Proposals to teach children to spell words wrongly

[torqueofthedevil]

Anyone seen this on BBC Breakfast?

Some nutter from the English Spelling Society and obviously other people, politians etc are complaining that UK children take 2 years longer to learn our language than their European counterparts....and this is due to silent letters and double consonants.

So proposals are being put forward for children to be taught to spell words incorrectly...I.e without the silent letters and double consonants!!!!

It's worrying that somebody has become the head of a group called the English Spelling Society (or something like that) and has views like that! He said that its the only language where it is not obvious from the spelling how to pronounce, or from hearing it, is not easy to write. Well I can think of plenty of foreign words that are like that!!! Especially French!

Where do people get these ideas and do they really think this is a good idea?? Unbelievable!

[torqueofthedevil]

HTP99 said:

torqueofthedevil said:

It's worrying that somebody has become the head of a group called the English Spelling Society (or something like that) and has views like that! He said that its the only language where it is not obvious from the spelling how to pronounce, or from hearing it, is not easy to write. Well I can think of plenty of foreign words that are like that!!! Especially French!

Where do people get these ideas and do they really think this is a good idea?? Unbelievable!

Many eastern European words look like a bunch of random letters just thrown together.

It is odd how people come up with these ideas, it has never been seen to be a problem in the past so why the hell should it suddenly be now?

English is supposed to be be one of the hardest languages to learn, to both speak and write though.

Exactly - never been an issue before. Just people meddling and also probably a large part of falling standards will be due to parents generally reading to children less, children reading less, daft changes to teaching curriculums etc.

Yes out language is considered very complex but for this reason it is also one of the most colourful and descriptive. It's strange nuances and words which sound similar but give different meanings allows the use of puns and witty use of language, along with better literature and poetry.

[torqueofthedevil]

el stovey said:

torqueofthedevil said:

Exactly - never been an issue before. Just people meddling and also probably a large part of falling standards will be due to parents generally reading to children less, children reading less, daft changes to teaching curriculums etc.

Yes out language is considered very complex but for this reason it is also one of the most colourful and descriptive. It's strange nuances and words which sound similar but give different meanings allows the use of puns and witty use of language, along with better literature and poetry.

You're missing the point that language is a fluid constantly evolving thing. New words appear all the time, some from other languages, spellings change over time. Pick up some Shakespeare and have a read. Let's not end up like the French with stuffy organisations trying to stop evolution of language.

No I'm not missing the point. Yes, language changes over time - usually decades / generations / centuries and this is a good thing. It is another reason that out language is as colourful and descriptive as it is. But what this thread is about, is not an organic changing of words slowly as an when required. It's a few nutters deciding unilaterally that they think a huge paradigm shift is required almost overnight to completely change the language.

Somebody made a very good point about how this would be impossible anyway now because we don't control the language - it is spoken by too many people and with the Internet etc. the scheme could just not take hold. As I said above, slow organic changes would be taken up, not a shift like this though. All this would do is confuse kids and make spelling / readin / writing even more confusing for them.