Insisting on correct spelling, grammar and punctuation is racist and elitist and keeps the disadvantaged down – or so said several universities in the last few weeks.
Now there’s an International Spelling Congress which has set up a new system, ‘TSR” or ‘traditional spelling revised’. They hope this will become the new norm, to ‘accelerate access to literacy’.
This congress was set up by The English Spelling Society, a UK-based group that has campaigned to “repair our broken spelling” for 113 years. After such a long time, are they now jumping on the bandwagon of ‘woke’ – or is it about the noble aim to teach our children better because at primary school it allegedly takes up to three years longer to ‘master English spelling’ than any other language.
200,000 children are allegedly ‘expected’ to leave primary school ‘unable to read and write properly’ because they’ve not been able to master spelling.
The spelling waters are further muddied by pointing at celebrity dyslexics. Dyslexia has nothing to do with learning how to spell, regardless of language. Dyslexics occur around the globe, regardless of being French, Russian or German speakers.
Sadly, the plight of Chinese or Japanese children isn’t mentioned – the poor things must learn thousands of their signs and write them properly as well – a trifle more difficult than English, I’d suggest.
But perhaps this intellectual demand on their children is one reason why Chinese and Japanese children are deemed to surpass whites by a huge margin in the ‘intelligence’ stakes?
Perhaps we only need to teach pupils and university students how to use their spellchecker on their smartphones?
Perhaps this sudden craving for the simplification of spelling is a device to dumb down our children even further?
Therefore: must the spelling of English be changed and simplified?
Discuss!
Leave our language alone. Our spelling is at times idisyncratic but so is American and indeed all languages once one gets to know them. Ours reflects the history of the ever-changing assimilative vocabulary from Anglo-Saxon times to Commonwealth uses today. To master English is easy enough provided one is taught it, reads widely in it and speaks it with care. Once mastered the beauty comes through. The sooner ‘woke’ is consigned to the rubbsh tip the better for all of us.
“Perhaps this sudden craving for the simplification of spelling is a device to dumb down our children even further?” I’m convinced that this is what this is all about. I don’t trust the motives. Look around and observe the constant attack by marxists on every branch of our entire culture; they degrade and dumb down everything. Paul Joseph watson has done several you tubes about how modern music, art, architecture is banal, vapid, lifeless degraded demoralising and ugly . Beautiful architecture and music is dismissed as racist and elitist. They hate our miraculous European genius and wont be happy till our civilisation is destroyed.
I can only add that I believe it is also parental responsibility to teach their offspring and it is not solely down to the teachers. We must set the standard expected and push for results. Spell checkers should be disabled and tv times should be limited, some of the most disgusting grammar is to be heard on the BBC.
Although I don’t consider myself an expert on the subject, spelling and grammar is absolutely crucial to education to all subjects. I trained as a Court shorthand and dicta-phone typist which were still used in the late sixties in many places. That training enabled me to work anywhere I pleased and was often head-hunted in the legal profession. The dreadful state of education in the three R’s today is shocking. I had many run-ins with teachers and Heads during the eighties and nineties particularly here in Wales where Welsh is a priority over all other subjects, the results of which are plain to see. I had all my children removed from Welsh language classes to concentrate on what was important, we arranged extra private tuition for the older two, and in the case of my youngest son, removed him from state education altogether making huge sacrifices to send him to the only Independent school available which involved a sixty mile round trip twice a day. He is now a Dr. of Space Physics and senior researcher in a leading university in Canada. We are hoping that he will keep us in the manner to which we would like to become accustomed. (Only kidding).
We were given little ditties at school to assist with memory things. Such as Richard Of York Gained Battles In Vain (for the colours of the rainbow, ROYGBIV, Physics) and All Silly Tom Cats (for the positive of the sine, tanget, cosine etc for the angle in the anticlockwise segments starting in the top rh quadrant, Maths) For spelling is was just as easy eg I before the E except after C Thier you go Simples! LOL
Surely spelling grammar and punctuation are necessary to make oneself understood.
It’s disgraceful that any University wants to abandon those standards. Doesn’t it show that those ‘Unis’ themselves are not fit for purpose?
As usual it is the people shouting Racist that are being racist.
Dyslexia is a problem that has been recognised for long enough now for appropriate help to be arranged.
