Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by cprecioso on Monday August 21, 2023 @05:59AM
(#37207356)
I can't decipher what "doderez" is in the passage "bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez"
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by DemocracyFTW2 on Monday August 21, 2023 @06:40AM
(#37207634)
G. "Tattergreis"
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by kwhitefoot on Monday August 21, 2023 @06:05AM
(#37207398)
Dodderers. People who dodder.
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by DrIronstein on Monday August 21, 2023 @06:04AM
(#37207393)
Reminds me of Lord Timothy Dexter's book 'Pickle for the knowing ones'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pickle_for_the_Knowing_Ones
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by ajb on Monday August 21, 2023 @06:28AM
(#37207547)
Amazing: After receiving complaints about the lack of punctuation, Dexter published a second edition in 1805, this time containing pages full of punctuation in the appendix. He tells the readers to "peper and solt it as they plese."
Amusing though these are, they illustrate why spelling reform is hard in English: spelling correctly has become a status marker, and any changed spelling looks not merely wrong, but also stupid and deserving of contempt.
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by teddyh on Monday August 21, 2023 @06:57AM
(#37207794)
Not Mark Twain! It was written in 1971 by M. J. Shields¹. It has since been frequently mis-attributed to Mark Twain, who only wrote about a similar topic in 1899².
1. <https://allhomosapienswelcome.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/iorx-...>
2. <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70/pg70-images.html#cha...>
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by ajb on Monday August 21, 2023 @09:41AM
(#37209476)
Ah! Thanks for the correction.
Re:English is a pictographic language with 26 radicals
by TheLoafOfBread on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:53PM
(#37212182)
Very similar to "What if English Were Phonetically consistent?"
Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan:
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain