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Definately Ideeokrasee Reelized

post #1 of 48
6/2/07 at 7:55am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannet News Service
Seven members of the American Literacy Society picketed the 77th annual spelling bee, which is sponsored every year by Cincinnati-based Scripps Howard.

The protesters' complaint: English spelling is illogical. And the national spelling bee only reinforces the crazy spellings that lead to dyslexia, high illiteracy, and harder lives for immigrants.

"We advocate the modernization of English spelling," said Pete Boardman, 58, of Groton, N.Y. The Cornell University bus driver admitted to being a terrible speller.

Protester Elizabeth Kuizenga, 56, is such a good speller she teaches English as a second language in San Francisco. She said she got involved in the protest after seeing how much time was wasted teaching spelling in her class.

Bee spokesman Mark Kroeger said good spelling comes from knowing the story behind a word - what language it comes from, what it means. "For these kids who understand the root words, who understand the etymology, it's totally logical," he said.

The protesters contend that the illogical spelling of English words makes dyslexia more difficult to overcome and helps explain why one in five Americans are functionally illiterate.

"If these people were able to read and write with a simplified spelling system, they would be able to fill out a job application, stay employed, and stay out of prison," said Sanford Silverman, 86. The retired accountant from Cleveland was handing out copies of his book, "Spelling for the 21st Century: The case for spelling reform."

Carrying signs reading "I'm thru with through," "Spelling shuud be lojical," and "Spell different difrent," the protesters - who first protested two years ago, but skipped last year - drew chuckles from bee contestants.

"I can't believe people are picketing against something this ridiculous," said Steven Maheshwary, 14, of Houston, who successfully spelled "Zoroastrian" in the bee.

Or as 13-year-old contestant (tautologous) Rachel Karas of Flint, Mich., put it: "It's just spelling. You gotta learn it."
Thinking caps, everyone! What's the penalty for attempting to inflict egregious retardation on the smartest kids we've got?

Also, Rachel Karas of Flint, Mich. deserves pizza lunch and a trip to the zoo for such inspired commentary. Or a flight out of Michigan.

Link: http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/...pellingbee.php
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post #2 of 48
6/2/07 at 8:07am
Thread Starter 
PS: The website is fucking ass-backwards. Apparently, this movement has been around for 90 years. Just a bunch of people trying to make their dumb kids look smart, and in the process infecting themselves with stupidity.
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post #3 of 48
6/2/07 at 8:36am
This science stuff is too hard. If we all just learned that the world was created, everyone would have jobs and there'd be no crime!
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post #4 of 48
6/2/07 at 10:00am
How could this guy be wrong? He's not just a bus driver, he's a university bus driver.



Quote:
"Spelling shuud be lojical," and "Spell different difrent,"
These are also only more logical if you pronounce words incorrectly too.


Over here, during the last lot of school exams it was decided that kids could answer qustions in Txt speak for all subjects other than english. I don't know why people want stupidity protected in schools. Everywhere else I can sort of grasp, but schools?
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post #5 of 48
6/2/07 at 10:40am
I think I feel dumber just for reading that piece.

Seriously, is it that hard to spell shit? Oooh...English is tough. Big deal, get over it, people have for quite some time now. Hell, today, I am going to start taking pride in the level of difficulty of it!
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post #6 of 48
6/2/07 at 11:17am
I cant believe these fucks want to reduce spelling to (almost) internet slang. Lets see: less complex spelling leads to less complex language, which begets less complex thought. Did 1984 teach us nothing, or is everything going to become that commercial with the little giril and her mom where her mom can't reply back because of "IDK" or "BFF".
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post #7 of 48
6/2/07 at 11:21am
I declare martial law. You have permission to soul punch anyone who supports this.
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post #8 of 48
6/2/07 at 2:18pm
I don't support these dimbulbs, but I think we can all agree that English is a wildly inconsistent and random language.
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post #9 of 48
6/2/07 at 4:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Wood
I don't support these dimbulbs, but I think we can all agree that English is a wildly inconsistent and random language.
Teddy Roosevelt tried to reform English language spelling during his administration. It did not go over well, as there are some things you just can't legislate.
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post #10 of 48
6/2/07 at 4:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Wood
I don't support these dimbulbs, but I think we can all agree that English is a wildly inconsistent and random language.
Most of the words we use daily have been spelled the same for longer than these protesters have been alive. If they can learn how to drive a bus, they can learn how to fucking spell.
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post #11 of 48
6/2/07 at 6:32pm
This is part of an attitude we're seeing more and more. If there's a problem with education in this country, the solution is obviously not to improve the educational system, but to bring down the standards so that stupid people can compete.

When Asia takes over the world, we're gonna make mighty fine slaves.
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post #12 of 48
6/3/07 at 6:28am
I, personally, welcome our sallow-skinned overlords, and would be happy to assist in helping them round up stragglers for work in their microchip mines.

