Editorial: Abuzz about spelling

Friday, July 7, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

The Associated Press reports that some people believe children could learn to spell faster and illiteracy rates could drop if America were to adopt a simplified spelling system ware wurdz wur speled the wae thae sound. But opponents say the concept would simply create more confusion. (After all, how much of the second half of that paragraph above could anyone actually understand?)

Simplified spelling, proposed 100 years ago by Andrew Carnegie, is still supported by such groups as the American Literacy Council. Alan Mole, the group's president, told the AP that the English language has 42 sounds spelled 400 different ways. His group favors an end to what they call "illogical spelling."

Other advocates take a more direct approach, the AP reports, such as dressing as bees and picketing the national spelling bee finals each year, toting signs with such sentiments as, "I'm thru with through."

Of course, it's not that easy (EZ?). Opponents of changing to a more phonetically based language say such a drastic switch is complicated. While mainstream Americans likely find Chaucer's 12th-century parlance rough (ruf?) to understand, a child who cannot read conventional English can't read Jack London's "Call of the Wild." That's too big of a sacrifice, even if it is difficult to learn that "comb" and "tomb" don't rhyme. The prefixes, suffixes and other parts of a word add to its overall meaning. So spelling it correctly does matter.

Today's children perform tasks with computers that their parents cannot fathom. A child who learns to download videos onto an MP3 player the size of a credit card can learn to spell - eeven wen the wurdz r hard.