I almost started this entry with “Hey Guys!” I guess that’s telling that I figure I know everyone (all five probably) of you who are reading this. Anyways, on to the substance…
And the winner is: “Hurry up and take the picture. There are 14 other wannabe bands waiting at the kerb. [Note the British spelling.]” by Anonymous on 09.21.04, 11:06 am
There is no list of runner up’s this week because the list of entries was small enough that I was able to choose a clear winner.
I won’t be posting again until next Tuesday. I’m heading off to New Brunswick as part of some crazy Bay of Fundy camping (and not dieing) adventure. If I don’t make it back, blame it on Andrew.
Oh, and in other news, I listened to a really entertaining and thought provoking show on CBC radio yesterday morning about English spelling reform. The Simplified Spelling Society was represented and put forth some interesting arguments why English should move towards a phonetic spelling. Of course there were some other folks on later in the show who had reasons why we shouldn’t.
My first reaction to the show was that I wouldn’t want to change the way we spell things in English (even though we English speakers spell many of the same things differently all over the world.) But as the show went on, I found myself being swayed by the SSS people. Some interesting facts presented were that Canada has a 17% functional illeteracy rate (one of the best of the English speaking world though) and much of it is due to the fact that most of the population has a hard time spelling things. (Yay! I’m not alone!) Countries like Germany and Finland have a much lower illeteracy rate due to a (mostly) phonetic spelling system. Apparently a couple hundred years ago many languages underwent a major reform. Many changed to a phonetic way of spelling to advance the language — English just had a dictionary written.
On the other side, arguments were made that it would be difficult to pheoneticize English because there are so many accents. Which accent would be the basis for spelling? Well, I imagine that other languages that spell (mostly) phonetically have dialects and accents as well. Also, some of the most used languages in the world like Japanese and Chinese are not phonetic nor do the characters represent sound of any sort. They represent words and ideas. Why not treat English words as pictures representing ideas instead of a sting of sounds that confuse people who don’t take the time to memorize how to draw them?
Anyways, it was a really interesting show and while I was glad to hear that I’m in the majority (most people in Canada have a hard time spelling) I still have an inner stickler who would like to be a great speller and gamaticist and all those other wordy things. Oh yeah, and Blogger still refuses to spell check for me.
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