English Spelling Reform Information

English language spelling reform is the collective term for various campaigns and efforts to change the spelling of the English language to make it simpler and more rationally consistent. There exists a small-scale movement among amateur and professional linguists, but one with a long history and some mixed successes.

Supporters assert that the many inconsistencies and irregularities of English spelling lead to severe difficulties for learners. They believe this leads to a lower level of literacy among English speakers compared with speakers of languages having a spelling system that is more consistent in representing meaning as well as pronunciation. Many reformers think that it should more faithfully conform to how the language is spoken, and have pointed out costs to the environment and business and other users in retaining traditional spelling.

English does in fact have a very poor phonemic orthography, or correspondence between how the words are written and how they are spoken. This is due in part to changes in commonly accepted dialects of English from older pronunciations.

There is opposition to spelling reform from traditionalists who feel that something is to be lost from simplifying the spelling of English; this can range from numinous 'old world' sensibilities to feared concrete financial losses by opposing vested interests (notably printers, and purveyors of rival solutions or palliative measures such as shorthand, remedial literacy and synthetic phonics).^{[citation needed]} Opposition would also include etymological losses. An example of this is the word aitiology, which is the study of cause. Aitiology derives from the Greek word aitia (αἰτία), which means 'cause'. The spelling given makes this connection manifest, whereas the alternative spelling etiology does not.

Contents 1 History 1.1 1550 to 1806 1.2 1806 to 1906 1.3 1906 onward 2 Arguments for reform 2.1 Spelling changes should match pronunciation changes 2.2 Amending spelling to reduce ambiguity 2.3 Reinstate older, simpler spellings 2.4 Increase coherence with etymological roots 2.5 Remove redundancy 3 Obstacles 4 Criticism 4.1 Writing conveys meaning, not phonemes 4.2 Cognates in other languages 4.3 Whose accent? 4.4 False friends 5 Spelling reform proposals 5.1 Using the basic English alphabet 5.2 Extending or replacing the basic English alphabet 6 Advocates of reform 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

History

After the invention of the printing press in the 1440s, English spelling began to become fixed. This took place gradually through printing houses, whereby the master printer would choose the spellings "that most pleased his fancy". These spellings then became the "house style".^[1] Many of the earliest printing houses that printed English were staffed by Hollanders, who changed many spellings to match their Dutch orthography. Examples include the silent h in ghost (to match Dutch gheest, which later became geest), aghast, ghastly and gherkin. The silent h in other words—such as ghospel, ghossip and ghizzard—was later removed.^[2]

There have been two periods when spelling reform of the English language has attracted particular interest.

1550 to 1806

The first of these periods was between the middle of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th when a number of publications outlining proposals for reform were published. Some of these proposals were:

• De recta et emendata linguæ angliæ scriptione in 1568 by Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI and Elizabeth I
• An Orthographie in 1569 by John Hart, Chester Herald
• Booke at Large for the Amendment of English Orthographie in 1580 by William Bullokar
• Logonomia Anglica in 1621 by Dr. Alexander Gill, headmaster of St Paul's School in London
• English Grammar in 1634 by Charles Butler, vicar of Wootton St Lawrence^[3]

These proposals generally did not attract serious consideration because they were of too radical a nature or were based on an insufficient understanding of the phonology of English.^[4] However, more conservative proposals were more successful. James Howell in his Grammar of 1662 recommended minor changes to spelling, such as changing logique to logic, warre to war, sinne to sin, toune to town and true to tru.^[4] Many of these spellings are now in general use.

1806 to 1906

An 1879 bulletin by the US Spelling Reform Association, written mostly using reformed spellings (click to enlarge).		An 1880 bulletin, written wholly in reformed spelling (click to enlarge).

The second period started in the 19th century and appears to coincide with the development of phonetics as a science.^[4] In 1806, Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. It included an essay on the oddities of modern orthography and his proposals for reform. Many of the spellings he used, such as color and center, would become hallmarks of American English. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded dictionary. It was published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. Although it drew some protest, the reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States.^[5]

In 1837, Isaac Pitman published his system of phonetic shorthand, while in 1848 Alexander John Ellis published A Plea for Phonetic Spelling. Both of these were proposals for a new phonetic alphabet. Although unsuccessful, they drew widespread interest.

