homeschoolmom Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 While surfing the web, I ran across this article.... [url="http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/spellingbee.php"]http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/spellingbee.php[/url] SPELLING BEE TO BE PICKETED. Not all spellers heading for Washington, DC, for the National Spelling Bee on June 1-3 think English spelling is a good thing that should be celebrated. While spectators and judges inside the Grand Hyatt Hotel will be pondering the spellings of obscure words, and admiring the efforts of contestants, outside on the street some members of the American Literacy Council (ALC) and the Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) will be trying to convince passers-by that English spelling is a problem that needs fixing. Like those inside, they [may] admire the efforts of contestants, but they will have signs and sandwich boards with slogans such as "I'm thru with through" and "Enuf is enuf. Enough is too much". Their aim is to alert parents, educators, politicians, business people, and others concerned about the unacceptable level of illiteracy among English-speakers, to the fact that a prime cause for this is English spelling. One of the picketers, ALC chair and SSS member, Alan Mole, from Boulder, Colorado, puts it this way: "Our odd spelling retains words like cough, bough, through and though. This increases illiteracy and crime. Fix it and you fix a host of problems. We want to fix it." Organizer of the picket is Elizabeth Kuizenga (SSS), from San Francisco. She says there is evidence that English-speaking children around the world take much longer than speakers of other languages to learn to write, and they are distracted from writing creatively because of the constant attention they must give to spelling problems as they write. "There is also empirical evidence that children's confidence in their sense of logic is seriously undermined by our illogical spellings, resulting in problems with mathematics skills as well," she says. "Indeed, many children just give up on school altogether as a result. The prisons are full of people with literacy problems." Theo Halladay (SSS) is an artist and teacher from Victoria, BC, Canada. She claims "our spelling puts an unfair burden on the many foreigners and aboriginals in Canada's population. We welcome them into our culture, then throw a written language at them that they can expect never to master. This is not only unnecessary, it's discriminatory, hypocritical and wasteful." The group will be handing out pamflets and answering questions on each day of the Bee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thy Geekdom Come Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 Sounds a bit drastic. I've never heard anyone claim that poor common spellings for English words increases crime. I suppose their is an association with illiteracy and crime, though, but are our English spellings really contributing that much to illiteracy? I'd say most people can read English spellings, even if they can't always spell English spellings. While we're on that, what about homonyms? I think those trip up more students than common misspellings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kateri05 Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 oh. mi. gosh. get a freakin life people!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote name='Raphael' post='1371808' date='Aug 27 2007, 04:06 PM']Sounds a bit drastic. I've never heard anyone claim that poor common spellings for English words increases crime. I suppose [b]their [/b]is an association with illiteracy and crime, though, but are our English spellings really contributing that much to illiteracy? I'd say most people can read English spellings, even if they can't always spell English spellings. [b]While we're on that, what about homonyms?[/b] I think those trip up more students than common misspellings.[/quote] Apparently they do ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 I saw one of the participants in the spelling bee at a train station a few years ago. I'm pretty sure it was him because I saw him on ESPN. I think he was the champion or one of the final contestants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thy Geekdom Come Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote name='Terra Firma' post='1371825' date='Aug 27 2007, 05:24 PM'] Apparently they do ...[/quote] I don't get it. I didn't misuse a homonym there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thy Geekdom Come Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote name='Era Might' post='1371827' date='Aug 27 2007, 05:25 PM']I saw one of the participants in the spelling bee at a train station a few years ago. I'm pretty sure it was him because I saw him on ESPN. I think he was the champion or one of the final contestants.[/quote] My dad once used the urinal next to a famous violinist at an airport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 should have been there (adverb) you used their (possessive pronoun) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thy Geekdom Come Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote name='Terra Firma' post='1371841' date='Aug 27 2007, 05:45 PM']should have been there (adverb) you used their (possessive pronoun)[/quote] Oh, I didn't catch the first bolded thing. Gotcha. Yeah, I used to be a lot better with those...I need to get back into practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote name='Raphael' post='1371846' date='Aug 27 2007, 04:47 PM']Oh, I didn't catch the first bolded thing. Gotcha. Yeah, I used to be a lot better with those...I need to get back into practice.[/quote] I am bad at it too. It was just funny in the context of the discussion ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffpugh Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 I'm mostly on the ball with the "there, their they're" thing, and the like. I think all of that nonsense in the article is going too far. It might eventually change that way, who knows. And music might just be a bunch of twelve tone rows in the future. (I was being sarcastic in case none of you caught that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kateri05 Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 [quote]It might eventually change that way, who knows[/quote] considering how the american way has become, "the easier you can make it, the lazier i can be" i wouldn't be surprised Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffpugh Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 Yeah, I was thinking about that attitude and our western culture when I was reading this. Not saying the convicts are lazy, I'm saying most others seem to be... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dreamweaver Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 Wow, I thought there were more important things going on in the world than whining about how "difficult" it is to spell! I think grammar is more of a deal. My dear fiance is always talking about "borrowing" me something. I'll admit that I do sometimes get "its" and "it's" mixed up once in a while. Well, why don't we just go to a purely text-spelling kind of society, with dumb stuff like "BRB", "G2G", and what not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XIX Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 This is a bunch of carp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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