Speek N' Spell - Simplified Spelling?

It's good to stand out in a crowd. It's good to be different from time to time because it ensures diversity. Why swim with the tide when you can swim against it? Well that appears to be the philosophy of the Simplified Spelling Society as well. What is the simplified spelling society you ask? Quite simply (pun intended) it is a group that is advocating that the spelling of words be simplified so that they way the word sounds is the way we spell them. Now what wood that meen? Well, we'd spell wurds this way which will make it easier to teach kids to spell. Now I don't know about you, but this idea scares me a bit. Not because it's different but because it's leading us down a scary path from which we would have a difficult time returning from.

Many groups are advocating this type of spelling in the hope that it will help promote literacy and better grammar among new readers and writers. I can see how that would be beneficial but it would be a crutch rather than a help in my view. Already we have kids who are net savvy and who use the internet like nobody's business. These kids use instant messaging and e-mail; webcams and MySpace and such are just some of the latest ways kids are communicating with one another. But what's worrisome is that already we are seeing a trend where kids are using abbreviations to save from having to type up words while typing.

Brb, ttyl, Lol, are just some examples of the 'net-speak' that is used in common parlance (Be right back, talk to you later, and Laughing out loud... just in case you didn't know). There's nothing wrong with that when one is speaking to friends or relatives using an instant messaging system, but where the problem appears to be cropping up more frequently is in schools and on assignments. Kids are starting to use these abbreviations in lieu of actual words and although many teachers know what these shortforms translate to, they are deducting points from papers and assignments for using the shortform.

One could argue that if the meaning is clear, there is no need to deduct points, but is the meaning really clear? If we begin to accept these papers soon we'll start seeing papers written with nothing more than a string of letters across the top. Dan Brown will have nothing with "The DaVinci Code". Every teacher would have to use their logic and skill to decipher what students have written and recorded.

Domestic issues aside; what about when we go to foreign lands? I don't believe that there is such a strong push to accept this style of English elsewhere in the world and if we are to implement this system here, it will only create problems for us in the world arena. How are students of thise new spelling system going to know how to read anything outside of the country? How are we going to communicate with other countries? English is a common language but it stands on the verge of being not so common anymore.