By the 1870s, the philological societies of Great Britain and America chose to consider the matter. After the "International Convention for the Amendment of English Orthography" that was held in Philadelphia in August 1876, societies were founded such as the English Spelling Reform Association and American Spelling Reform Association.^[6] That year, the American Philological Society adopted a list of eleven reformed spellings for immediate use. These were: are→ar, give→giv, have→hav, live→liv, though→tho, through→thru, guard→gard, catalogue→catalog, (in)definite→(in)definit, wished→wisht.^[7][8] In 1883, the American Philological Society and American Philological Association worked together to produce 24 spelling reform rules, which were published that year. In 1898, the American National Education Association adopted its own list of 12 words to be used in all writings. These were: tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout, catalog, decalog, demagog, pedagog, prolog, program.^[9]

1906 onward

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the United States in 1906. The SSB's original 30 members consisted of authors, professors and dictionary editors. Andrew Carnegie, a founding member, supported the SSB with yearly bequests of more than US$300,000.^[10] In April 1906 it published a list of 300 words,^[11] which included 157^[12] spellings that were already in common use in American English.^[13] In August 1906 the SSB word list was adopted by Theodore Roosevelt, who ordered the Government Printing Office to start using them immediately. However, in December 1906 the U.S. Congress passed a resolution and the old spellings were reintroduced.^[8] Nevertheless, some of the spellings survived and are commonly used in American English today, such as anaemia/anæmia→anemia and mould→mold. Others such as mixed→mixt and scythe→sithe did not survive.^[14] In 1920, the SSB published its Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which set forth over 25 spelling reform rules. The handbook noted that every reformed spelling now in general use was originally the overt act of a lone writer, who was followed at first by a small minority. Thus, it enouraged people to "point the way" and "set the example" by using the reformed spellings whenever they can.^[15] However, with its main source of funds cut-off, the SSB disbanded later that year.

In Britain, the cause of spelling reform was promoted from 1908 by the Simplified Spelling Society and attracted a number of prominent supporters. One of these was George Bernard Shaw (author of Pygmalion) and much of his considerable will was left to the cause. Among members of the society the conditions of his will gave rise to major disagreements which hindered the development of a single new system.^[16]

In 1949, a Labour MP, Dr. Mont Follick, introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons, which failed at the second reading. However in 1953 he again had the opportunity and this time it passed the second reading by 65 votes to 53.^[17] Because of anticipated opposition from the House of Lords, the bill was withdrawn after assurances from the Minister of Education that research would be made into improving spelling education. This led in 1961 to James Pitman's Initial Teaching Alphabet, introduced into many British schools in an attempt to improve child literacy.^[18] Although it succeeded in its own terms, the advantages were lost when children transferred to conventional spelling and after several decades the experiment was discontinued.

In 1969 Harry Lindgren proposed Spelling Reform 1 (SR1), which calls for the short /e/ sound (as in bet) to always be spelt with <e> (for example friend→frend, head→hed). For a short time, this proposal was popular in Australia and was adopted by the Australian Government. In Geoffrey Sampson's book Writing Systems (1985) he wrote that SR1 "has been adopted widely by Australians. Many general interest paperbacks and the like are printed in SR1; under Gough Whitlam's Labour Government the Australian Ministry of Helth was officially so spelled (though, when Whitlam was replaced by a liberal administration, it reintroduced orthographic conservatism)".^[19]

Arguments for reform

Advocates of spelling reform make these basic arguments:^{[citation needed]}

Spelling changes should match pronunciation changes

• Pronunciations change gradually over time and the alphabetic principle that lies behind English (and every other alphabetically written language) gradually becomes corrupted. If the maintenance of regularity in the orthography of English is desired, then spelling needs to be amended to account for the changes.
• Spellings do change,^[20] regardless of conscious public resistance, just slowly and not in any organized way. Music was spelt as musick until the 1880s, and fantasy was spelt as phantasy until the 1920s.^[21]

Amending spelling to reduce ambiguity

Unlike many other languages, English spelling has never been systematically updated and, as a result, today only partly observes the alphabetic principle. As a consequence, English orthography is a system of weak rules with many exceptions and ambiguities.

