English

Saturday, Jun. 07, 2003 - 8:10 a.m.

I've been thinking of getting the McLaughlin household a cell phone with some of the take from Fanime Con, but despite being online in one form or another since 1988 -- via a Commodore SX64 and a blistering 1200-baud modem -- I still have a problem with some of the shortcuts used in cell phones' text messages.

Maybe I'll wait until the following proposal comes true:

A Plan for the Reform of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1, that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same consonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y", replasing it with "i", and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would continue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6 - 12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or so, it wud fainali bi posibl to meik ius ov thi ridandant leterz "c", "y" and "x" -- now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderz -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali xen, afte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

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This piece is attributed to Mark Twain, and was supposedly written by him in 1899, and there are days when I think it's closer to the truth than he ever imagined it would be.

Personally, I think Hell, if such a place exists, is freezing over as we speak... The Oxford English Dictionary announced its new additions, and among the words and phrases are 'copy and paste' and 'bling-bling'.

Gods help us all.

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