If the spell checker is used it is likely that American English will prevail – Favour for instance as with other words ending OUR the U being disregarded. There numerous other words such as the ,American form of laboratory and cheque.
Those who cannot write cannot think, and those who cannot think will have their thinking done for them.
Just so! And then they’ll demand that thinking for oneself be banned because it disturbs the peace and quiet of the prevailing moronity.
If people cannot write well,
they cannot think well,
and if they cannot think well,
others will do their thinking for them.
Eric Blair 1903 – 1950
My spelling, punctuation and sentence construction has deteriorated markedly in the last few years. I had decided to spend today to examine . However it only took a couple of hours..
Two or three years ago, I was given a lap top with a touch pad.. I prefer using a mouse, but they keep going wrong or changing settings.. It seems that I should use both hands, so that my left hand is not left idle. Apparently oh its way from almost anywhere to the shift key, it passes over random parts of the keyboard, including the touch pad, which apparently sometimes is more sensitive than at other times..Efforts to improve a post by rereading and correcting it,, deletes or moves letters, words,sentences and occasionall paragraphs to destinations unknown..and even sometime posts something
I judge this to be enemy action for my dislike of the damn things..Or at least their design and misuse.! However, I have just discovered something else. The cursor ( eg a trailing finger ) has just gone too close to the on/off button and an unplanned twitch has, I think, removed an entire page of a seperate report on another computer. How did that happen ?
A poor workman etc.?
.
T. G. Spokes. I have some of the same problems. Yes it is the years passing.
TGS. Don’t beat yourself up! You’re not alone! I hate the on-board mouse on my laptop as well! Buy a mouse and go back to what you’re used to. I like a proper keyboard as well. Not the flat, too-close-together keys on my laptop.
Computers are not ‘senior’ friendly! I keep telling my son this but he says I can do it!!!!
Does your laptop support dictation? I keep trying that option but I get impatient! I now use an I Pad + a keyboard.
If it wasn’t for the need to use the internet I would go back to pen and paper even though I am a trained touch typist!
Indeed Frederica. I was once given a new works laptop with no mouse. I found it so frustrating that I took my own mouse into work (stingy so and so’s wouldn’t provide one) and was far more productive.
A few odds and ends – my two penneth worth. .
– Dragon Naturally Speaking is a wonderful programme that you dictate to and it puts the text on screen. Just about everything can be achieved with spoken commands. Recommended, and no, it is nothing to do with the pathetic micro$oft offering.
– I rarely use the mouse as many years ago I learned most of the keyboard short cuts. Taking your hand off the keyboard to hunt and peck the mouse thing, then find your way to the keys again . . .just cut out the ‘middle man’.
It came in handy when our laptops had mouse failure in Siberia on the Arctic Circle. My French engineer was more or less blubbing for a week!
– for many years I have used a (very) clacky Dvorak keyboard. Quicker than a twerky keyboard and one way to get your own office or window seat at work.
As I said to a youngster who thought that there was no point in spelling correctly: if you have a doctor who doesn’t know the difference between ‘prescribed’ and ‘proscribed’, you could be in dead trouble!
Wonderful illustration, Sonya. Did the youngster understand you?
Sonya -Hey! I like that! Brilliant illustration!
Another (different) one I like:-
I expect marriage OR I anticipate marriage
Of course not. Our often quirky spelling and pronunciation – ought, cough, bough, though, etc – is as much an historical cultural artefact as physical treasures and sites or age-old customs. It’s part of who we are, and whence we came.
My sentiments entirely Phil O’Sophical! Well said!
Agreed.
Thanks to Samuel Johnson’s ‘Dictionary of the English Language’ of 1755, some uniformity of spelling our mother tongue was set in place. Before that, our spelling was atrocious! A free for all! Now the Oxford Dictionary defines what the received spelling should be. However, the English language has developed from many sources and from different countries. No wonder we have weird non-phonetic constructs with our written words (as Phil O’Sophical initially pointed out). Remember this also: our pronounciation of words has changed over the centuries. You only need to go to a foreign country, where English has been used over several centuries, to hear ‘Se English as she was spoken’, and the use of words that have long since gone into disuse back in the home country. Maybe there is a case for writing English in phonetic form, but all nations who use the language would have to agree to this radical move. Are they all going to agree to a common worldwide universal English language with simple phonetic spelling? Whatever happened to Esperanto designed to reverse the effect of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11)?
