Confuezing Simpl and Eezy

The AP's Darlene Superville takes a look at a movement to simplify spelling:

"When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?"

If you found the second half of that sentence more difficult to understand than the first, welcome to the club. For a second example, try this one on for size:

"Americans doen't aulwaez go for whut's eezy — witnes th faeluer of th metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues."

The notion of simplifying the English language is not new - a list of proponents for the idea stretches back to Benjamin Franklin and includes such notables as Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw. Still, the idea has refused to take root, or, as Darlene puts it:

"But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn't captivaet the masez then — or now."

The reason is that simpler is not always eezyur, er, easier. And while email and text messaging might seem like an ally in this process, the emphasis in communicating on the Internet has always been about speed and space rather than just simplicity. In simplified spelling, some words - like "through" and "enough" - do shrink, but some do not. Hope, for example, becomes "hoep". Some words become even larger: also becomes "aulso".

The real problem with simplified spelling is that, no matter how you slice it, you're still trading one sistem, er, system of language for another. And those of us who have learned - if not mastered - one system won't be easily persuaded to learn another. Unless, of course, all books and newspapers and magazines start to look like this:

"(Andrew) Carnegie, hoo embraest teknolojy, died in in 1919, wel befor sel foenz went maenstreem. Had he livd, he probably wuud hav bin pleezd to no that milyonz of peepl send text and instant mesejez evry dae uezing thair oen formz of simplified speling: "Hav a gr8 day!"

In which case, well, u red it heer furst.