Reading and writing are different transformations - they are not complementary or inverse - they are just different.

Phonics gives you some clues to remember a word, context gives you other clues. Eventually, you may learn what kinds of words come from Latin, Greek, and French, and those are more clues. But before those clues do anything at all for you, you have to care and want to read.

Four righting ewe jest halve two remmemmber thee spellin.

> "There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read."

https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ (and hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35599181 )

> "Lucy Calkins was an education superstar. Now she’s cast as the reason a generation of students struggles to read. Can she reclaim her good name?"

Gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/lucy-ca...

English spelling could be significantly improved by adding a few optional accents. They could be purely additive: the ASCII spellings would remain valid for those who prefer to use them.

Native English speakers don’t seem to quite grasp how difficult the spelling is. I’ve been using this language for thirty years and I sometimes forget how some basic words are pronounced because I mostly write it.

There’s no need to change physical keyboards. In the smartphone era, most English around the world is already being typed using soft keyboards and autocomplete. A spelling reform could be agreed between Google, Apple and Microsoft. They are the de facto equivalent of Académie Française for the English language, even if they don’t use that power.

Here’s my basic suggestion for the optional accent marks:

A long vowel is marked with an acute accent. The sound is simply the one you’re familiar with from how the alphabet is pronounced. This lets us distinguish between léad (the verb) and lead (the metal), live (the verb) and líve (as in streaming), lów and how, féar and bear, bléak and break, infinite and fíníte, etc.

It also fixes the spelling of many loan words that look like the final e would be silent and today you just have to know it’s not: catastrophé, epitomé, Eurydicé, etc.

This easy rule doesn’t nearly cover all the weird vowel spellings, but it already fixes a substantial part of the worst obstacles for English learners.

Two more accent marks could be deployed:

The macron is already familiar to Japanese learners. It’s a long version of the short vowel sound, as in Ōsaka. The spelling of many English loan words could be unified by deploying the macron consistently. It would allow replacing é with ē in French loan words like fiancē.

The grave accent could be used to assign a third vowel sound, but it’s not as obvious what this should be. As an example, maybe for the letter A, it could be the sound in words like àll and hàul and àwe. Again, the point would be to give a consistent and useful hint of a sound that doesn’t follow the basic rules, not to make the spelling perfect in one stroke.

Complete version as originally published in 1920: <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos>

Really, English is sort of a patchwork quilt. English spelling starts making sense if you also know the spelling of several of the source languages it borrowed from. French especially important; Latin and Greek via french IIRC; and maybe German and Dutch or so for the Saxon side of things.

The confusion happens when (Anglo)-Saxon, French, and Greek words all happen to collide.

Or I would say that, but then I looked at one of the first given examples: Corpse and Corps, not actually from two different languages. Actually borrowed from Latin "corpus" (body) via french twice . [1]

You still get quite a bit of traction if you know those other languages, but ... that one is particularly bad!

See also: Ghoti (Supposedly can validly be pronounced "Fish")

* "Gh" = /f/ (laugh) : A sound that doesn't exist in english anymore, but does in german" "Lach", which is pronounced roughly the same as in old english). Or, if you want a word you might recognize: "Loch", which is the Scottish Gaelic word for Lake.

* "O" = /ɪ/ (women) : Actually english, from the great vowel shift I think?

* "Ti" = /ʃ/ (nation) : Nation is actually a french word, borrowed wholesale including the original spelling. [2]

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/corpse

[2] The story might be more involved, but this post is getting long.

A well deserved slap in the face of the English language, delivered with splendor.

I would love to listen to an Eminem rendition of this poem as a rap.

Wait, made and bade are pronounced differently? Is this an anglicism or have I been doing it wrong?

A similar one but a bit more entry level. Good for confusing the kids with: http://holyjoe.org/poetry/anonA.htm

Looking at extreme examples of historical spelling (e.g. Tibetan) English isn't particularly bad, even in the context of Great Britain, e.g Manx [0] is way more off.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_language#Spelling_to_so...

I like reading this one outloud, usually only the first few paragraphs,

Reminds me of this:

ODE TO A SPELL CHECKER

by Jerrold H Zar

Eye halve a spelling check her,

It came with my pea sea.

It plane lee marks four my revue

Miss steaks aye kin knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,

Your sure reel glad two no.

Its vary polished in it’s weigh,

My checker tolled me sew.

A check her is a bless sing;

It freeze yew lodes of thyme.

It helps me right awl stiles two reed,

And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen,

Eye trussed too bee a joule;

The checker pours o’er every word

To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore wee rote with checkers

Hour spelling was inn deck line,

Butt now when wee dew have a laps,

Wee are knot maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling

Is checked with such grate flare,

There are know faults with in my cite,

Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,

It does knot bring a tier;

My pay purrs awl due glad den

With wrapped words fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet

Of witch won should be proud;

And we mussed dew the best wee can

Sew flaws are knot aloud.

That’s why eye brake in two averse

Cuz eye dew want too please.

Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye

This soft wear four pea seas.

Early MF Doom verse

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