English? That's unpossible! - Roger Mould

Roger Mould — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:35:25 +01:00

New environments for communication like email and texting are bound to generate evolution in written language that will be both good and bad. Maybe most of it will only ever be appropriate to its environment, but some of it will leak out into general use.

I find this more interesting than annoying, even though I still text in what I think of as 'longhand.'

I was reading a David Crystal book a while ago which said that rationalised spelling is historically fairly recent, and that the process was very tortuous and acrimonious. This implies that for most of the history of writing we have been fairly relaxed about these things.

Speaking as someone who could do a quality PhD on maintaining a relaxed attitude to life, it could be that I'm the wrong person to have a credible opinion.

On Se Facebooke? - lolo

lolo — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:34:51 +01:00

ana mish arfa afteh el facebook

On Se Facebooke? - Chris

Chris — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:17:36 +01:00

Damm, someone beat me to it.

At the risk of sounding like the ending of a Scooby Doo cartoon 'I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those pesky kids!'

Chris

On Se Facebooke? - Vané

Vané — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:34:02 +01:00

Actually, the slang version of "to facebook", in French, already exists:

"fassebouquer"- it's hilarious when you see people use it.