Saaspel

A couple years ago I went to the language show at Olympia noticed at reference 1 and today I happen to have turned up a small booklet acquired there about something then called saaspel and now, seemingly called sayspel at reference 2. Illustrated left.

It seems that the late Mr Blain made enough money out of making hydraulic control valves that he could indulge in the rich man's hobby of trying to reform the spelling of English.

Somewhere along the line I have picked up the idea that English spelling is the mess that it is (I use the word as someone whose spelling is not very good) because of the very mixed origins of English, with the more Latin languages being much better in this regard. In any event, wikipedia offer an interesting article about the long history of spelling reform, going back some centuries and reminding me that Mr. Blain is in the excellent company of Mr. Bernard Shaw, who left most of his considerable fortune to the cause. And telling me that spelling reform has been more successful in the US than in the old country, with a lot of the differences between us being improvements in Mr. Blain's sense.

The results of the Blain proposals are surprisingly easy to read, surprising given that words look completely differant, with tradishnl, pridictubli, dreem and coozi being just a few examples. And with coozi illustrating the use of the double vowel to mark the long O of the cozy rather than the loose variety. It all strikes me as terribly Quixotic: the man has a point but will it ever happen? Would we do better just to accept and adopt the drift in the US towards a more sensible spelling system?

At which point I remember that in the 17th century people used to be far less fussy about spelling. What has changed that we have got so hung up on it, making unfortunate school children spend such a large chunk of their time learning their spellings? Is it just like learning Latin, essentially useless but quite good enough for children to sharpen their intellectual teeth on until they are old enough to learn about the real world? Or is it that we just need a few national things, things to maintain our separate, national identity in an ironed out, EU sort of world - so we Brits get into a lather about our funny spelling while the French get into a lather about their funny vocabulary and the Irish persevere with their funny language. In the US they have state trees and state flowers.

PS: depressing that this apparently English manufacturer, doing the sort of thing that we used to be good at, actually operates out of Germany rather than England, or even the UK. See reference 3. On the other hand pleasing to be reminded that there is still room in the world for the eccentric; it hasn't all been ironed out by management consultants and bean counters.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=choral+matins.

Reference 2: http://sayspel.com/.

Reference 3: http://www.blain.de/.