Well to start with-- I am not a bad speller-- just a creative one-- I can think of lots of different ways to spell many common words!.. and i am not such a hot typist either, and i gave up on enigma-- so half my posts, in haste-- are horrid.
That said-- Its time once again to mention David Foster Wallace's wonderful piece in The Atlantic (April's issue) which is about "Democracy, English and Wars over Usage"-- and the New American Dictionary of Usage.
I finally sat down, with out any distractions, and read it. As he points out-- there are many dialects of English-- one not mentioned is e (electronic) english-- it perfectly okay, on many boards to use R U OK? when asking Bob about his finger-- we tend -- by our nature, to be more formal-- but often fall short of the Standard Written English (SWE)dialect-- (well, lets make that me, i often fall short, and some others do to)
Alternate spelling is fine for many dialects--in e english it might very well acceptable to write R U OK?-- some of us, might even use the dialect on other boards. But SWE is not going to go away--nor should it.
And i for one, continue, when speaking to use ain't and i am not going to stop! but I never, with all my other faults, use ain't in written english. my written english, often falls short of SWE, especially when i am riled up! or just excited in a happy way, or worse, when i am fitting posts in between my real job! I love it when i am good naturedly taken to task for a particularly mangled spelling or sentence--which happens often enough.
in a quick glance back-- i see that i have employeed many e english trends-- i don't capitalize things that SWE says i should, i use way to many dashes-- and exclamation points! and i start sentences with AND and BUT. these simple changes are not acceptable in SWE. I don't often use R for are (or worse for our)-- but i have seen it done.
SWE has its place-- and so does e english, and zild, and ozzie, and all the other wonderful dialects-- and a well educated person will understand several dialects-- "The lorry that dropped off the skip in front of my flat dented the boot of my car" and "The truck that dropped off the dumpster in front of my apartment dented the car trunk"-- their native one, and some of the more common dialects of the world and several other dialects as well. Not just when reading, but when engaged in conversation. Is SWE a better dialect than other english dialects? No, just an agreed upon standard-- and all the other dialects don't have an agreed upon standard. Does SWE ever change?--All the time!-- it pulls in good words from other languages, and other dialects! It also throws out words that are still used by these dialects-- at one point, ain't was part of SWE-- but it no longer is.
Can any one person, or any simple movement replace SWE-- not likely. should it try? sure maybe some of the changes are worthwhile-- but don't hold your breathe-- there are some people out there who insist on spelling color and labor with a U! and they add an extra ME to program-- what is it with these guys? can't they get with the program and simplify their spelling?
Ha! not likely! Does it really matter? No, I understand that colour is meant to be color, and they understand that program is meant to be programme. We can co-exist. SWE is flexible enought to take us both on!
