tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post2711360787900831452..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: ImprovementConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-13878117263907359882008-12-04T22:38:00.000-05:002008-12-04T22:38:00.000-05:00These are both terrific contributions, thank you. ...These are both terrific contributions, thank you. I have nothing to add to them.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-72728164428098710562008-12-02T20:42:00.000-05:002008-12-02T20:42:00.000-05:00I seem to remember that Franklin's remarks on "imp...I seem to remember that Franklin's remarks on "improvement" actually appear in the front matter of modern Merriam-Websters' dictionaries.<BR/><BR/>Spelling reforms are typically too precise: they show the writer's dialect. In Franklin's case, the possibility of precision is the source of interest. If <A HREF="http://www.benfranklin300.org/_etc_pdf/Six_New_Letters_Nicola_Twilly.pdf" REL="nofollow"> his transcriptions</A> were any good, then his accent was almost the same as a modern Philadelphian's—I had one read out the letter in the link. There are oddities—his "cannot" is /kæn nɔt/, not /kæ nɑt/; his "sound"s seem to be two-syllabled /sa undz/, not /saʊndz/; "your" is /juɹ/, not /jɔɹ/; and "gradually" is hideously syncopated to /græ du æl li/ instead of /græ dʒə li/. But in all, he could pass for a native—though with some Anglophilic affectations.Paul M. Rodriguezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00925737399903171837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-30452543736170534202008-12-01T22:40:00.000-05:002008-12-01T22:40:00.000-05:00The New York Times reports on spelling reform in R...The New York Times reports on spelling reform in Russia, April 4, 1918:<BR/><BR/>"PETROGRAD, JAN. 31. - Russian school children are rejoicing. Not only have the school teachers gone on strike, but the Bolshevik Government has adopted phonetic spelling, which will eliminate some of the difficulties of Russian orthography.<BR/><BR/>The National Commissioner [they mean "People's Commissar," I think] of Education, with a view to raising the general standard of education, has issued a decree that, from Jan. 1, the new simplified spelling is to be taught in the schools. The reformed spelling consists in the elimination from the Russian alphabet of three letters--yatt, phita, and the simple form of e. <BR/><BR/>The pronunciation of these letters is identical, respectively, with a, f, and the double form of e, and the correct use of the respective letters has always been a test of education. The yatt, a survival of one of the old Slavonic characters, has been a stumbling block to many, not only to foreigners, but even to middle-class Russians."<BR/><BR/>What's funny about this is that the NYT (or the AP, actually) failed the test. The "yatt" is pronounced "e," not "a"; the "double form of e" is actually just "i," or the "ee" sound; and they missed one of the most crucial elements of the reform, which is the exclusion of the "yer" (called the "hard sign" today) at the end of every word ending with a consonant. One Soviet linguist later calculated that 8.5 million pages worth of these meaningless and silent "yers" were printed every year in Tsarist Russia....<BR/><BR/>Improvement, indeed.Greg Afinogenovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13529073439919307693noreply@blogger.com