If I were king of the world,

[Porter]

and decided to make English better, how would I change it?

This is a thread to propose (and justify!) ways that you'd change how English is either spoken or written and discuss the consequences of the changes, pitfalls and improvements on them, and how the change is either brilliant :thecheat: or moronic .

My first proposal is a specific rather than general rule: both its and it's should be spelled identically.  I really don't care which way, but we should pick one and stick with it.  We don't differentiate between them in spoken English, and it's not confusing there, so it shouldn't be any more confusing in written English.  The spelling differentiation only helps make things clearer in written English if you can remember a very specific rule, as opposed to there vs. they're, where you only need basic understanding of how English contractions are formed to know the exact meaning of the word.    

[pooka]

That is one I routinely screw up.  Does that fall under grammar, usage, spelling, or just puctuation?  Categories of practical English.  Hmm.

[Porter]

Here are some general guidelines I also propose:

1. Current standard English is the baseline, and there should be positive benefit for any proposed change from there.

2. General rules are better than specific rules.   Anti-preference should be given to irregular rules.

3. While there is value in phonetic spellings, there is also some value in being able to see the etymology of a word in its non-phonetic spelling.  Also, despite it being culturally elitist thing to say, I claim that there is more value in being able to derive Greek or Romantic etymologies than other etymologies, as more educated English speakers are familiar with Greek, Romantic, and Latin words than German ones.

[Porter]

That is one I routinely screw up.  Does that fall under grammar, usage, spelling, or just puctuation?

I'll bet it does!

[Porter]

Another proposal:  once a word becomes English, it's fully English.  That means that modifications to the word are done in the standard English fashion, and not in a way that reflects their language of origin.  That means, for example, that we'd use radiuses instead of radii and semispehre instead of hemisphere.

[Jonathon]

semispehre instead of hemisphere

I'm confused. What does this one have to do with naturalizing borrowed words?

[Brinestone]

I'd make C represent the "ch" sound, X represent the "sh" sound, and replace all current c's and x's with s, k, and "ks." I'd also reintroduce theta and eth for the "th" sounds.

Like this:

sirkle (circle)
foks (fox)
kold (cold)
xow (show)
ximmy (shimmy)
cild (child)
cokolate (chocolate)

Also, I'd get rid of all the h's in "wh" words.

[beverly]

semispehre instead of hemisphere

I'm confused. What does this one have to do with naturalizing borrowed words?

Huh.  My understanding was that we use the words half of a sphere is a hemisphere and half of a circle is a semicircle because one of the words comes from Greek and the other comes from Latin, so one uses a Greek prefix and the other a Latin one.  But looking in the dictionary, they both seem to come from Latin.

edit:  Oops.  This is Porter.

[Porter]

I'd make C represent the "ch" sound, X represent the "sh" sound, and replace all current c's and x's with s, k, and "ks." I'd also reintroduce theta and eth for the "th" sounds.

Woah!  No small changes for you!  

[Jonathon]

Huh.  My understanding was that we use the words half of a sphere is a hemisphere and half of a circle is a semicircle because one of the words comes from Greek and the other comes from Latin, so one uses a Greek prefix and the other a Latin one.  But looking in the dictionary, they both seem to come from Latin.

Hemi was borrowed from Greek to Latin to English. But I still don't understand the rationale for changing hemisphere to semisphere.

[Jonathon]

I'd make C represent the "ch" sound, X represent the "sh" sound, and replace all current c's and x's with s, k, and "ks." I'd also reintroduce theta and eth for the "th" sounds.

Like this:

sirkle (circle)
foks (fox)
kold (cold)
xow (show)
ximmy (shimmy)
cild (child)
cokolate (chocolate)

Also, I'd get rid of all the h's in "wh" words.

You forgot to change qu to kw.

So why theta rather than thorn?

[Porter]

Huh.  My understanding was that we use the words half of a sphere is a hemisphere and half of a circle is a semicircle because one of the words comes from Greek and the other comes from Latin, so one uses a Greek prefix and the other a Latin one.  But looking in the dictionary, they both seem to come from Latin.

Hemi was borrowed from Greek to Latin to English. But I still don't understand the rationale for changing hemisphere to semisphere.

OK, let's back up for a second.  Why do we use hemisphere instead of semisphere?

[Jonathon]

Because hemi and sphere are both Greek, whereas semi is Latin. Also, it appears that hemisphere was an actual Greek word and isn't something that was merely assembled from Greek roots.

[The Genuine]

I'd make C represent the "ch" sound, X represent the "sh" sound, and replace all current c's and x's with s, k, and "ks." I'd also reintroduce theta and eth for the "th" sounds.

Like this:

sirkle (circle)
foks (fox)
kold (cold)
xow (show)
ximmy (shimmy)
cild (child)
cokolate (chocolate)

Also, I'd get rid of all the h's in "wh" words.

