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It's too ridiculous for being modern. Simplify it!
British don't want to simplify their English spelling as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and others have done it to theirs.
No foreigner can simplify English spelling without permission of England.
I was under the impression that generally American English was more conservative than British English in its spelling.
While center and theater make more sense than centre and theatre I think colour and humour make more sense than color and humor though obviously they are far from perfect. Color looks to me as though it should be pronounced rather like collar. Senter, kuller and humer would probably be how we'd spell them if they were new words that we had to write in English for the first time. In any case, to most English eyes the American spellings appear crude.
I am a little disturbed myself that there is a growing trend in the Australia to spell words like "centre", "theatre", "colour" and "humour" the American way: "center", "theater", "color" and "humor".
Long live that loveably tangled mess we know as English orthography. I've been contemplating spelling reform for years ... decades & have reached the conclusion that the best policy would be to let it be as the Fab Four sang.
My husband (Italian) thinks America is more progressive in its spelling than Britain. He cites examples like "centre" and "center", "plough" and "plow", "color" and "colour".
He also doesn't understand why we don't make it phonetic. Ed - I can't see how "color" looks like it should be pronounced like "collar". I also don't see how adding the "u" makes it more understandable. Can you explain? Roberto - Americans simplifyed English spelling without the permisson of the Queen. Unless of course you mean British spelling.
Colour makes it more understandable as the word, at least in English English, is pronounced as if it ends in -er, not -or. To my mind at least -our resembles -er more than -or.
As I said, kuller would be a better rendition but that would probably be too radical, as would senter.
I pronounce 'color' as 'cuh-luh', so with usual British phonetics, 'culler' would seem like the most reasonable spelling for my accent. So ultimately for me, neither 'colour' nor 'color' seem particularly rational, as the French 'couleur' probably represents better my pronunciation of the word.
From a Scandinavian point of view the differences in spelling between American and British English are so minor that they are not worth discussing at all!
>>From a Scandinavian point of view the differences in spelling between American and British English are so minor that they are not worth discussing at all!<<
I agree with that sentiment as well, even though I will still be irked when individuals from, well, certain places insist that their spellings thereof are somehow "correct", "right", or "better".
I'm in total agreement with you two! I don't find either better or worse. Just different. And as Fredrik so kindly pointed out - those differences are minor.
Colour, humour, favour -- I've never understood why it takes two letters to spell a schwa! ;)
"Senter, kuller and humer would probably be how we'd spell them if they were new words that we had to write in English for the first time."
Maybe but I think "culler" would be more probable. Also if there were to be a reform, "center" should do. Some proposals are radical enough to suggest there be a one-to-one relationship between phoneme and grapheme. Dialect problems aside, this gives us a number of homographs to deal with. Some reformers suggest adding silent letters or letter doubling to deal with this. "Sent" would remain the same but "cent" might be respelt as "sentt" or "sentx" and "scent" would become "ssent" or "sentq". Bluddy absurd! Best just to leave things as they are.
« So Ben, you pronounce 'color' similar to 'koo-loo-ah'? »
No... I said that I pronounce it like 'cuh-luh'. Unless that's somehow best rendered as 'koo-loo-ah' within your accent. |