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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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 Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:15 am Post subject: |
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| Sashadroogie wrote: |
| Which Pinker book was that, Cool Teacher? 'Language Instinct' or 'Words and Rules'? Can't recall... |
Ah! I found it...
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=100609
But maybe some of the things I said here came from Pinker books too. But also one by Geroge Yule and probably one by David Chrystal. But I also read that Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. Great read!  |
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:21 am Post subject: |
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Oh, here's another one. There's a book called Language Myths and one myth they debunk is English spelling is Katasrofffik! (They miss-spell it on purpose!  )
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Myths-Laurie-Bauer/dp/0140260234
The chapter is written by Edward Carney.
He does agree that maybe some spellings could be changed to make it easier but mostly he thinks the spellings make sense and that some new type of spelling would probably make it worse and more confusing like making "ate" and "eight" have the same spelling or "your" and "you're" or "there" "their" "they're". And many other things.  |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:21 am Post subject: |
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| Aha! Yes, I'm confusing my Pinker references. Must be the vodka. It's wearing off! |
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:26 am Post subject: |
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Oh, here's another one. There's a book called Language Myths and one myth they debunk is English spelling is Katasrofffik! (They miss-spell it on purpose! )
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Myths-Laurie-Bauer/dp/0140260234
The chapter is written by Edward Carney.
He does agree that maybe some spellings could be changed to make it easier but mostly he thinks the spellings make sense and that some new type of spelling would probably make it worse and more confusing like making "ate" and "eight" have the same spelling or "your" and "you're" or "there" "their" "they're". And many other things. |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| Hey, that looks like a good read. Fancy writing up a review on Sasha's Book Review thread? |
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Sashadroogie wrote: |
| Hey, that looks like a good read. Fancy writing up a review on Sasha's Book Review thread? |
He he! Maybe but I will have to look at it again as I don't remember the book compeltely. It will have to wait a day or two though I think. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| spiral78 wrote: |
Wow. I use reductions sometimes (rarely in the classroom and mostly only with native speakers) but I'm sure I've never said 'samwich' or 'hambag.'  What the heck book did that come from?! |
The "hambag" sort of example gets trotted out on certs for one thing (e.g. definitely got mentioned during my CTEFLA). Should I be questioning such Holy Writ?! 
@CT: I read a book once by some author or another. It had pages in it.
@Sasha: I found Language Myths a bit repetitive at the time - some of the chapters cover quite similar topics and themes to each other, IIRC (e.g. Description good, Prescription bad, we get it, we get it!). There are more interesting books to write reviews about, IMHO.
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Awwwwww! Boo hiss! You spoilt my hopes for an entertaining read, boo hoo. Can you at least let me know which books you'd say are more interesting? |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Good man! Review! Review! Review!!!! |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| I'll try to finish the Morley soon. |
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jonniboy
Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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| fluffyhamster wrote: |
| And how likely is it that switching and re-educating to an entirely new respelling system would ever be a political winner anywhere. |
That's true, though various countries in the post-Soviet sphere have done it, switching from cyrillic to latin based alphabets (some after an earlier period of history using arabic script.) Almost always though, it's been done for political reasons, to put distance between them and the ex-colonial masters.
In Kazakhstan for example the government wants to switch to latin for Kazakh language but found it would cost around $300 million and take 10 years to implement, so they've put those plans on hold as they have other economic priorities.
If those are the time frames and sums that we're looking at, it's hugely unlikely in economically difficult times that governments across the globe could be persuaded to switch to something like that. They'd be far better promoting some kind of international sign language, though that idea lies in the some realm of improbability. |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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It's harder to do when the populace is already literate. In Turkey, the great Ataturk is hailed as a great reformer for changing to the Latin alphabet. But his task was made easier in that most people there were totally illiterate back in 1929. Not so in the Soviet world after the great educational programmes introduced by our wise leaders.
Very true about the ex-colonial distancing effect, though. The great Mustapha Kemal didn't want the next generation being able to understand anything about the previous political order of the Ottomans, though they weren't really foreign colonials. Solution: cut them off form all primary material, monumental inscriptions etc. by changing the alphabet. Worked a treat. |
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Cool Teacher
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 930
Location: Here, There and Everywhere! :D
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| fluffyhamster wrote: |
| spiral78 wrote: |
| Wow. I use reductions sometimes (rarely in the classroom and mostly only with native speakers) but I'm sure I've never said 'samwich' or 'hambag.' What the heck book did that come from?! |
The "hambag" sort of example gets trotted out on certs for one thing (e.g. definitely got mentioned during my CTEFLA). Should I be questioning such Holy Writ?!
@CT: I read a book once by some author or another. It had pages in it.
@Sasha: I found Language Myths a bit repetitive at the time - some of the chapters cover quite similar topics and themes to each other, IIRC (e.g. Description good, Prescription bad, we get it, we get it!). There are more interesting books to write reviews about, IMHO. |
Teehee! Your pulling my leg about being vague I think.
Anyway I agree that Language Myths sometimes gets a bit repetititititive. Also some of them arent really myths just exaggerated and then the writer says something like this myth is a complete exaggeration but it is slightly true.
But I don't want to spoil the review so stay tuned. |
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