Most phonemes in English can be spelled in more than one way. Conversely, many graphemes in English have multiple pronunciations, such as the different pronunciations of the combination ough in words like through, though, thought, thorough, tough, and trough. This creates ambiguity and can be a barrier to reading comprehension^{[citation needed]}.

Such ambiguity is particularly problematic in the case of homographs with different pronunciations that vary according to context, such as bow, desert, live, read, wind, and wound. Ambiguous words like these make it necessary to learn the correct context in which to use the different pronunciations and thus increase the difficulty of learning to read English.

A revision of English orthography that creates a closer relationship between phonemes and spellings may eliminate most exceptions and ambiguities and make the language easier to master for students. If done with care, such a revision would not impose an undue burden on mature native speakers.

Reinstate older, simpler spellings

The epitaph on the grave of William Shakespeare spells friend as frend.

• Some proposed simplified spellings — such as frend for friend (see Shakespeare's grave, right) and ake for ache — already exist as variant spellings in old literature. Reinstating these old forms would not create new spellings.
• Some exceptions in English spelling are the result of attempts by scholars to "correct" older spelling by adding silent letters to reflect the word's Latin or Greek origin, or create a false correlation with those.^[22] For example, the word island was thought to come from Latin insula, but is actually of Anglo-Saxon origin^[22] and was once spelled igland, and later, iland (compare with the corresponding Dutch word eiland).
• Doubt and debt have never been pronounced with a [b] sound; they came to English from French, and the 'b' was taken in from their Latin antecedents dubitum and debitum.

Increase coherence with etymological roots

Many English words are based on French modifications (e.g., colour and analogue) even though they are derived from Latin or Greek. Spelling reform by reason of etymological origin should not be confused with phonetic spelling reform, even though the spelling of some words may converge; in other cases, the objectives may be divergent (e.g., fibre). See American and British English spelling differences for greater detail.

Remove redundancy

• Most reform proposals would reduce the number of letters per word on average.

Obstacles

There are a number of barriers in the implementation of a reformed orthography for English:

• Public resistance to spelling reform has been consistently strong, at least since the early 19th century, when spelling was codified by the influential English dictionaries of Samuel Johnson (1755) and Noah Webster (1806).
• English vocabulary is largely a melding of ancient Latin, Greek, French and Germanic terms, which have very different phonemes and approaches to spelling. Some reform proposals tend to favor one approach over the other, resulting in a large percentage of words that must change spelling to fit the new scheme.
• The large number of vowel sounds in English and the small number of vowel letters make phonemic spelling difficult to achieve. This is especially true for the three vowels /uː/ (e.g.: fume, moon), /ʌ/ (e.g.: hut, sun) and /ʊ/ (e.g.: look, put) which are represented in English by only two symbols, oo and u. Spelling these phonemically cannot be done without resorting to unusual or novel letter combinations, diacritic marks or the introduction of new letters.^[23]
• The variety of local accents makes it difficult to agree upon spellings which take into account most accents. Furthermore, some words have more than one acceptable pronunciation, regardless of dialect (e.g. economic, either). Spelling reform may solve this issue by continuing to allow multiple pronunciations of a standard spelling, as happens today with the modern standard spelling of such words, or by allowing multiple acceptable spellings for such words. Other spelling reform proposals impose a new spelling that is based on a particular pronunciation.
• Some inflections are pronounced differently in different words. For example, plural -s and possessive -'s are both pronounced differently in each of cat(')s (/s/), dog(')s (/z/) and horse(')s (/ɪz/). The handling of this particular difficulty distinguishes morphemic proposals, which tend to spell such inflectional endings the same, from phonemic proposals that spell the endings according to their pronunciation.
• The English language is the only language in the top ten major languages that lacks a worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate changes to orthography. The establishment of such a body may be necessary before any co-ordinated efforts to reform English spelling can be undertaken globally.
• Some words are spelled so differently when compared with their pronunciation — such as tongue and stomach — that changing the spelling of such words would noticeably change the accustomed shape of the word. Similarly, the irregular spelling of very common words such as is, are, have, done and of makes it difficult to respell such words to remove the irregularity without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. Such difficulties tend to create acceptance issues.
• Spelling reforms render pre-reform writings more difficult to understand and read correctly in their original form, often necessitating translation and republication. Today, relatively few people choose to read classic literature in the original spellings as most of it has been republished using modern spellings.^[24] Similarly, changes in "modern" spelling could require new translations of old text, and translation of previously "modern" texts into the new standard, in order to keep the works accessible going forward.
• For people profoundly deaf since birth or early childhood (who might already find reading and writing very challenging), each change of spelling would be arbitrary, as they would be unable to use sounds as a guide, and they would thus have to unlearn and learn each case individually.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]}

