[ExI] need a new word/suffix

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] need a new word/suffix

 

>…  English has a lot of old words still spelled the old way and it causes problems.  (sough, bough, but tough).  It is a very difficult language to learn because of it.  We need to make it as easy as possible - right?  Why not go to complete phonetic spelling?  …billw

 

I second the heeellll outta that notion BillW.  There already exists a standardized phonetic spelling that can deal with differences in the way some words are pronounced.  We can deal with the whole neether/nyther business.

Consider this.  A long time ago, Japan Incorporated realized it needed some kind of equivalent to phonetic spelling in a character set which could by typed on a western keyboard.  In a move that fills me with almost enough admiration to actually buy one of their cars, they somehow made that transition happen, from a nightmare character set and a tonal language to one that allows westerners access to their language, along with all the benefits of doing so.

Meanwhile, China failed to make the same realization, or failed to act on it.  The Chinese (as far as I know) have nothing analogous to Japan’s Romaji.  Oh they need that.  

Vietnam tried to make the transition, but made it only part way.  Now they have all those accent marks and tildas and nonsense.  All modern languages need to have a form or subset (or perhaps superset form) which does away with all the extra pronunciation marks, all the diphthongs, eliminate everything other than standardized western-keyboard style 26 characters plus numbers, period, comma, dash and space bar.  

I am not even sure about the dash, but having a colon/semicolon under the right youngest finger is keyboard design flaw.  That’s where the shift key should have been placed, but was not because of mechanical limitations when keyboards were those clattery things you young guys may have seen in the movies.

spike

 

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