Spelling is Scoring

Edward Rondthaler, a man I had never heard of before, died a couple weeks ago at age 104. According to the New York Times, he was best known for his “energetic campaign to respell English,” which would result in the opening lines of Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” changing from this:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk.

to this:

Mi hart aeks, and a drouzy numnes paens
Mi sens, as tho of hemlok I had drunk,
Or emptyd sum dul oepiaet to the draens
Wun minit past, and Lethe-wards had sunk.

It reminds me of memorizing the first lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—somewhat unsurprisingly, given that Middle and Old English spelling were generally more phonetic than modern English. And, with nonstandard orthography throughout the realm, spelling could and would vary by local pronunciation.

This made me think of indeterminacy (as most things do nowadays); what is the relationship between the written word and the spoken word? In terms of meaning, a word written and a word spoken are generally the same (although I wonder if there are any great counterexamples to this). In terms of sound, though, the written word is an inexact score.

As Rondthaler noted, words that are pronounced similarly are often spelled quite differently, and vice versa. Interpreting these correctly leads to one level of indeterminacy, and regional dialects lead to another.

Sum food fohr thot, I guess. (Faking phonetic spelling is harder than you might think it should be!)

This video of Rondthaler giving his spiel about phonetic spelling is charming and essential watching:

(via NYTimes)