The Simplified Spelling Board

     I recently saw this link on io9.com on why we don't spell many English phonetically (how they sound). It is from there that I first heard about the Simplified Spelling Board. This Simplified Spelling Board was formed in 1906 with the express goal of simplifying the spelling of English language. One of the main proponents of this was the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie wanted to simplify the spelling of the English language so that it could be used as a tool for world peace by having a simple, easy to learn language that everyone could use. However, as any child learning English in school, or any non native English speaker learns very quickly, the way we spell things, the rules we have for how to change tenses and make plurals, as well as the words that are spelled the same but have vastly different meanings, English can be anything but easy to learn.

     Carnegie's board was set up to handle the first problem, spelling words completely unlike they are pronounced. This one has bugged me since school, and there are still times when I come upon an unfamiliar word, think it's pronounced one way, only to find it's pronounced differently. This is especially a problem for me, because usually when I learn something a certain way, it is nigh impossible for me to get it out of my head, even if it is wrong. Some examples of the first words that they wanted to change "Sabre" to "Saber" "Wished" to "Wisht" and "Catalogue" to "Catalog". Some of these make sense. The sabre one has always thrown me for a loop. When ever I see it I have to catch my self from thinking it says "sobre" or "saabre" and remind my self that it's "saber".

     There are other examples of changes suggested by the board that would drive an English teacher wild with anger. One of the big ones is that Carnegie himself came out in support of removing the "gh" from the words where that stands in for the "f" sound, like "enough" would be "enuf". The last one would be phonetically correct, but after having years of English teachers pound on you that the first one is correct, the mere sight of the second one is grating to the nerves. At least mine anyway.

     As a child in school, one of the biggest things that got on my nerves was trying to take nouns like the word "moose" and make it plural. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that you take a word like "goose" and to  make it plural you change it to "geese", but to make "moose" plural you use the same word. Another example is the word "mongoose". You would think that the correct pluralization would be "mongeese", but you would be wrong, the correct plural form of the word is "mongooses".

     Lastly one of the biggest things that drives me nuts about the English language is how we have we can have two words that are spelled the same, but can be pronounced completely differently and mean two entirely different things. One of the best examples of this is "live" and "live". The first one should be pronounced "liv" and the second "live", just in case you couldn't tell. They have completely different meanings, completely different pronunciations, but are spelled completely the same. My wife and I have a 1 year old daughter and it is stuff like this that makes me dread her going to school. It makes me realize that we will receive the dreaded question, "Why?". Which especially bothers me when the only answer I can give is, "Well, it just is."

     The age of the simplified spelling board has come and gone, but there seems to have arisen a new, however very informal, force that is pushing to bring change to the English language: the Internet. It has been interesting to see how many new words are being brought forth every year and added to the great official book of the English language, Webster's dictionary. I remember how it was such a big deal when the word "e-mail" was added, and I love hearing every year when they release the new words that are being added in. Hopefully, along with the adding new words in, we can look back at some of our old ones and try to make them a little less confusing, if not for ourselves, for all of the new English learners out there.


Sources
http://io9.com/5936477/why-cant-we-spell-english-words-phonetically
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j26/carnegie.php
http://www.rinkworks.com/words/wordforms.shtml
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/why-did-english-stop-changing-lets-blame-the-book-of-common-prayer/261589/