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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Credibility
Message-ID: <538@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 16:44:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.538
Posted: Thu Jul 25 16:44:06 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 05:26:10 EDT
References: <271@sri-arpa.ARPA> <483@oliveb.UUCP> <759@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <496@mmintl.UUCP> <855@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 30
Summary: 



My comments on photo vs. photography were indeed primarily a digression.

Ethnic vs. ethnicity is a better example of the kind of conguence which
would be lost in a one-sound-one-spelling (o-s-o-s) system.  I agree that
losing that conguence would be a real loss.

But I think the gains would far outweigh such losses.  We are talking about
literally hundreds of millions of people who cannot spell many common words.
Making certain connections between related words a bit more obscure seems
like a small price to pay to alleviate that.  I submit that the mental
effort required to learn and memorize such cases (as ethnic/ethnicity) is
far smaller than the effort required to learn how to spell.

Russian has similar consonant shifts, which are reflected by changing the
consonant.  I found no great problem dealing with them.  Does anyone know
how much of a problem this is in general?

The fact that different dialects pronounce various words differently seems
to me to be a more potent objection to o-s-o-s.  I still think it is
insufficient.  I would take the following approach: first, identify the
major dialects (perhaps American, British, and Australian.  I know each
of these has many variations, but a believe each has a more or less
standard version -- if only that used on national television.)  Now,
try to come up with a set of letters which represent the vast majority
of words, with the pronunciation in each major dialect determined from the
spelling.  Finally, compromise the cases which don't fit.

This would not be a perfect o-s-o-s system.  But I think, once the transition
was complete, it would be infinitely preferable to the current chaos.