Eddie Izzard closed the door on making fun of English orthography with his genius bit on how the spelling of the word "through" came about. While we are pretty much stuck with the reality that the letters "ough" can represent: 1) a long "u" sound: through, 2) an "f" sound: "enough"or 3) an "oh" sound: dough, it is troubling that the dictionary has been updated enough so that the word "crunk" now appears, but not enough to eliminate multiple correct spellings of commonly used words.Apparently, the only time "Americanization" means to make anything smaller is as it applies to language, since we had the wherewithal* to eliminate those pesky "u"s from honor, flavor, etc. Although, I maintain that the "u" did serve a phonetic purpose, because we do not pronounce these words flav-ore or hon-ore as the spelling would suggest, but rather flav-uhr and hon-uhr...so do with that what you will.
Our good sense ends there, as we still retain many words with two "correct" spellings, in most cases because of their British roots. How do we explain to little Timmy that he is shortbus material if he spells cat "kat," but that he is free to spell gray "grey," judgment "judgement," or shoveling "shovelling?" Then tell him that exceling, however, MUST be spelled "excelling" and see if he has the wherewithall** not to kick you in the shins.
Time to make up our minds, Yanks.
*why is this spelled with only one "L"?
**that's for you, Timmy
Up next for Banishment: Styrofoam vs. The Grammys
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3 comments:
...I'm now annoyed I didn't vote in this past one. Because if you're going to remove a 'correct' spelling, you remove the americanised spelling. The language is called "English" after all.
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