General Chat

JoyLouise, she was taught English phonetically :-(
Words were simplified, an idea mooted by Noah Webster in the 19th Century - and which led to the spelling differences between American and English (color, colour).
A few example of Webster's 'simplifications'
1. Cloke — cloak

2. Soop — soup

3. Masheen — machine

4. Tung — tongue

5. Greef — grief

6. Dawter — daughter

7. Korus — chorus

8. Nightmar — nightmare

9. Turnep — turnip

10. Iland — island

For a short time, in the 1970's it was tried in the UK.

What is absolutely ridiculous, in the list, is that the 'ught' is removed from 'daughter', but the 'ight' is retained in 'nightmare'.
Surely it should be 'nitemare' :-S :-S :-S

The poor woman struggled to work out the 'proper' spelling of words.
Fortunately, she taught reception class, so only basic spelling was necessary.
However, 'report' time, was busy, all LSA's were asked to check through her spelling in the children's end of year reports.

Maggie, it was good for her pupils that you checked her spelling. Sad to think that you had to though.

I don't recall any phonetic alphabet/spelling when I was at school. Unlike Andysmum, we were taught 'proper' French from the get-go. Our youngest grandson (now second year seniors) has chosen to do French, German and Latin - none phonetically. I am not aware of any school in our area that still uses phonetics however I don't know about the rest of the country.

JoyLouise, I remember a new teacher starting at the school I was working in, who had been taught phonetically - we LSA's had to check her spelling :-S

I was taught French phonetically for the first term at secondary school and didn't do well at all!! :-(

The next term we switched to "proper" letters and we all suddenly improved dramatically!

As a nation I think we are naturally resistant to change, whether it's decimalisation or new houses in an old village.

Giving away how young I am, AndysMum!

Wrong side of 75 ...

I also remember a short period when one of my nephews was taught phonetically in England. It didn't work either. :-D


Dermot. :-D :-D :-D

Grammer & spilling are regaining there wrightful plaice in some multilingual secondary skools. (Pudsey Ryan.) ;-)

JoyLouise, you are obviously too young to remember the Initial Teaching Alphabet, an invention of Sir James Pitman (grandson of Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand), which aimed to simplify spelling. He was the MP for Bath, where I lived at the time, which may be why I remember it.

Anyway, it didn't catch on, people hated it and it sort of faded into obscurity!!

Totally agree, JoyLouise, whatever you said. :-S

Ur rite Dermot, cos if we cud we wud. Owr spelling must drive foreners to tare owt thare hare. :-D

It’s not possible to derive a rule of English grammar from logical principles. :-S

Allan, there are some haitch users here too.

Sadly, I have heard teachers say haitch too so what chance do their pupils have unless parents are 'on the ball'?

Maggie, if using the initials LSA then, yes, 'an' would be used, but if using the full title you would say 'a' :-S

...so it would be 'an' LSA?

An hour :-D

An historic, an hotel that’s what I was taught ;-) ;-)

aitch it is, Maggie, for the letter, even though it has a totally different sound when spoken as part of a word. :-0

Allan, excessive letters are definitely a no-no!
It's 'aitch', surely?

The size of the notice board was limited to what the council could afford

'Welcome to Dardanup, an Historic Town"

Both constructions offered are wrong as they do not parse into a sentence.

"Welcome to the Historic Town of Dardanup" also does away with the comma problem.

That is what annoys me when many Australians pronounce the letter H as haitch.