And never the twain shall meet…

~ K.L. Hill ~ Leave a comment
Two, or more, ways to spell many words.
Two, or more, ways to spell many words.

Here we see two different ways to spell the same word, but let’s hope the different spellings don’t meet … at least not in the same paragraph, or even in the same document for that matter!

Speaking of twain (archaic for two), consider Mark Twain who expressed his disdain for editors, often and strongly. He is acknowledged as saying “…he must have little genius who can’t spell a word in more than one way.” Actually this quote has had many incarnations including something about a writer who can only think of one way to spell a word lacks imagination. Or he who cannot spell a word more than one way cannot be trusted. Or he [Twain] had no respect for someone who cannot spell a word more than one way.

Twain does make a valid point; variation enriches language. But variation of this type can confuse and irritate the reader. When we write, we help our readers by maintaining consistency. Variation can be added with synonyms: same meaning, different words, not the same word, different spellings.

Mark Twain had strong opinions and great insight. As a writer and human. Variation in our writing is desirable for novels and creative works. Blogs … tweets … emails … notes … letters … personal communication. Language is so much richer for the variation and nuances we use.

But to disseminate – spread – information fluently and with ease, one standard would serve us well.  Consider efficiency and speed. Beyond literature and reading for enjoyment, our time is limited … business reports, technical manuals, trade journals, academic manuscripts and daily newspapers should not challenge us to read and reread the same sentence again and again.

On a global level, to communicate a message clearly, a unified, logical, systematic form of English is desirable. In plain English. It is much more difficult to write precise, accurate text than long-winded ramblings where the writer is clearly lost. What can we expect of the reader then.

When we write to communicate information, consider these points: write concisely … write clearly … write short sentences … use short words. Except for blogs where we can have some fun breaking the rules and enjoy the ambiguity and double-entendre English is so full of. (There. I broke a rule … broke quite a few, in fact!)

Plain English. One English. Please.

One word, one spelling?

~ K.L. Hill ~ Leave a comment

Spelling rulesThe question of spelling reform is an important one. Should there be one form – that is, one spelling, one grammar, one common meaning — of English words and terms? There are currently two to six or even more ways to spell certain words.

For example, the spellings organization and organisation are different depending on the region of the world. In the US and Canada, organization is preferred; in the UK and Australia, organisation is preferred. Exception: in the UK, Oxford Dictionary and British academics prefer organization (and I bet you knew that an exception was coming). So there can even be two spellings of a word within one country.

Then there are multiple syllables that can vary within a single word like: sulfurization, sulphurisation, sulphurization. Next add a prefix, with or without a hyphen: desulfurization, de-sulfurization, desulphurisation, de-sulphurisation, desulphurization and de-sulphurization. And the list goes on, in fact there are tens of thousands of these two types of spelling variations in English.

Does it matter which form we use? In all cases we understand the word. But in writing well the credibility of the author is questioned. Does this person think clearly and consistently? If their spelling lacks consistency, is their thinking just as inconsistent and unclear?

Consistency, clarity. Let’s leave no doubt and use one spelling, at least in the same document.

NOTE: By the way, and just for fun, see what a differences punctuation makes. Spelling rules: ~ Spelling rules. ~ Spelling rules! With a colon it is a noun phrase where you can expect a list to follow; second, a complete sentence, where spelling is the noun/subject and rules is the verb, “to dominate or govern”; third, spelling is the noun/subject and rules is an informal verb meaning “is the best”. So what’s the message here.

Of photi, wimen, and gheese

~ K.L. Hill ~ 3 Comments

Photi 2pngOr on the weirdness of English spellings, and how some got that way…

Everyone of us who has struggled learning how to spell in English has at some point thrown up our hands (and pens, pencils and keyboards) in pure frustration. English spellings defy rules. Yes, there are some rules, and just when you think you understand, in come the exceptions. But let’s not despair; the exceptions have some fascinating and interesting stories.

First, photi is not a word (at least not yet, not to my knowledge). It may appear to look like a technical word related to cameras or other devices for recording images … photograph, photographer, photos. You might think that it could be an archaic Latin spelling of photos, you know, like cactus and cacti. But no, it isn’t and doesn’t really fit the pattern of Latin plurals. In fact the “photo-” combining form is actually a Greek thing.

Many students of linguistics encounter photi for the first time when some professor attempts a joke to illustrate the vagaries, or quirks, of English pronunciation. So how do you pronounce photi? Before I explain, there is a hint at the bottom of this blog; see the blue images.

Now, as the story goes, English letters can have numerous pronunciations. Here photi draws on the fact the ph can be pronounced as f (but note, not in uphill, uphold, upholster, peephole, and ironically, loophole.) Next is the letter o as pronounced i in the word women. Finally there is the ti pronounced as sh as in action, position, friction, faction. For that matter, we could have spelled our word fish as phosi as in mansion, permission or vision or phoci as in vicious, deficient or efficient, (which I dare say it is not). So we are left with ph=f, o=i and ti=sh, which then are pronounced as “fish”.

There has been an ongoing movement to simplify English spellings, in fact, there is a group dedicated to reforming English spelling. The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS, no personal comment here) is about 100 years old and included Theodore Roosevelt as a member. The society cites the enormous costs involved in problems associated with poor spelling because of the lack of consistency in English, and they may well have some very good arguments. A reform in English is long overdue. One suggestion is that spelling should follow pronunciation; but whose pronunciation? Aren’t we again opening another classic can of nematodes (that is, worms, but I do so try to avoid too many clichés.) If we were to follow the pronunciation of the majority of English speakers, we would then spell women as wimen. Or why not we(e)man. Ouch, a potential political hot spud. The Old English spelling was wifmon, which was the word for wife.

