U may think spelling reform meens havving
tu lern all over agen. It dus not. Just reed belo.
P stands
for a principle, R for a rule, S for a sub-rule and E for an explanation.
1.
PRINCIPLES:
P1 - When british and
american speakers (or a considerable number of them) would spell a word differently,
keep TS (schedule). In the case of other variants: keep TS too, unless
there is one shorter and/or clearly more common variant, plus the TS form if
that would be one of the variants (offen, often).
P2 - Root words (respelled or not) don’t change when
suffixes are added or compounds are built, if it is not misleeding for
pronunciation and no other rule applies. Thus slite>slitely,
activity>activitys.
P3 – Proper names and the root words in
their derivatives are not respelled, but derivatives are not capitalized.
P4 – Capitals
are used for sentence beginnings, proper names, titles, abbreviations, but not
for common words like ‘i’, ‘friday’,
‘march’, ‘english’.
P5 - If a new word by
these principles would be spelled the same way as an existing RITE word and
they don't have the same pronunciation, we refrain from changing. For instance
we have ‘put’ for TS ‘put’, so we can’t change ‘putt’ to ‘put’.
P6 – Apostrophes
can be dropped if the resulting respelling isnt misleading for pronunciation
(thus ‘wasnt’, but not ‘hell’ for ‘he’ll’. ‘Dont’ and ‘wont’
can be spelled without apostrophes, optionaly.
CUTTING
REDUNDANT LETTERS
R1 - Cut
all redundant letters, namely those wich do not serv any function in the
pronunciation of the word. This means that the most likely way (acording to TS
patterns) to pronounce the respeld word has to be the real one. Note: between a
short stressd vowel and another vowel, we need at least 2 consonants, wich
means that we spel 'yel', but 'yelling', 'bak' but 'backing', 'stif' but
'stiffest'.
hed,
dout, exept, hankerchif, hav, foren, thru, wat, frends, nees, haf, dam, yung,
sycological, iland, wach, corse, sho, acommodate, acomodation for
head,
doubt, exept, handkerchief, have, foreign, through, what, friends, knees, haf, dam,
young, psychological, island, watch, course/coarse, show, accommodate,
accommodation
S1 - Wen a
shwa is represented by a digraph, we spel ‘e’ (certen, mounten), but the
ending –OUS becomes –US (famus).
S2 - In
morpheme boundaries we keep the double consonant if both word elements ar
recognized as having a meaning, eg unnecesary, unnatural, teammate but inate,
inocuus for innate, innocuous.
E1 - Cut
double consonants wen they ar not folloing a short stressd vowel and preceeding
another vowel, (acommodate, realy, basicly), but:
E1a - we
leav LL after U with a sound other than the usual short vowel sound as in
'annul, dul(l), eg full, pull, bull
E2 -TS-ending 'ure' remains ure,
including the preceeding consonant(s), eg mesure, plesure,
pressure, future.
R2 - /@/
(shwa) can be dropd optionally if it is short vowel +
consonant + (shwa) + L or R + vowel, eg evry, intrest.
STRESSD SHORT VOWELS
R3 – short a, e, i, o, u ar speld with a, e, i, o, u, eg and,
plad for ‘and, plaid’, sed, wen, eny, for
‘said, when, any’, it, is, simbol for ‘it, is, symbol’, got, lot for
‘got, lot’, sum, cum for some, come.
R4. If a
short vowel is folloed by a consonant and a vowel or final -le, dubble the
consonant: latter, matter, happen for ‘latter, matter, happen’, wedding,
hedded for ‘wedding, headed’, wimmen, bitter for ‘women, bitter’, robber,
offer for ‘robber, offer’, munny, sudden, dubble for ‘money, sudden,
double’.
S3 - We dont
dubble J, Q, X, eg project, liquid, taxi, but we do use dygraphs wen TS
does it (eg adjectiv), exept X wich isnt dubbled in enny case. And no
R-dubbling after ‘a, e’ and ‘o’, unless TS dus it.
S4 - We dont
dubble befor sillables with IC,
IT, OJY/OJI since the vowels befor these endings ar usualy short and stressd
(exept U wich is long and stressd), eg economic, political, gravity,
ideology.
S5 - No
dubbling takes place where the result could lead to mispronunciation, eg decisions, visual,
not ‘decissions, vissual’.
S6 - Short O/U
after W or QU remains WA/QUA (in the US sum of them hav short U-sound, and the
difrence between short O and au/aw-sound isnt clear), eg was, wat, want,
quality.
R5 - Spel
long a with ‘a’ befor a vowel (caos) or a consonant and a vowel (data),
ad an ‘e’ after a final consonant (date), spel ‘ay’ at the end of a root
word (day, days).
