The most frequently used words in English are among the most irregular. However, any attempt to change these words, according to Dr. Yule, arouses the greatest opposition -- silly as many of these spellings are. Changing the most familiar words would have a marked affect on the appearance of text.

The resistance to regularizing the spelling demons would be much less and might even by welcomed by poor spellers. Most of the demons have not become sight words through frequent repetition.

Lists of Spelling Demons that are regularly issued shud remind us that the problem is not that people are bad spelrs - the spelling itself can be admittedly demonic. - Valerie Yule

The "demons" must be regularized on principles, or else chaos would result. Here is a list of spelling demons and some suggestions for their improvement.

Why Spelling Demons are hard to spell

In a Pitman Secretarial College list of 120 Worst Spelling Demons there were nine categories that cause dificulty, and the average word in the list contained 2.4 of these causes of dificulty:

• 67.5% contained unnecessary letters,
• 47.5% had unstressed/obscure vowels
• 44.2% had doubled consonants (which Fowler of Fowler's English Usage saw as one of the greatest causes of schoolboys' tears in lerning spelling),
• 35.8% had other misleading vowel spellings,
• 31.7% had misleading spellings of consonants,
• 14.1% misrepresented units of meaning (morphemes) and
• 5.8% had regularities which were not expected.

Simplified spelling

Surplus Cut Spelling addresses the most prevalent source of difficulty - the silent letters. The full strategy is enumerated below:

• Remove redundant, superfluous, and unecessary letters
• Standardize the spelling of the obscure vowel (schwa)
• Eliminate double consonants
• Reduce misleading vowel spellings
• Reduce misleading consonant spellings

A simplified spelling has to be easy to read. In addition it has to be easier to learn and easier to write and spell. It should also provide a better guide to pronunciation than the code currently in use. - Steve Bett

Changing the Demons into Angels [Anjels, A.nja'lz, E'nj'lz]

There are several ways to eliminate the spelling demons or simplify their spelling (as shown in the different transcriptions for "angels". The surplus cut proposal is based on removing the major causes of difficulty with the least disturbance to the traditional look of English. It is riten in surplus cut speling.

Reform coud be brought in by dictionary listings of the respellings as acceptabl alternatives. These chanjes wud also make hundreds of othr words esier to spel, becauz they wer based on principls not lists. Lists can of course be made out, to aid spelng by analojy.

Five Rules for Improved Spelling

1. Cut out (omit, remove) surplus letrs

• Omit dubld letrs that serv no purpose exept to confuse
• Exception 1- dubl to show stress eg, penisillin
• Exception 2- to show root word eg, dissatisfied

2. Set out regular prinsipls for spelling obscure/unstressed vowels (shwa)

• a as in -abl, -asy, -ant, -anse
  (In a ful Cut Spelng, th vowel may be omitd when folowd by rlmn, but Dr. Yule's experiments show that readrs and riters may not be redy for this: undenoted vowels requires an adjustment except in syllabic terminals)
  
• ment is a difrant sufix from -ant (government warant-CS govrnmnt warnt)
• ur - when stressd, as in perturb (CSS pa't'rb: H'r u'rbn t'rbn dist'rbd & pa't'rbd him.)
• er when not stressed as in seperate/seperat (CCS sepret lyvz)
• omit obscure vowel spelling when syllabic consonants ar sufisient, as in apl, litl, or vowel is absent in general speech, as in seprat, secretry, genraly

3. Respel misleading vowel and consonsonat spellings

• Always ie, never ei if pronounced /i:/ e.g. grieve but eidr duck
• Consistent -nse endings not -nce

4. Emphasize spellling of the root word and fix misrepresentations of units of meaning. ... then unexpected regularities would not cause problems., eg satisfied-dissatified, comparison-comparativ

5. Allow alternativs of cutting/not cutting a word ending in e when adding a suffix, e.g. argument/arguement age/aging but giv dictionry first entry to the cut spelng.

The list of demons with two reform spellings - SCS surplus cut & CCS chekt spelling

Comment.

Half way measures are always difficult to justify. Surplus cut spelling may retain a close visual resemblance to TO but at a high cost. While more systematic it is not fully systematic. While I do not believe that any spelling can be fully justified -- ultimately it is based on what the dictionary says is the prevailing pronunciation -- surplus cut selling requires a great many rules and is more complicated than a more systematic phonemic solution.

These changes can lead into a wider spelling reform, and also more sensibl spelling for other words with the same forms, by analogy.
Note that this Pitman's List is by no means exaustiv for spelling demons, and indeed the Pitman College recalculated it at regular intervals, based on the current spelling problems of students. It is clear, however, that surplus letters are a major source of spelling demonry.

To test whethr these spellings are realy an improvement:
Provide the principls for their improved spelling , with lists of exampls, and see if riters can then spel othr words acording to these gides..

(To allow peple to decide what spelling they would like to use, even by a democratic majority, would result in mor caos unless there are principles to help make their decisions consistant. -Valerie Yule)


Another list of words that are difficult to spell