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From:
Bill Reese Date: Wed Jun 28, 2000 3:39 pm Subject: Re: standardized spellings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I'm surprised to hear you say that Angus. Especially after describing what "exactly" to do when using Ghostscript, etc. We need standardized spellings on words that have already been established. While we do make some changes to some words, like "phone" instead of "telephone", most of the words we use have stabilized into a standard form since the advent of dictionaries (i.e., Webster). It's this very standardization that allows communication to happen in an efficient manner. I worry that a single mispelled word in what I say could throw off someone trying to translate into his/her language. I don't think standard spellings would discriminate against "non-standard." I believe it would evolve into more of a dialect or even synonym. Alternate spellings are also give for English language words. That's why we have British and American "versions." So I wouldn't worry too much. Besides, we already have ASL dictionaries, just in pictoral format instead of SW. Bill Reese "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" wrote: > On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Valerie Sutton wrote: > > > The French are fortunate to have standardized spellings...I hope > > someday that will happen in some countries with signed languages too. > > I'm interested to see you write that, and wondering what you think > the advantages of standardized spellings are. I can't really think of an > advantage, except perhaps for computer parsing, and the disadvantages are > clear: > > - encouraging discrimination against people who haven't memorized all the > standard forms > > - favoring a particular variety of the langauge (usually the variety of > whoever is doing the standardizing) and encouraging discrimination against > people who use different varieties. > > -- > -Angus B. Grieve-Smith > Linguistics Department > The University of New Mexico > | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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