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OP Rather than being about "modernized spelling" or standardised spelling, this is an exercise (why not exercize? or excercise?) in comparative spelling: how did we come to this sorry state? By now we know that (in the main) we have Johnson to thank for much of present day English orthography and Webster for attempting to formalize(!) the American strain.
Johnson always took the conservative side, opting for "a scholar's reverence for antiquity". Thus he had contradictions like moveable and immovable, deign and disdain; and even in the -our family, interiour and exterior.
Into this random standarisation comes Webster (only fortysome (why not fourty?) years later to be an advocate for phonetic spelling ("those people spell best who do not know how to spell", quoting Franklin) -- but many of his innovations didn't take root, just enough to re-muddle the situation.
Which brings us full circle to the root of the problem, which others touched on in the "modernised spelunking" [hi shanks] thread: it's too late in the game (and the game continues to evolve out of anyone's control).
Inevitably, discussions on modernization become academic, in the word's most pejorative sense. At the end of the day, who would decide? Would we take a vote, being the democratic lot that we are? In a way, the vote has already been cast. It is summarized(!) in the OED.
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted moron spelling tsuwm 04/07/01 03:34 PM Re: moron spelling BlanchePatch 04/07/01 09:48 PM Re: moron spelling wow 04/07/01 10:11 PM Re: moron spelling Geoff 04/07/01 09:55 PM Re: moron spelling BlanchePatch 04/08/01 12:17 PM Re: moron spelling Geoff 04/08/01 04:23 PM
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