My name is Tom Zielund and I believe in the power of democracy. I’m not running for office, but I will be voting.
When I was in second grade, I remember quite clearly one day in reading class. I had been working on an assignment and came across a word I didn’t recognize. I went up to the teacher, pointing to the word to ask for help, but she just laughed and walked away! I was embarrassed at first but eventually I realized the joke. The word was L A U G H.
This is a recurrent problem in English. Words are archaic.
Language changes over time. As a linguist I recognize this as a natural process. Somewhere in the distant past, the GH in laugh was pronounced perhaps like the CH in “ach du lieber”. Now it has softened into the sound of an F. This is a common process known as lenition in linguistics.
In contrast, spelling has changed little since the printing press. As a technologist I recognize this as a natural process as well, but not a welcome one. Written English has become a legacy system. The disconnect between spelling and sounds and all the exceptions you “just have to know” are the costs associated with maintaining backwards compatibility with older ‘versions’ of English– starting with the English that was around at the time of Gutenberg.
Six
Hundred!
Years ago!!!
Why do we keep up this charade? There’s lots of small reasons, but the biggest one is because we, the users of English don’t bother to change it. Language is not something that is given and we must live with. Language is a democratic process.
Democracy is not just about suffrage.
We can, of course, vote at the ballot box for our leaders.
But we can also vote with our wallets, by supporting the kind of businesses and products we prefer.
We can vote with our feet by walking away from a brawl, or vote with our fists by taking one on.
And, we can vote with our pen, or with our keyboard, by writing the way we want to write.
Therefore, from now on, I plan to vote for a simpler and cleaner written English by boycotting GH.
I am Tom Zielund, and I say, Enuff is Enough!