And what then of ghost where English kept the gh- spelling introduced by the Flemish typesetters that William Caxton had engaged in the 15th century with the first printing press in England. But this spelling was not kept in ghoose and gheese where we dropped the gh- preferring the simpler goose and geese.

There is much to be said for the literal and figurative economy of reform. But there is also much to be considered of the history, politics and art of the English language and how it has evolved over the last thousand years.

By the way, is the plural fish or fishes … another topic to be returned to soon.

Blue FishBlue FishBlue Fish

Plain English, Plain Language – plain and simple

~ K.L. Hill ~ 2 Comments

Double doublespeakIt all started with George Orwell when he wrote his essay “Politics and the English Language“ in 1946. Orwell was among the first in recent times to recognize that English was failing as a useful tool for communicating clearly and concisely. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four he coined the terms doublethink and newspeak and from there it’s but a short step to doublespeak.

Doublespeak is defined by Oxford Dictionaries online as deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language. (That’s a good description of many documents produced in government departments, legal offices, and even many private organizations.) Doublespeak has erroneously been credited to Orwell, but he is probably still responsible for the term. If only by analogy with doublethink and newspeak. In fact, linguists would call doublespeak a portmanteau, which is just a fancy term (French, of course) for a blend, borrowing the double from the first and the speak from the second. In keeping with Plain English, let’s call it by its more familiar name, a blend.  There we have it, a good example of Plain English working.

At one time or another we all cave in to the temptation of wanting to “dazzle and confound”, impress our colleagues and elevate our standing through the power of the pen, or now the pad, as in keypad or iPad. But there are many times that we should reconsider and choose the alternative: to write so anyone can understand us.

Now that is not to say that we should dumb down the English language. Not at all. There are just times when a simpler, straightforward word or term is the better choice. And that means we all have to write with the ultimate goal in mind – to give our readers information that can be read easily. One time. Reading a sentence twice is one time too many in today’s world of high-speed everything.

Historically the Plain English movement, in many forms, has been active in Great Britain and the U.S. since the 1970s. The Plain English Campaign in the UK states they are opposed to gobbledygook, jargon and legalese. Don’t forget the ubiquitous bureaucratese. And that can be extended to any terms that obscure meaning, or just simply complicate the message unnecessarily. As every writer knows, sometimes we have to kill our darlings. Ubiquitous is one of mine so let’s rewrite that as “…bureaucratese, which is found everywhere.” But don’t kill all your darlings. Just save these gems for your novel, blog or letters to your grandmother.

But back to history, in the U.S. in 1978 then-president Jimmy Carter issued an Executive Order with the goal of making government regulations “cost-effective and easy-to-understand by those who were required to comply with them.” Other administrations followed with mandates to state and government offices, and in 2010 President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act of 2010 followed by a new Executive Order in January 2011. The document states “[…our regulatory system] must ensure that regulations are accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.” If you visit the official government site here, smack in the middle of the homepage is the heading Plain Language – It’s the Law.

But history, law and bureaucracy aside, don’t we all just simply want to get our message across to readers in the best way possible?

So lawyers and bureaucrats everywhere, beware! If we all write so everyone can understand us, we might not need to pay others to interpret our own language for us.

English is not just for the “English”

~ K.L. Hill ~ 1 Comment

Talking headsWebsites, text messages, blogs, emails, chat programs, Skype … English dominates communication globally. But the majority of those who use English are non-native speakers. There are approximately 500 million native speakers of English compared to 1.5 billion non-native speakers.

Then there are the native speakers of English who are further divided into various camps. In fact, Amercian-English speakers outnumber the English (that is, British) speakers by at least 5 to 1. Add in the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and the many other countries where English is an official or second language and the picture of a single English language is rather murky.

All in all, the face of English is far from unified. Spell-check programs offer up to 18 varieties of English. Websites often distinguish between British and American English. Some even offer World or International English as an option.

We English speakers, especially the natives, are fiercely loyal to our own particular form, which is understandable since language is a strong component of identity.

The varieties of English serve to strengthen our individual identities and, for the most part, rarely cause a lack of communication. In fact, for international purposes a Common English is evolving that has acquired many names including International English, World English, Global English and even Wenglish and Globish.

It seems natural that a common, international variety will develop from the existing native forms. As in many cases, this can result in a situation called diglossia. Oxford defines diglossia as “A situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers. The term is usually applied to languages with distinct ‘high’ and ‘low’ (colloquial) varieties, such as Arabic.” (See Oxford Dictionaries here)

Do we need a unified form of English? If so, who would decide, where would it be used and which variety should be adopted? This blog will explore these questions and discuss the possibilities from the perspective of those who use English daily.

Hello English speakers worldwide!

~ K.L. Hill ~ 11 Comments

English Green

One world, one English, please! The need to communicate concisely and clearly in these times of instant everything has never been greater. English has become the common ground and an excellent tool to help people from all points on the compass understand one another.

Native or second language, we all need help to convey our messages effectively and efficiently. This blog will discuss the issues involved in communicating in the multilingual, multicultural world of the 21st century.

Happy communicating!

2013_Freedom_House_world_map.svg
Freedom House World Map, see freedomhouse.org