Would you be in favor of a COMPLETE reform of the English language so it's more phonemicly accurate? Like cough-> coff? Get rid of all the extra shit?

[DrPepper12]

Does this idea have more urgency with "talk to text" apps?

Will it give an advantage to the Anglophone world by making it easier to learn?

Yes I support reforming English to make it more pragmatic and easier

No. I'm nuetral. Leave it alone and let it evolve organically.

We're not like the French language police for purity! It's a mutt language that doesn't need any intervention.

A total of 15 votes were cast: 5 girls and 10 guys. See detailed results

[Lliam]

No. I appreciate literacy and the etymology of words. English-language words often have Latin, French or Germanic roots.

I have to say that it bugs me when people from the "texting" generation spell words phonetically. Ebonics also bugs me. Those things are an indication of either laziness or illiteracy.

However, language does evolve over time, so we are bound to invent new words or even revise spelling.

In the late 1700s, Noah Webster, the iconic dictionary editor whose name is now synonymous with dictionaries in the United States, took issue with some of the inconsistencies of British spelling and the troubles they posed for American students learning the language.
For example he changed the –ce in words like defence, offence, and pretence to –se; abandoned the second, silent "l" in verbs such as travel and cancel when forming the past tense; dropped the "u" from words such as humour and colour; and dropped the "k" from words such as publick and musick.

[DrPepper12]

"the great vowel shift" is fascinating and rather really poor timing.
The causes are unknown but theories include population migration, influence of French loanwords, hypercorrection, and anti-French sentiment. The shift left English spelling mismatched with pronunciation, as spelling was standardized during the shift.

[Lliam]

Yeah, that was an interesting video.

[Lliam]

Thanks for the MHO, DrPepper. :-)

[RebelinSteel]

We went through the bloody great vowel shift, that buggered a lot of things up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fmL6FClRC_s

[purplepoppy]

No. A lot of welsh, particularly slang, is just English written phonetically. That makes sense in one way but you lose the history of the word and its ties to it's roots. English with all its weirdness should stay as it is.

[Ez-Bri-Z_v2]

Oof that example just hurts my eyes to read. No, I'm fine with how the English language is now. Every language has its complications and this is just one of ours.

[Levin]

Don't be so American, fellow.

Such a coarse and brutish idea.

[DrPepper12]

LMFAO!!! 👏🏻👊🏻

[NathanDavis]

this is why I didn't even study English in the first place... lol

[Lynx122]

Nah I think it's fine the way it is. Every language has some quirks.

[robocop666]

It's the Roman alphabet. Cyrillic and others do not have this problem.

[Juxtapose]

The language evolves naturally.

[DrPepper12]

Indeed it does.

[legalboxers]

Makes sense...