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Friday, July 10, 2009: "undecillyon" for "undecillion"*
The present spelling ends in -LION, the familiar name of "The King of the Jungle" (or, more properly, savannah). It is not pronounced like that, tho. Instead, the I substitutes for a Y, for no good reason. If the sound is Y, let's just write a Y: "undecillyon".
____________________My thanks to "space..." for this suggestion.
* "Undecillion" is the name of a very large number that almost no one ever uses, but we are just about out of common badly-spelled words that start in U.
Thursday, July 9, 2009: "teriffic" for "terrific"
The wrong letter is doubled in this word. Compare terrible, in which the stress is, as one might expect, on the syllable before the double-R. Here, the stress is on the syllable before the F, so it is the F that should be doubled. That would also serve to distance "terrific" mentally from terrible, a word with which it is linked etymologically but to which it is opposite, a positive rather than negative term. It makes no more sense to write "terrific" despite where the word's stress falls than it would to write "teribble". A doubled consonant is often seen as cueing syllabic stress, and a double-R provides a misleading cue in today's word. Let's supply the right cue: "teriffic".
Wensday, July 8, 2009: "shist" for "schist"
Why is there a C in this word? The sound intended by the SCH- is a plain SH-sound, but the spelling suggests an SK sound, as in school, scheme, and schizophrenia. Let's just drop it: "shist".
Tuesday, July 7, 2009: "rapporturr" for "rapporteur"
-EUR is ambiguous, being seen by some people as containing a long-U and by others as having only the sound that is most commonly spelled ER (better, ermine, person) but sometimes OR (bettor, word, actor), AR (library, contrary, laggard), or UR (fur, burst, urgent).In today's word (for a person who presents reports, as of the proceedings of an organization), the -EUR definitely contains the ER / OR / AR / UR sound. Altho the most common way of writing that sound is ER, "rapporter" would likely be read much as "reporter". In "rapporteur", the last syllable is stressed, and one way we might show that is to double the R. (A final double-R should not raise objections: compare err, burr, purr. "Rapporterr" might be clear, except that some people pronounce "err" like air. "Rapportur", with a single-R, might be recognized as having the stressed last syllable, but a second-R is probably clearer: "rapporturr".
Munday, July 6, 2009: "quoeshent" for "quotient"
TI is a preposterous way to spell the SH-sound, when the conventional spelling is S-H. In today's word, the start, QUOT-, is also the start of three familiar words in which the T has, unsurprisingly, the T-sound (quota, quotation, and quote). In quotation, we have the odd -TION ending in which the TI represents an SH-sound, but the mere fact that in -TION the TI represents an SH-sound does not warrant using TI for the SH-sound generally, for instance before E, as here. Is the reader to see tie, cutie, bootie, and a host of -TIES endings for words that in the singular end in -TY (atrocities, absurdities, calamities), as having an SH-sound? You see the problem.If the sound is SH, let's just write SH. In the one hugely common ending -TION, we might, at least for the moment, leave a TI, but in due course it should be replaced by SH there too.
One problem remains with today's word. If we substitute SH for TI, we get "quoshent", which should and will be read by some people as having a short-O, given a two-letter consonant cluster after the O. The sound is actually long. There are 3 common ways to show a long-O: OE (toe, backhoe, and many words that end in O but to which a suffix is added, such as potatoes and tiptoed), OA (toast, approach), and OH (ohm, kohlrabi). OA sometimes, however, represents two syllables (boa, coalition), so that's not an ideal choice. OH is relatively unambiguous, but may look odd near a second-H, after the S: "quohshent". So OE would seem best: "quoeshent".
____________________
My thanks to "space..." for this suggestion.
Sunday, July 5, 2009: "fonnics" for "phonics"
It is absurd but true that a number of the words that deal with sound are not themselves phonetic but spelled absurdly. The pretense that we can teach people to read present English easily by phonetic approaches is absurd. Tell me a "rule" and I'll find an exception. "PH is pronounced F"? Oh? How about uphold, upholstery, and Phnom Penh? "K before N is silent": knish, Knesset. GH is silent or pronounced like F: pigheaded. So how do you pronounce "knight"??We need to stop making excuses for the inexcusable stupidity of current spelling, and start fixing the spelling, not telling kids (and foreign students) that there is something wrong with THEM if they can't learn to read and write English. No, there's something wrong with English: "fonnics".
Saturday, July 4, 2009: "ohn" for "own"
OW is ambiguous, sometimes representing an OU-sound, sometimes only a long-O. There is no way the new reader can know which sound to apply, the one in down and brown or the one in own and grown. Perhaps we can preserve OW for one use or the other, but which one? Perhaps we need to get rid of that letter combination altogether. For now, we need only fix "own". Fortunately, we have a perfect model in the word ohm: "ohn".
Friday, July 3, 2009: "neollojizm" for "neologism"*
NEO- is a common prefix, usually pronounced née.yoe, with a long-O and stress on the first syllable, containing the E (neocons, neoclassical, neocolonial). Here, the O is short and the second syllable, containing the O, is stressed.OL is ambiguous, and could be seen as representing a long-O, which would reinforce the idea that NEO- takes a long-O (old, bolo, one common pronunciation of olfactory). Here, the O is short, as in hollow, collagen, and pollen. OLL is not entirely unambiguous (boll, roll, collate), but it is somewhat clearer in suggesting a short-O. So let's double the L.
GI is ambiguous (give, gist). Where, as here, it represents a J-sound, we should replace the G with an unambiguous J.
The last issue is the S in the -ISM ending, which is pronounced like Z, so should be written Z: "neollojizm".
____________________My thanks to "fishstick..." for this suggestion.
* A neologism is a new word or new usage for an established word, or the creation or use of new words.
Thursday, July 2, 2009: "merj/er" for "merge/r"
GE is an inefficient and ambiguous (genre, burger) way to spell the J-sound. Let's just write J: "merj/er".
____________________My thanks to "Bookk..." for this suggestion.
Wensday, July 1, 2009: "lilly" for "lily"
A single consonant following does not suffice to show the I in this word to take its short sound. Compare wily, which has a long-I. Other words with a stressed short-I in such a position have a double-L: dilly, silly, filly, even willy-nilly. We should double the L here to permit people who hear the word said, to spell it in an expected way and be correct: "lilly".
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