But lately, as I’ve started teaching my 4-year-old son to read, I’ve begun to feel that the conventions of English spelling represent little more than a cruel guessing game. My child knows that the K sound starts the word kitty. Why shouldn’t it also start the word cake?
The Simplified Spelling Society knows why, and it has a solution: reform English spelling to reflect alphabetic principles of sound, replacing ridiculously spelled words like rough with simplified forms such as ruf.
If everyone could spell, my job would be a lot easier (well, actually, I’d probably be out of a job). But wouldn’t a literacy based on logic be better for everyone?
What do you think?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 12:42 pm and is filed under English usage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



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