Criticism

Writing conveys meaning, not phonemes

The central criticism of many purely phonemic proposals for spelling reform is that written language is not a purely phonemic analogue of the spoken form. Writing is intended to convey meaning to the reader. Reforms such as English Spelling on One Page, Interspel, try to maximise this as a modification of the purely phonemic. Some of the most phonemic spelling reform proposals respell closely-related words less similarly than they are at present, such as electric, electricity and electrician, or (with full vowel reform) photo, photograph and photography.

It is common in other languages for some words to be spelled irregularly to clarify meaning even in languages with an otherwise highly regular phonemic orthography, such as Italian and Spanish. In Italian, anno [year] and hanno [they have] are distinguished in spelling but pronounced identically. Similarly, Spanish distinguishes the similarly-pronounced el [masculine "the"] from él [he], and Greek distinguishes η [the] from ή [or].

English contains many homographic homophones, which we do not notice. Only a few of the non-homographic homophones need to retain their distinctions, in some less radical schemes. Some of the more radical spelling reform proposals would eliminate all. Such reforms may introduce more ambiguity than they remove. Highly phonemic proposals that do not distinguish words like two, to and too would obscure meaning even though they write the phonemes clearly.

Cognates in other languages

Because English is a West Germanic language that has borrowed vocabulary heavily from distant and unrelated languages, the spelling of a word often reflects its origin. This gives a clue as to the meaning of the word by providing a historical marker for the origin, useful for readers to see relationships within and between languages. For example, Latin- or Greek-based word parts are often reducible to their meaning. Even if their pronunciation has deviated from the original pronunciation, the written form of the word is a record of the phoneme, so derived words give clues to their own meaning, but respelling them could obscure that relationship. The same is true for words inherited from Germanic whose current spelling still resembles its cognates in English's related languages of Dutch and German, which a phonetic spelling reform could obscure in some cases, such as light/German Licht, knight/ German Knecht; ocean/French océan, occasion/French occasion. Those spelling reform proposals that respell words phonetically may thus obscure the connection between English and the Romance and Germanic languages, as well as Latin and Greek.^[25]

However, it is possible for cognate words to end up with more similar spellings as their spellings in other languages after a spelling reform. One way this may occur is if a spelling reform in English allows the spelling of such words to catch up to historic reforms in other languages. For example, respelling isle as ile would give a spelling almost identical to French, which changed isle to île in the 18th century. Another example would be a respelling of connoisseur as connaisseur aligning its spelling with the spelling of the French word which was respelled in French after a spelling reform in 1835.

Also, spellings in other languages do not pay any particular attention to keeping words aligned with the spellings in English, such as the spelling of the English loan word roast beef being rosbif in the French language. Over time, the spelling of cognate words in different languages can be expected to diverge, in much the same way that existing cognate words are generally spelt and pronounced differently in different languages.

Whose accent?

Another criticism of spelling reform is that many proposals generally do not take into account the main variants, dialects and regional accents by choosing to spell words to match the pronunciation in a particular accent. For example, the first syllable in the pronunciation of the word simultaneously can rightfully be as the first sound of psychic /sɑɪ/, or as the first sound of cymbal, /sɪ/, yet SoundSpel purports siemultaeniusly as the spelling, indicating preference of the former. Many reform proposals ignore or overlook distinctions in regional accents that are still represented in the orthography. Examples include the distinguishing of fern, fir and fur that is maintained in Irish and Scottish English; the distinction between toe and tow that is maintained in a few regional accents in England; and the tendency in most accents to distinguish between the vowels in marry /mæri/, merry /mɛri/, and Mary /meəri/.