Why are you using the "y" in the "shimmy" example?  Why not just spell it "shimmee" ?

Or would you like to spell "deep" "dyp" ?

[Brinestone]

Vowel spellings in English are such a mess that I almost think we'd have to leave some odd things alone. But I think it's quite possible to standardize consonant spellings.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I would replace the traditional Latin alphabet with an alternative, more phonetically accurate alphabet for the English language. This would offer immigrants an opportunity to learn to read and write English, which is often less phonetically consistent than many other languages.

Oh, wait. Not me, Brigham Young.

[rivka]

 

[pooka]

Speaking of the Deseret Alphabet, at my son's school the other day in addition to the usual Alphabet letters on the wall they had 7 or 8 alternate sounds like th and sh and ch, and for some reason they included postvocallic R.  How common is it for people to really think of those as different sounds?  I mean, I'd put an alveolar tap up before I'd get all het up about postvocalic r.  

One of my ex-brother in laws actually said that we keep spellings such as ough in order to know who is bonafide.

"I am the pater familias!"
"But you're not bonafide."

[Porter]

Oh, wait. Not me, Brigham Young.

I get those two confused all the time.[/quote]

[Porter]

Because hemi and sphere are both Greek, whereas semi is Latin.

OK.  I was saying that the language of origin should have no bearing on how we modify words.  Semi is the standard prefix that we use for that purpose, and sphere shouldn't get a separate prefix because it comes from Greek.

Also, it appears that hemisphere was an actual Greek word and isn't something that was merely assembled from Greek roots.

Well, in that case, I guess this rule of mine doesn't apply to hemisphere.  

----

Concerning Ruth's proposed spelling changes -- I don't have a justification for why, but I don't like the idea of changing thing so much that somebody who is fluent in English today would have a problem reading it after the change.  

[Brinestone]

My crazy idea for spelling reform would be to teach it as well as the old system for 25 years in schools. Year 1, you only teach it to kindergartners. Year 2, those first graders and then the new kindergartners. Year 3, likewise except now you have second graders too. By year 25, everyone who attended school will know both systems, and they'll probably think the more phonetic spelling system is the "easy" version. Year 26, you start putting both spellings on street signs, product packaging, etc., kind of like Canada does with French and English. Year 51, we use the new system for everything but still teach both spelling systems in schools to some extent so that kids can read "old" texts. And hopefully, after 50 years of watching their younger siblings, kids, and grandkids learn it, seeing it everywhere, and hearing about it, those over 50 will be able to adjust to the new system as well.

[The Genuine]

I've never heard of this before.

http://www.deseretalphabet.com/index.html

Who does this guy think he is?

[Jonathon]

I'd make C represent the "ch" sound, X represent the "sh" sound, and replace all current c's and x's with s, k, and "ks." I'd also reintroduce theta and eth for the "th" sounds.

Like this:

sirkle (circle)
foks (fox)
kold (cold)
xow (show)
ximmy (shimmy)
cild (child)
cokolate (chocolate)

Also, I'd get rid of all the h's in "wh" words.

I personally don't see any benefit to several of those changes, though they would be fine suggestions if you were coming up with an English orthography from scratch. In theory a 1:1 phoneme to grapheme correspondence sounds like a good thing, but I think languages like German show that it's not strictly necessary.

And at any rate, I'd worry about fixing English vowel spellings before I messed with the consonant spellings, which are already considerably more systematic in their use. The question is how to fix our vowels. It's tempting to try to align them with their original values, but that's a pretty major overhaul. I think a more realistic approach would be to start by smoothing out the inconsistencies in English spelling today. This is just off the top of my head; there might be better solutions to some or most of these.

/i/ = <ee>
/?/ = <i>
/e/ = <ey>
/?/ = <e>
/æ/ = <ae>
/?/ = <a>
/?/ = <o>
/o/ = <ow>
/?/ = <u>
/u/ = <ou>
/?/ = <uh>
/aw/ = <aw>
/aj/ = <ay>
/?j/ = <oy>

For the most part, all the tense vowels and diphthongs are spelled with two letters, while the lax monophthongs get only one. Silent e's would disappear. Sow thaet wuld giv uhs spelling thaet luks layk this. Ay down't think thaet's tou draestic uhf a cheyng, thow Ay'm olredee ruhnning intou prablems wher saylent e's indiceyt soft cansonaents. It's olsow hard tou ditermin thee uhnderlaying vawels bihaynd suhm vawels.

[Jonathon]

Ugh. My proposed system looks ugly.

[Tante Shvester]

Not only that, it assumes that there is consistency and agreement among English speakers for those vowel sounds.  Which I have not found to be true.

As an example, I can distinguish between "marry", "merry", and "Mary", while you can not.