Re: USAGE: di"f"thong (was: Tetraphthongs, Triphthongs, Dipht..)

Mark J. Reed wrote:

> English spelling is, after all, approximately phonemic, despite the
> many rules and their many exceptions.  A fluent reader will make
> certain assumptions about the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word, and
> one goal of a gradual spelling reform such as John seems to be
> undertaking - as opposed to the big bang proposals - is to make those
> assumptions correct more often than they currently are, rather than to
> violate them for the sake of rigorous adherence to some new standard.
I think it's kind of weird to design a writing system phonemically when
it's for a language with many dialects that are strongly disparate in
pronunciation, with different sets of distinctions made in each.

Rather, maybe it'd be better to lay out a set of spelling rules that are
more like those of French; many spellings converge on one pronunciation.
In the case of English, we want to lean toward "many spellings converge
on similar pronunciations", possibly. Then we can build some rules
clusters that hint at other information (someone suggested that there is
a graphic minimalism rule for non-function words; that's a good example;
so is the use of different spelling schemes for words with different
origins), and with sufficiently diverse spelling options, make
homophonic words non-homographic. It's more important to convey the
word's identity than its precise dialectal pronunciation.

So, for a word like /mE4l=/ we can have spellings...
<metal> for...metal
<medal> for that sort of insignia
<mettle> for wherewithal
<meddle> for interference
all with the COMMON ENGLISH RULES CLUSTER and happening to be assigned
to different items
maybe <metalle> with the FAUX OE RULES CLUSTER for the heraldic colours
OR and ARGENT
maybe <maital> with ANGLICISED FRENCH RULES CLUSTER for some other word
entirely, perhaps one having to do with food; since many food terms are
French borrowings, neologisms can use that rules cluster to indicate
that field of interpretation.

Seems much more interesting and fun to do it this way, too.

--
Shreyas