Some spelling reform proposals sidestep the accent question by advocating some form of free spelling, where one can spell a word how one pronounces it. Such proposals run into difficulty with those words where one word in one accent may be pronounced identically to — and therefore spelt the same as — a different word in another accent. For example, the usual pronunciation of passable in Received Pronunciation is essentially the same as the pronunciation of possible in General American, namely /pɑsəbl/.^[26] Such overlap would make it more difficult to read books published in a different accent to one's own.

Some proposed spelling systems attempt to solve the accent issue by allowing some degree of variation in spelling for words with variant pronunciations. For example, Wijk (1959) suggested the use of the digraph aa for the British pronunciation of words in the BATH lexical set like past and craft (with the result being paast and craaft) but a for the American pronunciation.^[27] Before the introduction of standard dictionaries, many words had several variant spellings. Variant spellings still exist in English spelling today, for example banjos/banjoes, volcanos/volcanoes and zeros/zeroes.^[28] Other words have variant spellings due to variant pronunciations, such as dwarfs/dwarves. Thus, a reformed spelling system that allowed some variant spellings would not establish a precedent in English spelling. On the other hand, it would create a precedent to create variant spellings for entire lexical sets to cater to different accents. Furthermore, such pronunciations can often be predicted from the context of the surrounding letters.^[27] Thus, creating variant spellings in the manner proposed by Wijk is not essential.

False friends

Many reform proposals attempt to make too many changes to English orthography at once and do not allow for any transitional period where the old spellings and the new may be in use together. The problem is an overlap in words where a particular word could be an unreformed spelling of one word or a reformed spelling of another, akin to false friends when learning a foreign language.

For example, a reform could propose to respell wonder as wunder and wander as wonder. However, both cannot be done at once because this causes ambiguity. During any transitional period, is wonder the unreformed spelling of wonder or the reformed spelling of wander? (This could be resolved by using the old wander with the new wunder.) Other similar chains of words are device → devise → *devize, warm → worm → *wurm and rice → rise → *rize.

Spelling reform proposals

See also: List of reforms of the English language

Most spelling reforms attempt to improve phonemic representation, but some attempt genuine phonetic spelling, usually by changing the basic English alphabet or making a new one. All spelling reforms aim for greater regularity in spelling.

Using the basic English alphabet

Common features:

• They do not introduce any new letters, symbols or diacritics.
• They rely upon familiar digraphs.
• They try to maintain the appearance of existing words.

Notable proposals include:

• Cut Spelling
• Handbook of Simplified Spelling
• SoundSpel
• Spelling Reform 1 (SR1)
• New Spelling

Extending or replacing the basic English alphabet

Among other things, these proposals seek to eliminate the extensive use of digraphs such as "ch", "gh", "kn-", "-ng", "ph", "qu", "sh", voiced "th", voiceless "th" and "wh-". The impetus for removing digraphs is so each letter represents a single sound. In a digraph, the two letters do not represent their individual sounds but instead an entirely different and discrete sound, which can sometimes lead to mishaps in pronunciation.

Notable proposals include:

• Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet
• Deseret alphabet
• Initial Teaching Alphabet
• Interspel
• NuEnglish
• Romic alphabet
• Shavian alphabet (revised version: Quikscript)
• Unifon

Advocates of reform

A number of respected and influential people have been active supporters of spelling reform.

