Spelling Reform, My Frend, U No English (2019)

My frend, u no english.

Draw a breth for progress,
Tred abrest ahed.
Fight agenst old spelling,
Better “red” than “read”.
Spred the words at brekfast,
Mesure them in bed,
Dream of welth and tresure,
Better “ded” than “dead”.

• From the 16th century AD onward, English writers who were scholars of Greek and Latin literature tried to link English words to their Graeco-Latin counterparts.
• They did this by adding silent letters to make the real or imagined links more obvious.
• Thus det became debt (to link it to Latin debitum), dout became doubt (to link it to Latin dubitare), sissors became scissors and sithe became scythe (as they were wrongly thought to come from Latin scindere), iland became island (as it was wrongly thought to come from Latin insula), ake became ache (as it was wrongly thought to come from Greek akhos), and so forth.

English-language spelling reform

Spelling Reform 1 or Spelling Reform step 1 (more commonly known as SR1) is an English spelling reform proposal advocated by British/Australian linguist Harry Lindgren. It calls for the short /e/ sound (as in bet) to always be spelt with E. For example, friend would become frend and head would become hed. SR1 was part of a 50-stage reform that Lindgren advocated in his book Spelling Reform: A New Approach (1969).

Spelling Reform 1 had some success in Australia. In 1975, the Australian Teachers' Federation adopted SR1 as a policy,[1] although the Federation dissolved in 1987.[2] However, there is no evidence outside this text that the system was “adopted widely” or indeed at all.

Examples:

• /e/ represented by a: any → eny
• /e/ represented by ai: said → sed
• /e/ represented by ea: ready → redy
• /e/ represented by ei: heifer → hefer
• /e/ represented by eo: jeopardy → jepardy
• /e/ represented by ie: friend → frend
• /e/ represented by u: bury → bery
• /e/ represented by ue: guess → gess

DUE

DUE stands for “Drop Useless Es”. This proposal would remove the letter E from words where it is unneeded or misleading. This would mean dropping the E at the end of have but not at the end of behave, because the E makes the A sound longer (see “magic e”).

• are → ar
• were → wer
• give → giv
• have → hav
• some → som
• because → becaus
• gauze → gauz
• leave → leav
• freeze → freez
• sleeve → sleev
• valley → vally
• achieve → achiev
• examine → examin
• practise → practis
• opposite → opposit
• involve → involv
• serve → serv
• heart → hart

ph

Change ‘ph’ to ‘f’ when it is sounded as /f/ .

• photo → foto
• telephone → telefone
• physical → fysical

augh

Shorten ‘augh’ to ‘au’ when it is sounded as /ɔː/.

• caught → caut
• fraught → fraut
• daughter → dauter

Change ‘augh’ to ‘af’ when the sound is /f/.

• laugh → laf
• draught → draft

ough

Shorten ‘ough’ to ‘u’ when it is sounded as /u/.

• through → thru

Shorten ‘ough’ to ‘o’ when it is sounded as /əʊ/.

• though → tho
• although → altho
• (but doh for dough)

Shorten ‘ough’ to ‘ou’ when it is sounded as /aʊ/.

• bough → bou
• drought → drout
• plough → plou

Change ‘ough’ to ‘au’ when it is sounded as /ɔː/.

• bought → baut
• ought → aut
• thought → thaut

Change ‘ough’ to ‘of’ or ‘uf’ (depending on the pronunciation) when there is the sound /f/.

• cough → cof
• enough → enuf
• tough → tuf

SR1