No. Regulatory bodies do nothing but try to inhibit the natural evolution of language.
When speakers of the same language are separated over a long distance, change is inevitable.
Would you kindly click my dragons?![]()
Well, France's french-speakers are leaving the rest of the community behind, their accent is becoming weird and slangy. Thankfully television is here to tell us what correct diction should be like.
I actually don't know. I'm not against language change, and I'm certainly not against different dialects. But I think it's good to have some kind of reference for everyone, otherwise different dialects might grow too far apart to understand. I guess I'm in favour of having a standard, but more as something everyone can understand, rather than something everyone should use. Does that make sense?
All I want is a decent spelling reform or two. Beyond that, no. This stuff
creeps me out.
The concept of spelling reform is not one that appeals to me, because words like "nite" and "thru" look really awkward and artificial to me.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffI like it the way it is now. Conservative spelling means even Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe is still readable. A simplified spelling would make you loose all that.
@Don Zabu: I don't see how this can remotely be compared to Newspeak.
edited 22nd Jan '11 4:31:50 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?"Spelt logically"? In english?
edited 22nd Jan '11 4:51:47 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Spelling things logically means you can sound a word out and have a much better chance of spelling it right, that's a good thing. Funetik Aksent is awesome that way.
Fight smart, not fair.YA, BUT YA GOTTA MAKE UP JAS ONE STANDURD, OTHEWIZE IT BEKOMZ ALL KRAP.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?My language (Spanish) has a regulatory body and that has not stopped or even slowed down the process of creating regional words. They seem very liberal about the language and instead of trying to force their Spanish upon the regions, they focus on categorizing on where the words come from and accept them on that region. The regulatory body seems to work more like a library than a bureaucracy that decides what words are Spanish or not.
I honestly don't think it would be a bad idea for English to have a regulatory body as long as it doesn't become an elitist bureaucracy trying to force one type of English on every region.
Horseman of War: "War never changes? F*** you! You don't know me!"Yup. Even Spain's Spanish can be "not proper spanish". I assure you, some spaniards speak so badly you can barely undertand them, and the youth have such a slurred language full of slang it takes some freaking time to get used to.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?German poster here and I'm with the above Spanish troper. You don't need one but having one might not be bad. Straigthening out that spelling in little steps so it's not a nightmare to learn to read/spell for example (From what I hear pronouncation is pretty situational...).
As noted before, having a regulatory body should work out more like "here's a list of words which 90% percent of English speaking communities know and here's how to spell them so it can be recognized". Some words have variants which are right as well. And, since German spans several countries, spell variations can also be recognized. None of the Swiss have to use the ß.
On the other hand, one of the neat functions is that they try to keep spelling with pronouncation and streamlining rules for writing(Success varies). The recent reform booted out some h after t's because they didn't make any diffenrence or transformed some ph into f. Pretty harmless on the whole if you ask me.
Eh, I'd rather keep English spelling the way it is. Especially with some of the bigger words, where if you know your greek or latin roots, you can tell what a word means just by seeing how it's spelled.
And besides, where would the world of badfic be without the Rouge Angles of Satin?
Belief or disbelief rests with you.
Dutch spelling. Dutch. It is a nightmare. It... the way those consonants stack up..
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Somehow, even with some changes in orthography, the latin or greek roots are very easy to identify. You just have to be consistent about it. And seriously, how long ago was that? I don't know why you have to keep the spelling for words which are almost completely natural in the language. It's not like they're used with the greek pronounciation.

Still, continental philosophy can easily turn into a beautiful pile of nonsense. Genuinely beautiful too.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?