I'll start with these guys.
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post #13 of 48
6/3/07 at 2:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David
When Asia takes over the world, we're gonna make mighty fine slaves.
They'll have to master the second conditional first.
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post #14 of 48
6/3/07 at 2:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David
When Asia takes over the world, we're gonna make mighty fine slaves.
"This revolution against our new masters brought to you by the letter L and the letter R."
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post #15 of 48
6/3/07 at 2:56pm
And by Doritos and American Idol, which gets more votes than your presidents do.
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post #16 of 48
6/3/07 at 3:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seabass Inna Bun
And by Doritos and American Idol, which gets more votes than your presidents do.
Yeah, well, clearly you haven't heard Bush sing.
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post #17 of 48
6/4/07 at 4:34am
Things like these are the reason I will never watch Idiocracy. It's just going to make me uncomfortably angry.
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post #18 of 48
6/4/07 at 4:36am
Have you ever read something written two or three hundred years ago? Spelling is fluid in the English language.
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post #19 of 48
6/4/07 at 5:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Wood
Yeah, well, clearly you haven't heard Bush sing.
Ugh. The mind reels.
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post #20 of 48
6/4/07 at 5:45am
These people are obviously nuts, and I even completely agree with what Greg David said. It's another dumb bullshit attempt to turn things into a subjective, "everybody's different and can do things their own way man, so don't judge anything, it's all equal" scenario.
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post #21 of 48
6/4/07 at 7:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by devincf
Have you ever read something written two or three hundred years ago? Spelling is fluid in the English language.
This is true, and I have no problem with language evolving with the times. But to alter the way we write because it's too hard seems very wrong. I mean would not the next step be to start eliminating big words from the vocabulary? It just seems like a slippery slope to me.

I think having a strong command of the English language should make you stand out, just as excelling in maths or science does*. You, yourself now make your living in large part because you are better at writing than most. Would not levelling that field in fact rob you of a strength?


*This is not to say english being a second language for many immigrants should be used as a justification for racism.

(Why do I feel like a very dumb fish, latching on to some very tasty bait?)
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post #22 of 48
6/4/07 at 10:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by horrid
This is true, and I have no problem with language evolving with the times. But to alter the way we write because it's too hard seems very wrong.
Although this has happened with Japanese, and I think perhaps Chinese and Korean as well.
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post #23 of 48
6/5/07 at 12:04am
In truth it has already been done in America when Webster decided you should drop all the extra U's etc from British English.
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post #24 of 48
6/5/07 at 4:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by horrid
In truth it has already been done in America when Webster decided you should drop all the extra U's etc from British English.
It was a cost-cutting measure, because vowels cost more than consonants.
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post #25 of 48
6/5/07 at 8:03pm
This reminds me of this one time when I was a junior at high school. I was in study hall and I came up to my friend who was trying to come up with his own alphabet. He was trying to get rid of some letters, like using a 'k' instead of a 'c' and stuff like that. He was an odd one (he claims to have been bitten by a chipmunk).

I'm sure he was just joking around when he didt it. God I hope he was.
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post #26 of 48
6/5/07 at 8:39pm
I don't understand the negative reaction to this idea. If making English spelling more intuitive will help more people read and write English, I'm all for it.
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post #27 of 48
6/5/07 at 10:23pm
Their slogans make my brain hurt. Reading them feels like writing with my left hand.
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post #28 of 48
6/5/07 at 11:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankCobretti
I don't understand the negative reaction to this idea. If making English spelling more intuitive will help more people read and write English, I'm all for it.
One of the problems I see, is with all the different accents in America how are you going to settle on what's intuitive. Do you spell vehicle veehickal or veacle?
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post #29 of 48
6/6/07 at 12:25pm
I'm behind this idea if we can get L-I-B-E-R-T-A-R-I-A-N changed to L-A-Z-Y C-U-N-T.
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post #30 of 48
6/6/07 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankCobretti
I don't understand the negative reaction to this idea. If making English spelling more intuitive will help more people read and write English, I'm all for it.

Because trying is so passée.
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post #31 of 48
6/6/07 at 12:43pm
U giys talk lik fags an shit.
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post #32 of 48
6/6/07 at 1:42pm
My immediate reaction, FC, is because it doesn't really allow for regional variation.

Speaking as an immigrant to the USA, the the number of different ways things are pronounced is huge. Hell, even in Fredericksburg Virginia there's disticntions.

Who then gets to define the received pronunciation? People in Boston? Because then there would be a lot of As and Hs in the spelling.

Facetious example, but a working one. Spelling phonetically also creates different issues. We read the difference between "write" and "right"; let's simplify them both to "rite". Now, instead of reading easily, an average perosn has to actually contextualize the word in order to understand it.

