A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" – bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez – tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.



If anybody can translate the last few lines they get 15 bonus points. I'm a former cryptologist for the U.S. Navy and had a little bit of trouble with translating it. It's pretty funny though.

My effort in the ad break. Curse you Igabod, it looked easier than what it was. :(

Finaly, then, after some 20 years of <orxogrefkl> reform, we would have a logical, coherent spelling in use, <xrewawt>, the english-speaking world

I had to actually sit down and write out the alphabet and then edit it according to the instructions given. It is definately a lot harder than you would think.

After teaching English to Japanese 4 to 18 year olds for the last 12 years, I've gotten fairly adept at figuring this kind of stuff out. I "think" the last two lines are -

Finally, then after some 20 years of orthographical reform, we would have a logical coherent spelling in use throughout the English-speaking world.


Disclaimer - any typoes or English mistakes in this post are a result not of my English ability, but a 60 hour week and 2 too many beers.

PS. I think it was 2.

Ahh, kudos Grumny, you got the two words that had me trumped. Alas, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is just too captivating, I couldn't peel myself away from it long enough to work those ones out. (Even though I've only seen it a few hundred times. :lol:)

Yup, it's orthographical and throughout.

And the 15 bonus points go to Grumny!! Congratulations, you can get absolutely nothing with those except the satisfaction that you're smarter than a large fraction of the populace of this planet. Dean gets 7 points cause he figured out most of it. That buys you nothing at all though, sorry. :lol:

Well, I'll bank those bonus points until I can redeem them. :lol:

Well, I'm gonna save my bonus points too. Maybe I can use them on judgement day to sway any decisions about my past…er….
indiscretions. Do you think the Big Guy Upstairs is in the market for bonus points? I have a couple hundred more saved up from various places.

I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend, that the big guy upstairs is rather fond of bonus points. So much so his decisions are said to be able to be reversed by bribing him with them!

No no Dean, that would be the big guy DOWN-stairs you're talking about.

Doesn't (pardon my ..er,french) shittalker and other programs basically do that? Seems to me like it would make it more confusing to not be able to find/remember the origin of the root word which would be further lost by usin' this system..

I believe this was something Mark Twain did in jest, don't take my word for it though since I've done absolutely no research on this.

Diggit. Never know, think he was known to hang out with Tesla..bound to be some interestin' conversations there.

I'd never heard that about Twain and Tesla. I'm sure you're right about the conversations though, any conversation with Tesla would be interesting. The man was WAY ahead of his time. If only he were alive today with the technology level where it is right now. Imagine the things that wizard would be able to do!

This was indeed a jest by Samuel Clemens. Believe it or not, the recent trend in general society towards "simplification" of spelling to accommodate text messaging and "mudspeak" is not new. This particular publication by Mark Twain is his response to this trend in his own time. I believe it was actually intended to prove the opposite point, that over-simplification could be a very bad thing.

I'd adopt another language as a first, if the english language ever wholesale degenerated like that.

I wouldn't speak a different language, I'd just stop writing things, or, since most everybody would still know the "old" form of spelling, I'd just continue to use that.

I'd say English not only has wholesale degenerated already,
but you are for all practical purposes already speaking
another language.

Try reading Beowulf in the original Old English and see
how far you get. My guess is you'll be confused at the
first sentence and stop cold at the second.

Language change is natural. The imposition of changes
like the ones suggested by Twain are a different thing,
of course. Where such language changes occurred, typically
it was in the form of standardization of spellings and
the selection of one already-used grammar over another.

This conjecture by a linguist always struck my fancy:

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/futur...

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

PS in case yer wondering about the first two sentences of Beowulf:

(apologies to linguists…this forum software doesn't handle ligatures, thorns or eths, so I had to Anglicize ;)

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, and are interested in the linguistics of it, or just want to have some fun, scan through the first few pages of Beowulf and see just how much Tolkien borrowed from old English. The people of Rohan especially use many names that are pulled straight out of it (eorlingas, for instance).