Spelling Nazi Part 3

I am all for evolution of language, and dropping the superfluous "u" in "our" seems a fine improvement.

But these simply make no sense, as the new spelling is less like the pronunciation than the old one. It is as if I decided to respell my name "Arndrah", the spelling gives fewer clues as tot eh pronunciation than the old spelling.

Perhaps those phonics people are onto something, as these strange new spellings seem to show that people no longer know how to sound out words. If they did, spelling ridiculous and disdain is not hard.

andrew,
The misspelled words that gripe me the most are the simple ones. The words that are less than five letters total. "There" used instead of "their", "then" in place of "than", "to" instead of "too", "now" or "no" instead of "know", etc.

I believe the reason is two fold, with one source, that being today's public schools and the teachers. They don't care whether Johnny can read or not, and the ambivilence rubs off onto Johnny. Improper teaching and lack of personal pride and discipline causes it.

If you follow the links at the beginning of the essay, I think I mentioned a few of the ones you did.

I agree that the schools have lost much of their interest in enforcing standards of spelling and grammar, but I think there is also a general lack of interest in society in general. Whether the schools caused the societal disinterest or just reflect it, I cannot say.

I do agree that the schools, for whatever reason, are to blame.

Thank you for your comment, and as I believe this is the first time you posted here, welcome to my blog. I hope to hear from you again.

The new way to teach math is on a spiral set-up (exposing the kids to many different things and rotating which one is being worked on), instead of linear building block and repetition. My youngest, who has a learning disability, is now going into special ed (late 1st grade), where they will use OLD SCHOOL math training for her, along with reading and writing.

We chose this duty station for the school system (our other choices were Norfolk or N'awlins), which we knew from being stationed here many years ago to be one of the best public school systems in America. Heck, Benjamin Netinyahu, former PM of Israel, graduated from the public schools in this area.

Unfortunately, the northern suburbs of Filthadelphia have started going from GOP control to Dim control. I'm a minority in my neighborhood. Not only am I a conservative (gasp!), but I'm not an Eagles fan....I love the arch enemy Dallas Cowboys!!!

Fortunately my mother still teaches at a good private school, so my son will be in a good position when he is old enough. (He is three right now.)

Oddly enough, he has shown a lot of aptitude for mathematics already. His verbal skills are normal, but he has a real affinity for numbers and patterns (and music, but that makes sense). He also has incredible skill with computers for three. At two he stole my old apple laptop and fell in love with it, and I was amazed at what he figured out for himself. (I personally am not an Apple fan. Not a windows fan either. Or a Linux geek. I am a dinosaur FreeBSD fancier. But I like assembly language and forth, so what do you expect?)

Anyway, enough boasting about my son. I could probably fill page after page doing that. I am just glad he has a decent private school lined up (and a tuition break thanks to Mom). The area has what are considered good public schools, but, as someone who attended both public and private schools, I can attest that good public schools are nowhere close to even mediocre private schools.