Re:Uppestcase and Lowestcase Letters
by munificent on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:42PM
(#26675762)
Three reasons:
1. Because it's more important to know what words mean than it is to know how they sound.
My daughter reads a ton and learns a lot of words from reading. Fairly often, she mispronounces them, and that's OK. What's more valuable is that she can often infer the correct meaning of the word both from the surrounding context and from the parts that the word is made of. If we normalize spelling to match pronunciation, much of the latter gets lost.
It's easier to see that "mean" and "meant" are related than "meen" and "ment". "History" and "story" versus "histery" and "story".
2. Because pronunciation changes over time. If we continuously change spelling to match, it means older printed works get harder to read. In the worst case, they can appear to be saying different words than they intended.
3. Because pronunciation isn't uniform across regions.
Should "lawyer" be spelled "loyer" or "lawyer"? Is "crayon" spelled "crayon", "crayawn", "cran", or "crown"? Is it "caramel" or "carmel"?
1. Because it's more important to know what words mean than it is to know how they sound.
My daughter reads a ton and learns a lot of words from reading. Fairly often, she mispronounces them, and that's OK. What's more valuable is that she can often infer the correct meaning of the word both from the surrounding context and from the parts that the word is made of. If we normalize spelling to match pronunciation, much of the latter gets lost.
It's easier to see that "mean" and "meant" are related than "meen" and "ment". "History" and "story" versus "histery" and "story".
2. Because pronunciation changes over time. If we continuously change spelling to match, it means older printed works get harder to read. In the worst case, they can appear to be saying different words than they intended.
3. Because pronunciation isn't uniform across regions.
Should "lawyer" be spelled "loyer" or "lawyer"? Is "crayon" spelled "crayon", "crayawn", "cran", or "crown"? Is it "caramel" or "carmel"?