>A monodialectal spelling system is
>going to be mighty restricted in the English-speaking world anyway.
Re observations from Jim Scobbie and Martin Ball:
I think all sensible advocates of spelling reform are alert to the
importance of orthography remaining polydialectal. That is why the
emphasis in recent years has been on gradual changes that remove
anomalies that affect everybody equally.
There is a strong case, for example, for removing the final "e" in
the very common words "give, love, have". These are words that
children learn early, yet they are counterexamples to the important
reading rule of "magic e" which normally shows that the preceding
vowel is long (as in "dive, grove, wave").
That applies equally to all varieties of English. And no one
pronounces a final vowel in "twelve".
And what about "lead (Pb), lead (v. present), led (v. past)", but
"red, read (present), read (past)"? Why do we all have to burden our
memories with such inconsistencies? Lectal variation has nothing to do with it.
John Wells
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