• Orm/Orrmin, 12th-century Augustine canon monk and eponymous author of the Ormulum, wherein he states that, since he dislikes the way that people are mispronouncing English, he will spell words exactly as they are pronounced, and describes a system whereby vowel length and value are indicated unambiguously. He distinguishes short vowels from long by doubling the following consonants, or, where this is not feasible, by marking the short vowels with a superimposed breve accent.
• Thomas Smith, a Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I, who published his proposal De recta et emendata linguæ angliæ scriptione in 1568.^[29]
• William Bullokar was a schoolmaster who published his book English Grammar in 1586, an early book on that topic. He published his proposal Booke at large for the Amendment of English Orthographie in 1580.^[29]
• John Milton, poet.^[30]
• John Wilkins, founder member and first secretary of the Royal Society, early proponent of decimalisation and a brother-in-law to Oliver Cromwell.
• Charls Butler, British naturalist and author of the first natural history of bees: Đe Feminin` Monarķi`, 1634. He proposed that 'men should write altogeđer according to đe sound now generally received,' and espoused a system in which the h in digraphs was replaced with bars.
• James Howell was a documented, successful (if modest) spelling reformer, recommending, in his Grammar of 1662, minor spelling changes, such as 'logique' to 'logic,' 'warre' to 'war,' 'sinne' to 'sin,' 'toune' to 'town' and 'true' to 'tru',^[4] many of which are now in general use.
• Benjamin Franklin, American innovator and revolutionary, added letters to the Roman alphabet for his own personal solution to the problem of English spelling.
• Samuel Johnson, poet, wit, essayist, biographer, critic and eccentric, broadly credited with the standardisation of English spelling into its pre-current form in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
• Noah Webster, author of the first important American dictionary, believed that Americans should adopt simpler spellings where available and recommended it in his 1806 A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.
• Isaac Pitman developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman Shorthand, first proposed in Stenographic Soundhand (1837).
• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned a committee, the Columbia Spelling Board, to research and recommend simpler spellings and tried to require the U.S. government to adopt them;^[31] however, his approach, to assume popular support by executive order,^[31] rather than to garner it, was a likely factor in the limited progress of the time.^[32][33]
• Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was a vice-president of the English Spelling Reform Association, precursor to the (Simplified) Spelling Society.
• Charles Darwin FRS, originator of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, was also a vice-president of the English Spelling Reform Association, his involvement in the subject continued by his physicist grandson of the same name.
• John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, close friend, neighbour and colleague of Charles Darwin, also involved in the Spelling Reform Association.
• H.G. Wells, science fiction writer and one-time Vice President of the London-based Simplified Spelling Society.
• Andrew Carnegie, celebrated philanthropist, donated to spelling reform societies on the US and Britain, and funded the Simplified Spelling Board.
• Daniel Jones, phonetician. professor of phonetics at University College London.
• George Bernard Shaw, playwright, willed part of his estate to fund the creation of a new alphabet now called the "Shavian alphabet."
• Mark Twain, a founding member of the Simplified Spelling Board.
• Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
• Upton Sinclair
• Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, wrote published works in simplified spellings and even simplified his own name from Melville to Melvil.
• Israel Gollancz
• James Pitman, a publisher and Conservative Member of Parliament, grandson of Isaac Pitman, invented the Initial Teaching Alphabet.
• Charles Galton Darwin, KBE, MC, FRS, grandson of Charles Darwin and director of Britain's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in World War II, was also a wartime vice-president of the Simplified Spelling Society.
• Mont Follick, Labour Member of Parliament and linguist who assisted Pitman in drawing the English spelling reform issue to the attention of Parliament. Favoured replacing w and y with u and i.
• Isaac Asimov
• HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, one-time Patron of the Simplified Spelling Society. Stated that spelling reform should start outside of the UK, and that the lack of progress originates in the discord amongst reformers (although his abandonment of the cause was coincident with literacy being no longer an issue for his own children).
• Robert R. McCormick (1880–1955), publisher of the Chicago Tribune, employed reformed spelling in his newspaper. The Tribune used simplified versions of some words, such as "altho" for "although".
• Edward Rondthaler (1905–2009), commercial actor, chairman of the American Literacy Council and vice-president of the Spelling Society.
• John C. Wells, London-based phonetician, Esperanto teacher and former professor of phonetics at University College London: current President of the Spelling Society.
• Valerie Yule, a fellow of the Galton Society, vice-president of the Simplified Spelling Society and founder of the Australian Centre for Social Innovations.
• Doug Everingham, doctor, former Australian Labor politician, health minister in the Whitlam government, and author of Chemical Shorthand for Organic Formulae (1943).
• Chris Jolly, author, entrepreneur, publisher, Spelling Society activist and originator of Jolly Phonics.

