Be You Spell Your Words The Way You Hear Them Gabe Henry's Enough Is Enuf

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8d ago 20:18

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Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a phonologist falls, but not polight to laf about it? Anyone who has the misfortune to write in English will, every now and then, struggle with its spelling. According to a study in the British Journal of Psychology, children take 2-3 times longer to grasp English spelling compared to more phonetic orthographies like German and Spanish. So why do we continue to use it? If our system of writing words is so tragically inconsistent, why haven't we standardized it, phoneticized it, brought it into line? How many brave linguists have ever had the courage to state, in a declaration of phonetic revolt: "Enough is enuf"? The answer: many. In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. ENOUGH IS ENUF: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell (April 15, 2025; Dey Street) is about them: Noah Webster, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead of through, tho for though, laf for laugh, beleev for believe, and dawter for daughter (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too). Releasing from a staple of the New York Comedy Scene-Gabe Henry, whose previous book of haikus featured comics like Jerry Seinfeld and Aubrey Plaza and was lauded for its "wit and wisdom" (Dick Cavett) and "pure fun" (The Interrobang)-ENOUGH IS ENUF reveals how, and why, language is organically simplifying to fit the needs of our changing world. "Just look at our national spelling bee," Henry said in a recent interview with BIG THINK. "There's a whole glorification of complicated words. People pride themselves on mastering the complications and origins of our words. They want to hold onto that. The core of the book is that language is always changing - whether consciously or unconsciously, whether direction or indirectly - and no one should fight it. Language has to evolve just like culture, just like people. It's hard to accept because we want to exert control over the things around us, but it's like letting a child grow up. It's just the natural course." Henry's intelligent yet approachably laugh-out-loud humor will appeal to fans of Nine Nasty Words, Semicolon, and The Pun Also Rises, and the timing couldn't be better with the 100th anniversary of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which Henry covers annually, happening soon after publication. Thanks to technology-from texting to Twitter and emojis-the Simplified Spelling Movement may finally be having its day.and etymologists, linguists, and book lovers alike will be keen to learn mor!
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