Does Spelling Matter?
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Wotz ron with the English langwage? Kwite alot, according to a leading academic expert.
Teaching correct spelling is a waste of time, and the apostrophe should be scrapped, says John Wells, an Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London and president of the Spelling Society.
“Let’s stop worrying if people sometimes spell ‘you’ and ‘u’, ‘you’ and ‘you’re’ as ‘ur’, and ‘whose’ and ‘whose’ and ‘who’s’ as ‘whos’,” he adds.
Well, yes, I agree — WHEN we’re talking about informal emails and ‘textmessage speak’ among friends and family. BUT in general I’m a stickler for correct use of the English language as it was intended.
Sure, add words as we and the language we use evolves, but let’s not get complacent over what is often regarded as possibly THE greatest gift to the world.
The trouble with completely altering any language with each generation is — apart from the fact that different generations may well not be able to communicate with one another on paper — great literature works from hundreds of years ago will become unreadable and unintelligible.
Speaking and writing the English language as it has been thus far been taught allows us to communicate . . . to be understood . . . to be socially mobile.
Playing around too much with the English language — abandoning spelling and punctuation — will ultimately lead to a world full of conflicting messages and meanings, and a place where no one can really understand one another.
Let’s not dumb down too much, nor abandon the pursuit of excellence in attention to detail. English is universally too precious a language.
As for John Wells, all I can say is, careful; you don’t want to do yourself out of a job. :)
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