Comments | big_bad_al: Haven't you ever wondered? About consonants?

big_bad_al

Haven't you ever wondered? About consonants?

Apr 20, 2009 02:37

I've just finished reading Righting the Mother Tongue, a book about English orthography (spelling). It's amazing how much English has changed over the centuries. ( A 200 page book summed up in about 3 pages of text. )

orthography, spelling

Comments 6

teffers April 20 2009, 14:44:21 UTC

( ... )

big_bad_al April 20 2009, 17:44:54 UTC

Thanks very much!

fireshadowed April 21 2009, 00:46:24 UTC

I hate it when my students use "AOLspeak" in e-mails or work that they turn in to me ... u, ur, cuz, etc. At some point I am going to have no idea what they are saying.

onigame August 17 2009, 20:08:36 UTC

I find that I don't like abbreviated spellings when they create ambiguities. "Enuf" is reasonable and unambiguous. "Ur" is an ancient city state. "Cuz" I can't tell if it's an abbreviation for "because" or "cousin". "后" as a simplified form of "後" really drives me nuts.

big_bad_al August 18 2009, 05:08:20 UTC

I don't mind "ur" or "cuz" because you can tell what they're supposed to be from the context ("Ur cuz went on a trip to Ur cuz ur always talking about how cool it is there."). Just look at which part of speech is needed, and that's the right one. However, I hate it when the context doesn't give any clues. If I'm IMing with someone and they reply "y," I can't tell if that's "Why?" or "Yes."

onigame August 18 2009, 10:03:30 UTC

One abbreviation that is rather tricky is "ack", which some people use to mean "oh dear, that's horribly inconvenient", and other people use to mean "I've received your message." Few people use it for both meanings, but often it's not obvious which side of the fence someone lies.