Change English As You Wish

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Alienvoord

#254981 Sat, 12 Aug 06 12:32 AM

English spelling was fixed 400 years ago and the pronunciation has changed a lot since then. Other languages have reformed their spelling - here's a list
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j27/languages.php

There's nothing technically impossible with reforming English, but there is too much social resistance to it. If I was a dictator, that's what I would do. <img src="/emoticons/emotion-1.gif" alt="Smile [:)]" />

Alienvoord

Joined on Tue, Jul 25 2006

Toronto

Full Member (315)

I'm a Canadian English speaker

Pronunciation, Spelling

Cukitza

#257645 Sun, 20 Aug 06 06:44 PM

I wouldn't change anything to the English language, because I've worked so hard for a good number of years to learn this language (since I was three years old - now I am 23) and a change in it would be difficult for me to handle.

Cukitza

Joined on Sun, Aug 20 2006

New Member (08)

Numbers

Rokas2

#258936 Thu, 24 Aug 06 07:05 PM

I don't know... Hmm... I don't think spelling is such a horrible thing... I'd live with it.

But I just hate the abundance of words in English - they are so numerous and in fact two different words probably even if they are very close, they are never absolutely interchangeable synonyms, there is always slight difference in meaning.

swing vs oscillate?

edge vs fringe vs rim?

etc.

No insult, but I'd remove a lot of excessive words...

Rokas2

Joined on Sun, Nov 27 2005

New Member (17)

Spelling, Synonyms

Englishuser

#258967 Thu, 24 Aug 06 08:24 PM

Rokas2 wrote:

but I'd remove a lot of excessive words...

At least it'd be easier for people to learn English! I mean, learning all the words of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary seems to be more or less impossible.

Englishuser

Joined on Thu, Mar 30 2006

Regular Member (717)

Learn English

nona the brit

#259045 Fri, 25 Aug 06 01:08 AM

Ofr course it is impossible to learn all the words in a dictionary but I don't think anyone expects you to. Even native speakers have a main vocabulary of only a couple of thousand words that they use regularly. They may recognise other words (but not all of them) but rarely actually use them.

nona the brit

Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004

England

Veteran Member (11,358)

The name says it all.

Vocabulary

Englishuser

#259304 Fri, 25 Aug 06 07:35 PM

Hi Nona the Brit,

I definitely think you should know around one million words or so in English. I find it especially nice to use words that became obsolete before the eighteenth century when talking to the popcorn vendor. It tends to give rise to some communicational problems, but who cares? Anyone who's serious about learning English had better learn all the words in the 20-volume OED; when you know them all, you know at least as many words as a native speaker who is as a Professor of English at the University of Oxford, don't you? (I take it for granted that an English Professor at Oxford knows more words than the average native speaker would.)

In conclusion, I really don't get why some people think you should be satisfied with knowing fewer words than native speakers of a language. Why don't learn more words than most native speakers know?

Englishuser

Universities

julielai

#259885 Sun, 27 Aug 06 04:42 PM

Englishuser wrote:

Hi Nona the Brit,

I definitely think you should know around one million words or so in English. I find it especially nice to use words that became obsolete before the eighteenth century when talking to the popcorn vendor. It tends to give rise to some communicational problems, but who cares? Anyone who's serious about learning English had better learn all the words in the 20-volume OED; when you know them all, you know at least as many words as a native speaker who is as a Professor of English at the University of Oxford, don't you? (I take it for granted that an English Professor at Oxford knows more words than the average native speaker would.)

Are you serious? You mean I have to know a million words to be proficient in English? Surprise [:O]

julielai

Joined on Sun, Oct 24 2004

Planet earth

Senior Member (3,570)

Just another blogger (http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/julie-lai)

Universities

Englishuser

#259888 Sun, 27 Aug 06 04:55 PM

Hi julielai,

You asked:

Are you serious? You mean I have to know a million words to be proficient in English?

That's a question which clearly lacks a straightforward answer. On the one hand, very few native speakers of English (if any) know a million words. On the other hand, there are around a million words to be found in the great Oxford English Dictionary: how do you know which of them you need to know and which of them you can skip and still be a proficient speaker of English? What do you, as a proficient speaker, think? What do you think when you look at the below wordlist (which includes abbreviations)? Does one need to know all of them? Please note that some of them have several meanings:

coydog, coyn, coynye, coyote (2 meanings), coypu, coz, coze (2 meanings), cozen, cozenage, cozener, cozy, cozzie, CP (4 meanings), cp., c.p., CPA, CPl, Cpl., CPO, CPR, CPRE, cps. (2 meanings), CPSA, CPT, CPU, CR, Cr, Cr. (2 meanings), crab (at least 23 different meanings not including idioms), crabbed (9 meanings), crabby (3 meanings).

Englishuser