Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
Why spelling reform rarely sticks
A whole people already shares the old spellings, so a new system has almost no one to write to.
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From the opening
Spelling reform rarely sticks because the existing spellings are already a shared tool among millions of readers and a mountain of printed pages. A reform asks all of them to relearn the tool at once, while every old book still displays the system the reform wants to retire; coordination on the old standard is exactly what makes the standard hard to leave. The opening covers old books keep the old code, webster's short list is the exception, and a phonetic plan must pick an accent.
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Inside
- Old books keep the old code
- Webster's short list is the exception
- A phonetic plan must pick an accent
- Pamphlets do not replace a print world
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Noah Webster's partial reform of American spelling
- The Simplified Spelling Board and the Shavian alphabet