See also

• English orthography
• Folk etymology
• List of reforms of the English language
• Phonemic orthography
• Regional accents of English
• Spelling reform
• English Spelling Society
• American and British English spelling differences

References

1. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling. Simplified Spelling Board, 1920. p.3
2. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling, p.4
3. ^ Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. pp. 17–18.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. p. 18.
5. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling, p.9
6. ^ Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. p. 20.
7. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling, p.13
8. ^ ^{a b} "Spelling Reform". Barnsdle.demon.co.uk. http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/spell/histsp.html. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
9. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling, p.14
10. ^ Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. p. 21.
11. ^ "Simplified Spelling Board's 300 Spellings". http://www.childrenofthecode.org/code-history/300words.htm. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
12. ^ Wheeler, Benjamin (September 15, 1906). "Simplified Spelling: A Caveat (Being the commencement address delivered on September 15, 1906, before the graduating class of Stanford University)". London: B.H.Blackwell. p. 11.
13. ^ "Start the campaign for simple spelling" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 April 1906. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE7DD113EE733A25752C0A9629C946797D6CF. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
14. ^ "Theodore Roosevelt's Spelling Reform Initiative: The List". Johnreilly.info. 1906-09-04. http://www.johnreilly.info/trlist.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
15. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling, p.16
16. ^ Godfrey Dewey (1966), Oh, (P)shaw!, http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/bulletins/b66/b66fall.pdf
17. ^ Alan Campbell, The 50th anniversary of the Simplified Spelling Bill, http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/news/media/bill.php, retrieved 2011-05-11
18. ^ Ronald A Threadgall, The Initial Teaching Alphabet: Proven Efficiency and Future Prospects, http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/journals/j7/itaproven.php, retrieved 2011-05-11
19. ^ Sampson, Geoffrey. Writing Systems. Stanford University Press, 1990. p.197.
20. ^ "Start the campaign for simple spelling" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 April 1906. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE7DD113EE733A25752C0A9629C946797D6CF. Retrieved 2009-07-12. "[c]hange ... has been almost continuous in the history of English spelling."
21. ^ "English Language:Orthography". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188048/English-language/74808/Orthography. Retrieved 3 July 2009.
22. ^ ^{a b} Crystal, David (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 214. ISBN 0521264383.
23. ^ Lindgren, Harry (1969). Spelling Reform: A New Approach. Sydney: Alpha Books. p. 59.
24. ^ "Start the campaign for simple spelling" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 April 1906. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE7DD113EE733A25752C0A9629C946797D6CF. Retrieved 2009-07-12. "We do not print Shakespeare's or Bacon's words as they were written"
25. ^ Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. pp. 63–64.
26. ^ Wells, John (2000). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2nd edition). England: Longman. ISBN 0582364671.
27. ^ ^{a b} Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. p. 144.
28. ^ George Davidson, Improve Your Spelling, ISBN 0-14-101977-8
29. ^ ^{a b} Wijk, Axel (1959). Regularized English. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. p. 17.
30. ^ "The Poetical Works of John Milton - Full Text Free Book (Part 1/11)". Fullbooks.com. http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Poetical-Works-of-John-Milton1.html. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
31. ^ ^{a b} "House Bars Spelling in President's Style" (PDF). New York Times. 1906-12-13. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B07E6DC1331E733A25750C1A9649D946797D6CF&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2007-12-17.
32. ^ John J. Reilly. "Theodore Roosevelt and Spelling Reform". http://www.johnreilly.info/alt20.htm. Based on H.W. Brand's, T.R.: The Last Romantic, pp. 555-558
33. ^ Daniel R. MacGilvray (1986). "A Short History of GPO". http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/history/macgilvray.html.

Further reading

• Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Twisted Story of English Spelling, by David Wolman. Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-136925-4. [1]
• Bell, Masha (2004), Understanding English Spelling, Cambridge, Pegasus
• Children of the Code An extensive, in depth study of the illiteracy problem.

External links

• The Nooalf Revolution Provides an English-based international spelling system.
• Wyrdplay.org has an extensive list of current spelling reform proposals.
• "English accents and their implications for spelling reform", by J.C. Wells, University College London
• History of Spelling Reform
• Noah Webster on English spelling reform
• The OR-E system: Orthographic Reform of the English Language
• Some spelling reform schemes

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See Also:

• English-based Creole Languages
• English Language
• Journal of Calendar Reform Articles
• Torres Strait English

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