[...]... most of the committees, it is truly astonishing the number of times that the reformed word was simply a homonym and bound to cause confusion (3) “In all cases it is imperative that the new spelling conform to the spelling rules. ” It is all too clear that the spelling rules were largely ignored by the reformers Perhaps they saw these rules as traditions that had to be broken in order to get the job... perhaps they hoped to create new spelling rules that were more logical Whatever their reasoning, it is clear that they wasted little effort attempting to make their spellings conform to the traditional English spelling rules (4) “ and that it resemble, as closely as possible, the original word.” In this vital matter, the reformers failed completely There was little if any attempt to cater to the “visual... systematically corrected the errors The fact that the English- speaking world did not immediately accept all their recommendations does not mean that they did not do their work well On the contrary, they did so thorough a job that the results were too many to be assimilated all at once The modern reader has to admire the logic of their thinking, but, at the same time, the reader is repulsed by the strangeness... in English we reduce this to “I won’t.” Spelling rule #1: The possessive apostrophe indicates ownership To use the possessive apostrophe simply add an apostrophe to the noun plus the letter s, then add the subject that is under discussion Words ending in y do not change the y to i Spelling rule #2: If the noun already ends in an s or if the noun is plural, the apostrophe is added after the s If the. .. Webster’s time there have been a number of attempts to reform, or at least to improve, English spelling They vary from the thoughtful to the ludicrous At the present time there is a widespread belief that perhaps English spelling could be made more phonetic, despite the fact that English is not a completely phonetic language Roughly half of our words are already spelled phonetically, but the other half... clear as to when, and when not, to double the consonant, and the reformers ignored the fact that a double consonant usually indicates a short vowel It appears that the reformers were torn between following the spelling rules while purging superfluous consonants on the one hand and simply abandoning all the spelling rules on the other As a result, there are quite a few anomalies scattered throughout their... the meaning of the original word in any way It is imperative that the new spelling conform to the spelling rules and that it resemble the original word as closely as possible Care should be taken to try to avoid the creation of yet another homophone or homograph Many attempts to reform English spelling have been targeted at the alphabet George Bernard Shaw left the bulk of his fortune to a committee... sent out The reformers worked hard to persuade publishers and editors of dictionaries to adopt the reformed spellings and The Century Dictionary was persuaded to add the new words as an appendix with an introduction, while the Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1893) incorporated all the amended spellings into its listings In 1915, there appeared A Dictionary of Simplified Spelling from the New... using color and center, the British still had to be persuaded of the correctness of these and many other similar words The delegates had to persuade their countrymen on the other side of the Atlantic, and in this they largely failed At that time, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, the British saw the project as an American idea and almost completely ignored it To this day, British... aide to correct spelling, but it also offers clues to the correct pronunciation Invariably, poor spelling and poor pronunciation go together Compare the following: Spelling rule #2: An open syllable occurs when the vowel is not followed by a consonant ACCENTS There are no hard and fast rules covering the placement of the accent It depends a great deal on the origin of the word, its meaning, and whether . of the unique history of the language there are often exceptions to many of the rules, but when compared to the number of words that do indeed follow the rule, these exceptions often prove to. that the reformers were torn between following the spelling rules while purging superfluous consonants on the one hand and simply abandoning all the spelling rules on the other. As a result, there. bound to cause confusion. (3) “In all cases it is imperative that the new spelling conform to the spelling rules. ” It is all too clear that the spelling rules were largely ignored by the reformers.