Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
I like the idea of refining the language for better consistency, but he is utterly incorrect in his implication that it is necessary to promote literacy.
Oh my god… we’ve found it. The most serious commenter… IN THE WORLD (say it in a jeremy clarkson voice)
Still wouldn’t stop morans like GW Bush from mispronouncing nuclear.
Nor would it prevent Obama from mispronouncing “corpsmen” like “corpse-men” …
Freudian if I ever saw one.
Interesting you should mention that: I was listening to the SecDefense a few days ago talking about Iran’s “nucular” program. And O’Bama often says “liberry” instead of library. If you can’t do better than to attack the way someone speaks, you should go back to sleep.
Americans commenting on English pronunciation. That’s so adorable.
Reminds me of the Chaos Poem
http://monologues.co.uk/004/Chaos_The.htm
Regularization of spelling, a la Française, would camouflage the fact that the English language is an inept thief … which is ok, it just makes it hard to spell because you don’t know ow to use diacritical marks.
In English, you can know exactly what a word means, its etymology, denotation and connotation without ever knowing how to spell it, while in French (and most languages of the world,) you can hear a word and immediately know how to spell it, without ever knowing what it means.
Ideogrammatic languages suffer from the same fate, where not even word order is there to guide inflection. (Which is how Japanese and Chinese dialects can share a “symbolic alphabet” and yet not be able to understand each other’s speech from one valley to the next. SVO or SOV sentence sequencing and the use of particles doesn’t help much either.)
I refer you to “A History Of Writing” by Albertine Gaur ISBN: 978-0684184227
This is sooo. old..
It was being done before I was born…(im not saying)
But its the truth.
a few things to understand.
1. english(original) is a conglomerate language. we grab every other language and make it OURS..
2. AMERICAN ENGLISH(doggerel) is only 1 of many off shoots, and alternatives..
3. Webster(dictionary creator) DIDNT LIKE the British.. He changed meaning, spellings, and pronunciation of MANY words.
Our language needs to be adjusted, in a few ways…
SPELLING is #1..spell it like it SOUNDS or find a better word(ing)
Simplify…There are to many words/expressions that MEAN MAYBE/COULD/MIGHT/… we have created a language based on raising HOPES(1 in 100,000,000) that you MIGHT be a winner. There are to many ways to AVOID making a TRUE statement.
AND we need a TRUE meaning to the word FREE. ONCE stated, it cant be refuted. FREE(IF) is not free. FREE(WHEN you finish 7 of these adverts and get 5 credit cards) is NOT FREE. FREE(AFTER) you pay 15 payments of $19.99 for something you dont need, for a veggie dicer..IS NOT FREE.
Free doesn’t even mean free, when you mean libre as in Land of liberty.
You don’t even have a word for it because you are not libre.
You’re all slaves to the dollar, and its warped your very sense of survival.
Surely you mean:
“Simplify…There are too many words”
Yup, and I live in a perfect world two,
tee hee. I see what ewe did. You said “two” instead of “too”.
I rather like the cockamamie spelling quirks of English. It permits one to separate those worth talking to from the 99%.
Sure, you get your marching orders from the 1%ers… (Who happen to speak exactly like you, but they can spell and write it properly.)
I’d hate to tug my forelock at someone I should be tugging my foreskin at.
i read this in a fortune cookie once…
That guy is double plus good.
Funny bit but also incorrect when he mentions all other languages are more direct. Every language I’ve ever studied had inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies. I’m learning Thai right now. My god! The language has eleven consonant phonemes but 44 consonants! Top that off with tones (high, low, rising, falling, neutral) that change not the emphasis on a word but it’s basic meaning. And Thai spelling not only includes silent characters but invisible ones!
Still, even children manage to learn it. Maybe I’m just too old to cram another language into my greying head.
So..
we can be the BEST and the FIRST..
Cleaning up our language could clean up many other things.
there are to many words to obfuscate the meaning of the sentence, paragraph, article, BOOK…
Being descriptive, is fine, and wonderful, but the inclusion of 1 single word can make Any comment a dream, a fantasy…
we could even make words better..
Project, as in a job, or something to do.
Project, as in to Throw, project a picture.
Inflammable.. What happened to this word??
Whenever I’m invited somewhere, they always wonder if I’m going to cum.
One word: Depends (TM)
“Inflammable.. What happened to this word??”
… and what about genius and ingenious?
Why does the English verb “cleave” mean “to split apart” and “to stick together”?
Park on the driveway but drive on the parkway?
You can park on the Long Island Parkway.
autoantonyms (a word that also means the opposite of itself).
ANXIOUS (anticipate eagerly vs. await with dread) — Jill was anxious to get married while Jack was anxious about getting married.
ASSUME (actually have vs. hope to have) — At the reading of the will, Zak assumed the role of an assumed heir.
CITATION (commendation vs. court summons) — Policeman Purdy receive a citation for issuing the most citations.
COOL (positive vs. negative) — Mark’s cool website received a cool reception.
FAST (moving rapidly vs. unable to move) — When hungry, Marvin was fast to the table where he sat fast in his chair.
FIXED (restore to function vs. make non-functional) — Rene fixed the puppy problem by getting the dog fixed.
FIT (in good shape vs. convulsive behavior) — Rhoda Dendron was thought to be fit until she had a fit.
PERUSE (read quickly vs. to read carefully)- First peruse the contract, then really peruse it.
SANCTIONED (approved vs. disappoved) — Merle was sanctioned for cussing during a sanctioned tennis match.
WEATHERED (worn away vs. beared up well) — Whether the weathered wreck weathered the wind worried Weatherby.
Good word, but Project and Project are pronounced different.
And on that point LETS kill a few letters in the alphabet..
Prog ect..
Pro jek
Wasn’t Esperanto supposed to fix all this? So many good ideas, such poor follow through (metric system, `common electrical outlets, … an endless list)
Did he just buy an old Gallagher bit on ebay?
This shud meen that english speekin nashons have an unasaleable leed over fools lernin to catch up. But no, 10 cents an hor you can butcher to the point of incomprehensibility. Well actually the product WILL break after the 1 year warranty is out, plus the break will be a plastic part that cannot be glued together.
A greater discussion point is whether this silliness was an upper class design or just cultural evolution by the same people who now impose the necessity of degrees before a kid can get a job. Ie is this silliness a result of free and expanding culture of a language that is so creative? Many languages are crippled in expressiveness. Do cryptic crosswords exist in many other languages?
Did that BBC documentary a while back attempt to explain english sillyness, or just it’s vocabulary growth and popularity?