R6 - Spel long ‘e’ as ‘ee’, exept where TS has ‘e’ (be, he, me, she,
the, we) and befor uther vowels (theater).
R7 - Spel i-o-u for long i-o-u (bi, so, nu, dial, poet, cruel, mity,
pony, buty), and ad an ‘e’ after a final consonant sound (lite, bote,
cute) or ad the ‘e’ imeediatly after the vowel befor consonant suffixes (he
dies, it snoes, the trueth).
S7 - For the
diferentiation between long U and OO: considder it a long U wen it is
pronounced /yu:/ in one of the 2 standard dialects or in both, or after CH, J,
L, R, S, SH: buty, mute, fu, chu, ju, luny, rule, thru, super, shu. Utherwize
considder it a long OO and spel OO: boot, food. Exeptions: to, two, do remane
as thay ar.
R8 - /3r/ and
/@r/ (shwa)
as in ‘were’, ‘over’ - spel ‘er’ in stressd sillables or after them, eg her,
after, ferst, werd, tern, terminal.
R9 - The
unstressd suffix ‘able’ remanes, ‘ible’ becums ‘able: possable, avalable.
R10 - /@nt/ is speld ‘ent’, eg atendent, difrent, /@ns/ is speld ‘ense’, eg ballense, expeeriense.
R11 -
/au/ as in ‘out’ - spel ‚ou’ befor a consonent inside a rute werd, eg out,
doun, and ‚ow’ in uther cases, eg cow, plow.
R12 – Final
/Er/ as in ‘air’ - spel ‘are’, eg thare, care, pare for there/their,
care, pare/pear.
R13 -
/u/ as in ‘put, look’ - spel cud, shud, wud for ‘could, should,
would’, utherwize leev the TS spelling (good, bull, bush, put).
R14 -
/w/ as in ‘with’ – as in TS (usually ‘w’), but ‘u’ befor a consonent in the
rute werd: doun, daun for down, dawn.
R15 - Final
unstressd /i/ or /i:/ as in ‘belly’ - spel ‘y’, eg simply, history,
coffy, taxy (altho taxi is alowd), apostrofys.
R16 - Exept
for initial y (yet), intervocalic (loyal) and final (silly), spel ‘y’ that has
short I with ‘i’, eg sistematic.
R17 -
/o:t/ with ‘ought’ spelling becum ‘aut’: thaut, baut,
faut.
CONSONENTS
R18 - /ch/
as in ‚church’ - spel ‚ch’, eg wich, children, but keep ‚t’ wair TS
has ‚t’ (since this isnt very cleer all the time), eg fortune, eventual.
R19 - /d/ as
in ‘Dad’ - spel ‘d’, eg had, doun. Menny peeple say /dzh/ for certen
d’s, as in ‚soljer’ for ‚soldier’, but we ignor that.
R20 -
/f/ as in ‘for’ - spel ‘f’, eg from, enuf.
R21 -
/g/ as in ‘go’ - spel ‘g’, eg gess, good. /gz/ is speld with ‘x’, for
example ‘example’.
R22 -
/dzh/ as in ‘joke’ - spel ‘j’, eg just, larj.
R23 - /k/
as in ‘king’ - spel ‘k’ befor ‘e’, ‘i’ and ‘y’, eg keep, kik, at the end
of one sillable rute werds and thair derivvativs, eg bak, think, spel
‘q’ befor the sound /w/, eg quite, question, spel ‘x’ befor /s/ or /sh/,
eg box, axident, anxius but not in inflections, eg books, soks,
inflection, and ‘c’ in other cases, eg came, fact, muzic.
R24 - /s/ as
in ‘so’ - spel ‘s’, eg serten, just, pallas, notis
S8 - but spel
‘ss’ at the end of a rute werd if TS has ‘ss’, eg less, across, and ‘se’
after a digraf or a consonent, eg goose, house, sense.
R25 -
/sh/ as in ‘shake’ - spel ‘sh’, eg british, short, shure
S9 - Spel /sh@/ with ‘ci+vowel’ after a short vowel,
utherwise ‘ti+vowel’: politician, special, pacion, micion, ignicion, inicial,
nation, motion, mention. Of corse this dusnt aply for instense for werds hoos
root werd ends with –sh (fisher, not ficier).
R26 - /z/ az in ‘zebra’ - spel ‘z’, eg az, lazy,
S10 - but keep
‚s’ for inflections, eg cars, she sels, Bobs house. Also has, was,
is, thees.
The sounds /b, h,
l, m, n, p, r, t, th, v/ ar speld az in TS.
LINKS:
RITE SPELL RITE
spelling RITE SPELL RITE SPELLING RITE SPELL RITE SPELLING RITE SPELL RITE
SPELLI