Does Our Spelling System Need To Be Rethought?

Results | Messages | Flag Flag this content as inappropriate. Examples include sexual content involving or targeting children
as well as predatorial behavior.

Flag this content as inappropriate. Examples include sexual content involving or targeting children
as well as predatorial behavior.

I believe that the English language's spelling system is so much more complex than necessary, it's actually wasting school time the could be used otherwise. Think about it: if the spelling system were changed to be logical, so that every sound was assigned only one letter, all the countless hours of needless memorization would be bypassed. Currently, every single word seems to follow different arbitrary rules in terms of how letters, and which letters, should be used to create certain sounds. Look at the current spelling system: *****Almost every letter can make more than one sound, and most sounds can be made with more than one letter, depending on context. Yet every word is given a strict spelling, and any other spelling is considered wrong! *****Some sounds can't even be made by a letter, but by combinations of letters (eg. sh, ng, oo). *****Some letters are completely unnecessary. Q is the same as "KW". W just makes an "OO" sound (though few people realize it). C can make S and K sounds, but we ALREADY HAVE an S and K! The C's only remaining use is that is can make a CH sound, but the CH sound is merely a T sound in front of a SH sound! ***** Silent letters (nuff said). ... And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway...

Do you think the English language's spelling system should be rethought and a new, improved one should come into use?

Yes. The current one is very inconsistent and illogical.

No. It's good enough how it is.

If yes, what should we do? (Going from one system to another won't be a huge hassle in this age. We can write computer programs to translate all electronic documents from the old spelling system to the new, and the new system would be very easy to learn in comparison)

Revamp the whole alphabet. Assign one sound per letter and go from there.

Stay with the current alphabet, but just update the spelling of all word.

This poll was created on 2005-08-28 21:50:35 by ESB