I believe that is what the woke want to destroy, keep pushing the standards
An Englishman has only to open his mouth for another Englishman to despise him. Or write a note.
English spelling is silly, but people have been trying to reform it for centuries. Thank the Lord for spell chequers.
JF
JF – I think you meant smelling checkers.
I always thought that quote was about accent and regional pronunciation rather than spelling per se.
My passion for language and literacy has been with me all my life! I was taught from an early age that spelling and grammar were essential. Having a Mother who not only read extensively herself but also read to her children, it was inculcated into my psyche from infancy!
What more satisfying feeling can there be than to be able to express oneself effectively and correctly, both verbally and through the written word?
Once upon a time universities would have been singing a very different tune to the one extant today! Because most incumbents of the University faculties will have have been brought through the system of the last 40+ years (when the literacy standards began to fall at an ever increasing rate), they are now anxious to hide their own shortcomings!
Teachers have come through the same dumbed down system. How can they teach reading, spelling and grammar skills when they have never been given a sufficiently comprehensive education in these fields themselves? I heard a newly ‘qualified’ primary school teacher admit that she never bothered to look up unfamiliar words to find out their exact meaning because she could ‘divine the meaning’ from the overall text!
Parents who have been educated through the declining literacy years may not recognise how poor standards have become and will not question teachers properly. Neither will they have sufficient skill to help their children (even if they aren’t struggling to juggle jobs, childcare and home responsibilities at the same time!).
Using technology for spelling and grammar is a useful tool when time is short. It is not a substitute for thorough education. We cannot be sure that the ‘power’ will not fail (or the internet crash), leaving us to fall back on our own education.
Keeping literacy and IQ rates low for the ‘lower orders’ was common in earlier centuries. It maintained the goal of a submissive and dependent population, needed to serve the requirements of the rich and powerful! Those days are returning!
The Chinese and Japanese will continue to outperform the West because they do not recognise the foolishness that is ‘Woke’! Both have committed atrocities, but they see no reason to continue to ‘apologise’ forever. Neither do they have any intention of reducing their own standards of education. They operate tyrannical regimes, but the education of their children is not compromised in any way!
We must not compromise our spelling or any part of our language. It is our heritage!
Quite so, Frederica. Once one has been inculcated life is never quite the same, in my humble opinion.
Agree fully with everything you say Frederica except, and I hope you don’t mind, the Japanese are a modern democratic country, they are great trading partners of the UK, they politely refuse to swallow the Western toxin of liberalism, wokeness and multiculturalism. They wisely, as a whole nation cherish their culture, keep immigration to an absolute minimum and even rarer do they give foreigners citizenship. What’s not to like about them!
Mea Culpa Jake. I am clearly living in the past with regard to Japan. My profuse apologies to the Japanese. I certainly agree with their views on Western toxins of liberalism and wokeness. They are views I hold very strongly myself.
It’s odd about the Japanese. In the 60’s I got interested in their ways and philosophies through practicing Judo. At that time there was still much anti Japanese feeling around, because of atrocities they apparently committed during WW2. (On prisoners for instance.)
I found it difficult to reconcile these two images of the Japanese nation and people.
Thank you Jake Bennett for what you have said. I’m sure you are right.
“must the spelling of English be changed and simplified? ”
Absolutely not; if people are failing at it then the teaching is at fault along with too much exposure to US or sloppy English.
“Perhaps we only need to teach pupils and university students how to use their spellchecker on their smartphones? ”
That spellchecker is more likely to be US rather than proper English. They would be better taught not to have to rely on it.
The real problem is probably the failure or lack of the proper teaching of English compounded by excessive exposure to slang and US English.
I know this is a bit off topic but I may not be around next week to post this. This is a discussion between Peter Schiff and Neil McCoy-Ward about the economy. Particularly interesting is the bit about how governments fiddle the numbers and cook the books to deceive us, this is criminal. The end results of this criminality will horrible and severe.
This video is over an hour long but if you have assets to protect it’s well worth watching even if you only flick through it.
“This Is How The Financial Collapse Happens!”
Neil McCoy-Ward & Peter Schiff
https://youtu.be/0ttPWDUYb8c