Atlanteax
09-09-2008, 01:04 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/mick_hume/article4709620.ece
To dump the apostrophe would be apostasy
No longer trying get words right would be the biggest spelling mistake of all
Mick Hume
When the president of the Spelling Society suggests we stop teaching our children correct English spellings, the riting should be on the wall.
John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London, claims that schools have problems with literacy because the “burden” of peculiar English spellings is “holding back children”. Sort of “don't shoot the messenger, shoot the words”. He wants schools to let pupils spell irregular words phonetically - so that their, they're and there could all become “there” - and forget the apostrophe.
For a champion of spelling to dump the apostrophe looks like an act of apostasy, an abandonment of faith. But Professor Wells is not alone. “Progressive” educationists have long complained that teaching spelling is elitist and discriminatory. Last month a lecturer from a new university suggested that students be allowed to use “variant spellings”.
Why do these people imagine that pupils are “held back” by the burden of spelling, while they somehow managed to crack the dictionary and become academics? This apparently child-centred approach turns out to be patronisingly demeaning, effectively teaching children that they are incapable of using language correctly and creatively.
Prof Wells claims that spellings used in text messaging and e-mail show “the way forward for English”. In fact, young people have always had their own informal formulations - although we had only a wall, not a worldwide web, on which to scrawl “we wuz ere”. But we were also made to understand that a different standard was required to communicate at school or work. Don't try to blame “da kidz”. The degradation of spelling and language today is legitimised from the top downwards.
You don't have to be a stuffy traditionalist to worry about all this. As a firm believer in irregular ideas, I also defend our irregular spellings. Language is always evolving. But if we want to understand one another - if only in order to disagree - we need universal rules for what different words mean, and this is often made clear through their spelling. If language is the instrument of thought, then sloppy language and spelling are the tools of intellectual incoherence. If we cannot even establish how to spell it, we have little chance of getting to the troof.
Of course, we all make spelling mistakes. But to abandon the attempt to get it right would be the biggest error. In one nonsensical proposal, the reformers suggest that we leave a space where an apostrophe should go. Wouldn't you still have to know where the space belongs? These ideas leave a space where the education should be.
Yes... discriminatory against the illiterate...
To dump the apostrophe would be apostasy
No longer trying get words right would be the biggest spelling mistake of all
Mick Hume
When the president of the Spelling Society suggests we stop teaching our children correct English spellings, the riting should be on the wall.
John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London, claims that schools have problems with literacy because the “burden” of peculiar English spellings is “holding back children”. Sort of “don't shoot the messenger, shoot the words”. He wants schools to let pupils spell irregular words phonetically - so that their, they're and there could all become “there” - and forget the apostrophe.
For a champion of spelling to dump the apostrophe looks like an act of apostasy, an abandonment of faith. But Professor Wells is not alone. “Progressive” educationists have long complained that teaching spelling is elitist and discriminatory. Last month a lecturer from a new university suggested that students be allowed to use “variant spellings”.
Why do these people imagine that pupils are “held back” by the burden of spelling, while they somehow managed to crack the dictionary and become academics? This apparently child-centred approach turns out to be patronisingly demeaning, effectively teaching children that they are incapable of using language correctly and creatively.
Prof Wells claims that spellings used in text messaging and e-mail show “the way forward for English”. In fact, young people have always had their own informal formulations - although we had only a wall, not a worldwide web, on which to scrawl “we wuz ere”. But we were also made to understand that a different standard was required to communicate at school or work. Don't try to blame “da kidz”. The degradation of spelling and language today is legitimised from the top downwards.
You don't have to be a stuffy traditionalist to worry about all this. As a firm believer in irregular ideas, I also defend our irregular spellings. Language is always evolving. But if we want to understand one another - if only in order to disagree - we need universal rules for what different words mean, and this is often made clear through their spelling. If language is the instrument of thought, then sloppy language and spelling are the tools of intellectual incoherence. If we cannot even establish how to spell it, we have little chance of getting to the troof.
Of course, we all make spelling mistakes. But to abandon the attempt to get it right would be the biggest error. In one nonsensical proposal, the reformers suggest that we leave a space where an apostrophe should go. Wouldn't you still have to know where the space belongs? These ideas leave a space where the education should be.
Yes... discriminatory against the illiterate...