Silly protesters. :-) Surely they jest, yes? No? Oh. Well, let me take this opportunity to school them on how misguided and absurd their efforts are. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’ve had many a vexation with the English language and its so-called "spelling system." Any language that would have “colonel” spelled and pronounced the way it does is asking for a picket sign or two. I vividly recall sympathizing with Ricky Ricardo’s confusion when he read and incorrectly pronounced various words ending in “-ough.” Along with the audience, I too laughed in acknowledgment of how ridiculous and unpredictable English spelling can be. That said, come on people! Did it ever occur to you that protesting a children's spelling contest might seem a bit drastic (not to mention futile)?
Look, I understand the concern that the current system makes reading difficult for many struggling children. But I’ve also witnessed my own spelling skills improve the more I read and write. In particular, the more literary-style pieces I read, the greater my exposure to complex words (and their spelling). And whenever I write a complex composition, my orthographic mistakes reveal how strong or weak my spelling skills are. So a lot of it is just a matter of reading and writing habits. With the exception of a few people with learning disabilities or other impediments, most children will eventually gain proficiency in reading and writing in English, as long as they practice it.
I say keep it complicated and unpredictable because you can tell a lot about an adult's reading habits by the way they write. Dumbing down English spelling conventions would only remove an obvious red flag that could reveal a lot about the way a person spends their leisure time, their level of intellectual curiosity, and their attention to detail. I say don't mess with a built-in warning system when you've got one.
Other people have come up with some great arguments against overhauling the English spelling system, the most important being: which spelling convention would we use? One that addresses the American pronunciation (which, for instance, vocalizes the terminal "r")? The British one (which omits the terminal "r")? Some other English-speaking country? The two groups protesting the spelling bee come from the U.S. and the UK. Did they even think this through before charging towards D.C. with their construction paper and magic markers?
Another (perhaps less convincing) argument is the rich history embedded within English spelling that would be lost if everything were normalized. My favorite "colonel" is a good example, reflecting two different sources of influence (one Latin, the other Norman) which created two different pronunciations and two different spellings. For whatever reason we've adopted the mix-n-match spelling and pronunciation that we know and love (to hate) today. While I wouldn't necessarily use this as justification to retain the spelling convention for this word, other differences (eg. "great" vs. "grate"), while not always predictable, may reveal a bit about the evolution of the English language and the regional history of its speakers.
Still not convinced? Fine. Let me proceed with the following 2 arguments:
Exhibit A
Let's pretend the spelling conventions have been normalized and all spelling is phonetic and predictable. Consider the following sentence:
Thayr wundering if thayr kernol ate ate kernols uv korn over thayr.
Okay wait. I'm sorry. There's just TOO much fugly going on in that little bit of sentence right there. Why don't we forget the phonetics for now and just focus on predictability and consistency? Let's consider the following:
There wondering if there kernel ate ate kernels of corn over there.
Now with effort and logic ["there" as a verb phrase vs. possessive pronoun vs. preposition; "ate" as a verb vs. number; people eat food, not the other way around (usually)] one could deduce the meaning of this sentence. But how much more quickly would they have understood it if they had simply read:
They're wondering if their colonel ate eight kernels of corn over there.
If we changed the spelling conventions just for the sake of consistency, we'd have a lot of similarly spelled homonyms to contend with, some of which occupy the same parts of speech. ("Do we have time/thyme?" "I need/knead dough for a living." "Those are some phat beats/fat beets!") It's true that context could provide the necessary clarification for some of these (admittedly corny) sentences. (After all, we seem to have little difficulty understanding them when heard in verbal dialogue.) But with inferential reading skills on the decline, even among college graduates, I wouldn't push the need to rely on context too heavily.
What we'd probably need to do is eliminate many of these words in favor of their more unique sounding synonyms (or make up new words if no synonyms exist). Do we really want to do this? If these people can't be bothered to learn (or teach) the current spelling conventions, do they honestly think they'll be willing and able to adopt not only a new spelling system but also a new vocabulary? Be careful what you wish for. It sounds to me like a lot more work than people like this would care to deal with.
Exhibit B
I read the urban (read: "black") blogs frequently and I'm beginning to see a correlation between people's value judgments and their spelling (as well as grammatical) errors. Case in point, there was a recent blog discussion about Ciara's "Ride" video, which got banned from BET for being too explicit. Many of the commenters thought BET was justified in pulling the video, while others thought the network was being hypocritical considering the garbage it usually airs. Most of the comments had passable-to-good spelling and grammar, but a few fell short. The following was the worst of them all:
ITZ RLLY MESSED UP BECAUSE ITZ NOT DAT ABD AT ALL. SHE DID HER THING AND SHE LOOKS FANTASTIC!!!! SMH HATERZ.....
Basically, this person is complaining about other people's gripes with yet another unnecessary display of brazen sexuality that would further contribute to the already heavily entrenched media-influenced hypersexual behavior of young black people today. How did this person express this point? By yelling in all caps [which obviates the need to observe capitalization rules and press the SHIFT key every once in a while (suggesting laziness and/or impatience)]; using the word "DAT" (because it's on an "urban" blog?); employing creative spelling conventions with the substitution of "Z" for "S" (just because?); and throwing in a bonus "HATERZ" (just for good measure). Believe it or not, I peruse the comments sections of these blogs for the unique perspectives, the insightful dialogue, and the witty repartee I often find therein. This pointless comment is not what I come for.
Another case in point comes from a different "urban" blog where a post mentioned that someone by the name of "Birdman" (yeah I never heard of him either) bought Lil' Wayne (a.k.a. Weezy) a $1,000,000 watch and a $200,000 diamond encrusted cake for his birthday. Many of the commenters felt this was excessive and wasteful. Take a wild guess at what the worst "writer" had to say. (Read it and weep.)
aa wat happen 2 sum people the man wanted 2 buy sum ting 4 his son wats wrong wit dat uh.birman u write 2 buy the million dollar wat 4 weezy.
*Shuddering violently here* At least the other comment didn't take as much effort to understand. With this one here, I'm frankly surprised at how many words were spelled correctly, given the person's blatant misspelling and conflation of the words "watch" and "what" and their confusing use of "write" in lieu of "right." More importantly, what this person has in common with the "Ciara stan" is something I see all too often on these blogs: the most gratuitous spelling, grammatical, and capitalization errors come from the loudest, most vehement defenders of gratuitous celebrity behavior, whether it's vulgar sexuality, shameless brandishing of wealth, or some other instance of an eroding value system being shoved down the black community's throat by the media. It's gotten to the point where absolving (if not outright praising) degenerate behavior seems to go hand in hand with bad writing. I can pretty much predict the level of insight (and scruples) that can be found in a blog's comments section based solely on the spelling errors alone. If more than 10% of the comments have those errors, I don't bother with the blog. (Looking at you, MTO!)
It's because of these experiences that I harbor a healthy dose of skepticism towards these spelling bee protesters. Contrary to what they proclaim, "Enuf" is not enough. (I mean, really! At least add another "f" to the ending. It may not be necessary phonetically, but leaving it at just one "f" would be a crime against humanity--not to mention humanity's eyes!) People with the most egregious spelling errors often defend the most debauched and unproductive behavior and use the angriest and most simple-minded arguments to express themselves. Catering to this crowd would only hasten our spiral downwards towards a society of increasingly impulsive, aggressive, and depraved simpletons who never question anything and shout down anyone else who does. Maybe I'm positing more negative implications than would actually transpire if we made these spelling changes, but do we really want to take that risk? Trust me, for more reasons than we dare fathom, "enough" is definitely enough. So leave the Bee be!
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