Nyoo spelingz? Noe, thanx.

As if the prospect of trying to make English the "official" language of the US isn't problematic enough, the "EZ-spel" folks are at it again.

cat, k-a-t, cat . . .

Standardized spelling ("orthography" in the trade) is short on history but long on importance. And yes, it's quirky. That's because English is a greater meld of more languages and linguistic influences than any other. And with that comes all the quirks. Everyone knows they're tricky to master, but millions have managed it and millions more are working on it. Besides, that's what dictionaries are for.

So: what's the problem with "EZ-spel" (my own term for it) if it helps kids? If a simplified spell-the-way-you-say-it system promotes reedeeng en rydeeng among the school-age set, what's wrong with that?

Let me count the ways.

1. Who decides? Well, the writer does. EZ-spel is a written form of each writer's idiolect—the individual way someone speaks. But no two people speak exactly the same way. Now what?

2. What about dialects? If someone with a strong southern accent (technically, "dialect" within the same language) does the writing and someone with a strong accent from, say, the Bronx or Burlington reads it, will it make more sense to that reader than standardized spelling does? Not likely.

3. What about non-native speakers of English? If they speak with an accent, will they apply EZ-spel according to how they pronounce American English?

(Just to be understood across the linguistic-diversity divide, wouldn't we eventually have to standardize EZ-spel? Which, it seems to me, would defeat its stated purpose.)

What about Brits? "Separated by a common language," multiplied exponentially.

It was a Brit, of course, who first standardized English spelling. Before Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, English on paper was a capricious, often chaotic exercise, no matter how learned or articulate the writer. Dr. Johnson's 42,773 words, definitions and spellings brought order to that chaos, and it endures.

4. What about people who have lisps or other speech impediments?

5. How does EZ-spel distinguish sounds without inventing new symbols or borrowing some from the International Phonetic Alphabet? Three obvious examples: the voiced th in "the" vs. the unvoiced th in "think" . . . the u in "push" or "could" . . . the ai in "air" (I got a million of 'em). It can't.

6. What of all the works already in print? Do they get translated into EZ-spel? Or must kids (the same ones EZ-spel is supposed to help) just do without Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, the Brontës, the Bible, Little Golden Books, Dr. Seuss? Even Harry Potter on paper would be lost to them.

7. What about legal documents--wills, laws, contracts, the Constitution? What about traffic tickets, tax forms, bank statements?

8. Translations: How would that work without standardized spelling?

9. What would happen to spelling bees? crossword puzzles? Scrabble?

10. What about the rest of us? Do we have to learn a whole new orthographic system—re-lurn how to reed en riyt? And on some dystopian day does the generation gap get wider? Mostly older people who can read and write standardized English vs. thuh yungr peepl hoo doo it thee EZ-spel wae.

And finally . . .

At what point do you teach kids real (OK, standardized) reading and writing after EZ-spel? How do you do it? And can you do it? It's a given in sports that it's harder to un-learn lazy bad habits than it is to learn the right way the first time. Same here.

Just yoo wiyt, Enree Igginz. [mentally insert My Fair Lady poster here: blogger is broken]

We can't "standardize" thought (although some will always try; that's another rant). But we did standardize how thought is expressed, and we need to keep it that way. That's communication instead of chaos.

Forcing a whole new spelling system is preposterous. Worse, dumbing down the written language isn't just pandering to the lowest common denominator: it's an insult to the intelligence of everyone who has learned read and write English and to those who will. And they will—as long as competent people are teaching them.

Words, meanings, pronunciations, spelling--these things evolve on their own (hence, a "living" language). Let it evolve.

Otherwise, if we think English is chaotic now, just yoo wite.