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Spelling Reform

The Long View: Fonetic

Fonetic This poem is taken from my recollection of the entry under Weather in Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary": Wuns I luukt into the fuecher, far as enywun cuud see, And I saw the cheef forcaster, ded as enywun cuud be. Ded and damd

The Long View: Truespel

Truespel This poem is taken from my recollection of the entry under Weather in Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary": Wunts ie lookd intue thu fyuecher, faar az eneewun kood see, And ie sau thu cheef forkaster ded az eneewun kood bee. Ded and damd

The Long View: Robertson Davies on Spelling Reform

From "The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks" Penguin Books, 1996 Copyright (C) Robertson Davies, 1986 Page 434: Dear Miss Hawser: Your suggestion that a few people in Canada try to revive the lost art of letter-writing is a worthy one, and I am flattered that you should include me

The Long View 2004-12-08: The Breeder Advantage

The Breeder Advantage is related to what Steve Sailer calls Affordable Family Formation. He started talking about this in 2004, at about the same time John posted this. It would be easy to just chalk this up to biology, but I think John Reilly's point is well taken:

The Long View: Ambrose Bierce on Spelling Reform

Heh. From "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913?) "A spelling reformer indicted For fudge was before the court cicted. The judge said: 'Enough-- His candle we'll snough, And his sepulchre shall not be whicted.'" Copyright © 1998 by John J.

The Long View: Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary of Doom

Samuel Johnson may be one of the most influential figures in English orthography. Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary of Doom Perhaps the most common defense of the traditional orthography of English is that the spelling is supposed to reflect the etymologies of the words, and so gives useful clues to

The Long View: Altscript

I have shared John's ideas on spelling reform before, but the content doesn't seem to have migrated well through the last website architecture update. I am taking this as an opportunity to create topical indexes for John's work that will be featured in the