Not a fan of this at all, either on practical or aesthetic grounds.
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post #33 of 48
6/6/07 at 2:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankCobretti
Teddy Roosevelt tried to reform English language spelling during his administration. It did not go over well, as there are some things you just can't legislate.
Morality?
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post #34 of 48
6/6/07 at 2:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankCobretti
I don't understand the negative reaction to this idea. If making English spelling more intuitive will help more people read and write English, I'm all for it.
English is quite easy to learn compared to other languages. It's simple, straight to the point and versatile. Compared to French, with it's endless rules and exceptions, or the subtlety of Mandarin, it's fairly easy to pick up.

Wanting to simplify that is sheer laziness and somewhere, Darwin is crying.
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post #35 of 48
6/6/07 at 2:44pm
I think Darwin's been weeping for some time now.
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post #36 of 48
6/6/07 at 3:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Savage
English is quite easy to learn compared to other languages. It's simple, straight to the point and versatile. Compared to French, with it's endless rules and exceptions, or the subtlety of Mandarin, it's fairly easy to pick up.

Wanting to simplify that is sheer laziness and somewhere, Darwin is crying.
Having spoken with many, many students of English as a second language, I can assure you that while English may not be the most difficult language, it certainly is quite difficult. And it also has endless rules and exceptions.
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post #37 of 48
6/6/07 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Wood
Having spoken with many, many students of English as a second language, I can assure you that while English may not be the most difficult language, it certainly is quite difficult. And it also has endless rules and exceptions.
What I meant is that while English has it's own exceptions and rules, English is renowned and spread out because of it's nature (the American culture helped also). It is quite concise, and in many areas it is prized above all.

I'm not saying that it's a simplistic language at all, but the basics are fairly easy to pick up and you can go far with it, unlike many other languages.
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post #38 of 48
6/6/07 at 3:47pm
English spelling is phonetically intuitive, it just doesn't use all the same groupings of letters as popular dumb guy phonetics. I regularly sound out words and spell them correctly because of rules I've learned through spelling other words.

Also, I think people who identify as "bad spellers" might have another problem entirely.
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post #39 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:00pm
Compared to a language like Greek, English is a walk in the park. The rules couldn't be any simpler.
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post #40 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:08pm
I don't have any experience with Greek, so I can't argue that point. But I would say that compared to Japanese, English grammar has more exceptions and spelling is much less predictable. Naturally Japanese offers severe headaches in other areas.
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post #41 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:12pm
I heard Greek is a bitch, but that Ancient Greek is a mindfuck of Olympian proportion.

Honestly, French is similar to English in the sense that they're both easy to pick up", and be understood, but mastering French is much more difficult than English, especially written-wise. There's not a lot of definite and undefined articles, compared to Latin-based languages.

The difficulty of Mandarin and Japanese is mainly the script. They have simple structure, but it's the written part that is hard.

A translator friend of mine once referred to Russian and Finnish as the 2 most insane attempts at communication ever.
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post #42 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:22pm
O Esperanto, Esperanto! wherefore art thou Esperanto?
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post #43 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Savage
Honestly, French is similar to English in the sense that they're both easy to pick up", and be understood, but mastering French is much more difficult than English, especially written-wise.
Tell me about it. I used to think my French was pretty decent until I actually tried to put pen to paper, and then it all fell apart. I could never get all the parts of a sentence to sync up properly.

Quote:
The difficulty of Mandarin and Japanese is mainly the script. They have simple structure, but it's the written part that is hard.
I'm not sure if I'd call Japanese structure simple, but it is more standardized than English. The tricky thing is the structure is basically the reverse of English, and in complex sentences that takes a lot of getting used to.

Quote:
O Esperanto, Esperanto! wherefore art thou Esperanto?
Indeed. Does anyone here speak it?
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post #44 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:27pm
Is there anything Japanese you DON'T have an enormous boner for, Desslar?
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post #45 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Savage
I heard Greek is a bitch, but that Ancient Greek is a mindfuck of Olympian proportion.
Ancient Greek contains an amazing and vast collection of grammatical rules. It's like there's an exception for everything.
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post #46 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Millette
Is there anything Japanese you DON'T have an enormous boner for, Desslar?
Come on Desslar, say it.

Playstation 3.
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post #47 of 48
6/6/07 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mastronikolas
Ancient Greek contains an amazing and vast collection of grammatical rules. It's like there's an exception for everything.
It's amazing then how much learning was accomplished in those days. Perhaps Socrates attended summer school.
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post #48 of 48
6/7/07 at 12:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Wood
It's amazing then how much learning was accomplished in those days. Perhaps Socrates attended summer school.
I think it's because the language was hard, that all that learning was accomplished.
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