Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!husc6!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!bgwilkes From: bgwilkes@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Benjamin G. Wilkes) Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology Subject: Re: Spelling and Perceptual Mode (was: Effects of poor writing?) Summary: accidental hypocrisy? Keywords: GB Shaw, orthography Message-ID: <8387@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 12 May 89 11:21:14 GMT References: <39131@bbn.COM> <1982@trantor.harris-atd.com> <187@intek01.UUCP> <2670@puff.cs.wisc.edu> <131@minya.UUCP> <11580@well.UUCP> <1989May10.211236.19705@utpsych.toronto.edu> Reply-To: bgwilkes@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Benjamin G. Wilkes) Followup-To: sci.lang Distribution: na Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 10 Xref: utzoo sci.lang:4503 comp.cog-eng:1105 sci.psychology:1848 I was glad to see Mr. Raymond Shaw defending the varied spelling of words acquired from other languages. However, he neglects the fact that in addition to discerning _meaning_ from spelling, literate people also often get _pronunciation_ from the pronunciation in the original language. This is not to say that "hors d'oeuvre" must be pronounced as in French, but a Japanese name like Nissan is not an English word and is no harder to say correctly: nee-sahn. Just a bad choice of example, I guess. Ben Wilkes