Majordomo file: list 'guardian-weekly' file 'gw-features/2006.7.30/22.2.txt'

Short Cuts: Y speling proplee is so ovar8ed

Linguistics
Y speling proplee is so ovar8ed
No wun cairs if ve chavs cant spel or doan no how to punkt - ah fuk it, doan
no wair to put commerz - but shorely ve toffs kan do al vat, innit? A parent
lee not. A cord ing 2 an artikal in ve Harro skool magazeen, pew pills r ge
ting top marx in Ingerlish at GSCE d spite beeung unabul 2 spel simpul words
corektlee.
Harro, wich introd, nah, star ted a litracy test 4 sixff formaz aftah
teecherz notisst mega erraz in vair wurk as foun vat too thurds - aka quit a
lot - wot faild ad allredy go a NA or NA* @ CSGE. "Cant spel simpl wordz or
punkty8 a simpul sen10ce, buh kan stil geh a NA?" sed Tom Wikcson, Ingerlund
teech. "Vat karn b write. Wel, yeh like, a Tarot wee freekwentlee fine vat
kan b ve kase."
I don't know if you're bored with the gag by now, but just how much trouble
did you have reading the first two paragraphs? Very little, I would guess.
In fact I could have made things far trickier and you would still have had
no problem.
According to an article that appeared in Nature in 1999 and an unpublished
dissertation on proofreading by Graham Rawlinson of Nottingham University in
1976, as long as the first and last letter of any word are correct, it
doesn't matter what order you place the rest in, because the word will
always be understood. Try it. Whoo culod psas upp thhe cahcne too wrtie
copmelte rubisbh inn thhe itneretses off adamicec raseecrh?
So if I can make myself clearly understood by misspelling every word, why do
people get so hung up on the precision of language?
"Correct spelling is only concerned with disciplinarianism and archaeology,"
says John Sutherland, Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English
Literature at University College London (a title that would not be
undermined if you spelt it incorrectly). "It merely tells us whether a word
has a Latin, French, Germanic or Gothic derivation. I'm with George Bernard
Shaw, who left his fortune to the quixotic cause of rationalising the
English language.
"English is just a dumpbag of loan words, and we should be aiming to be like
the Spanish, who alter every word to fit the sound of their language. The
Guardian could create a precedent by renaming itself the Gardien." Well, it
would make a change from the Grauniad. John Crace