Bharat Bhatia

The English language sometimes confuses us because it has rules, but then it constantly breaks those rules. Instead of enuf we have enough. Instead of foto, we spell photo. Wouldn't life be easier if we just spelled things the way they sound? Also, who is the authority on English spelling, and how can we voice our opinions to this establishment? Here is a humorous satire on these rules and the establishment behind it.

You would think that when somebody comes up with a language, they would try to make it as simple as possible. Since it is hard to memorize everything we say, we have written records to keep track of things. The people who came up with written languages were geniuses. A letter or symbol stands for a sound. When you put those symbols together, they create a word. Words combine to create sentences, sentences combine to become stories or other documents, and so forth. This was a brilliant idea up until somebody decided to create this language called English. Just like any other language, each symbol stands for a sound, and there are certain rules. The problem is that English always breaks its own rules. It's a miracle that English-writing societies can even function.

Let's take the word laugh. Based on the spelling, it should sound like "law-oog-huh." I don't see an F anywhere, so why does it sound like "laf?" In fact, why can't we just spell laf instead of laugh? Does it make life easier to spell it laugh? Would it offend somebody's beliefs by spelling it laf? Obviously not, so what's the point of spelling it that way? Now what about the word psychology? Shouldn't it be spelled sikolojee or sikoloje? Wait, now I'm confused. The letter I has 2 sounds. The letter I is in the word sick and bike. Well, wouldn't it be easier just to spell it sik instead of sick? The letter C also has 2 sounds. It can sound like S or like K. So somebody might see sick and pronounce it sisk. Also, shouldn't bike be pronounced "bikee" based on the spelling? Sometimes people use the letter Y like in the work sky. So then, shouldn't we spell it byk instead of bike? But sometimes Y has a different sound like in the word yarn. So how is somebody who first learns English going to know how to pronounce yarn. Somebody might see Y in sky, so maybe that person will pronounce it iarn. But that sounds like iron. That's way too confusing. What's the point of having one letter have 2 sounds, and what's the point of having 2 different letters have the same sound? Why can't we just keep the rules the same? If there is a sound without a letter, then we should create one. For example, the word chat should sound like "su-hat' or "ku-hat." There is no symbol for the "ch" sound, so somebody thought it would be best to put 2 letters together to make one sound. The same is for the letter "th." The words "the" and "thumb" both have "th" in the beginning, but the sounds are different. They should have just made a new letter for each sound rather than combine 2 letters and make them have 2 different sounds. Somebody should have thought of that over a thousand years ago when creating English. Sanskrit has a different letter for every sound, and it has been around for 5000 years. Since English borrowed lots of words from Sanksrit such as guru, jungle (comes from jungal), cashew (comes from kaju), and yoga; you would think the guys who came up with English would have kept the idea that every sound has a different letter. Of course, that would make too much sense, wouldn't it?

I have a theory why English has so many contradictions in its rules. Have you ever heard of a spelling bee? If not, a spelling bee is a contest to see who can spell words the best. Have you ever heard of a spelling bee in a country that doesn't speak English? I haven't. What would be the point of memorizing the spelling of words when each letter actually follows the same rules 100% of the time? My guess is that some genus decided to change the rules just so that we can have spelling bees. The spelling bee industry decided to change the rules just so they can stay in business. That's probably it. It's all politics. The guys who make the rules for spelling probably get commission from the spelling bee industry. It's probably a lot like how American businesses try to control Congress by donating funds.

Now that I think about it, who makes the rules for spelling. No seriously, I want to know. Is there a "Spelling Congress" or "Department of Grammar." In America, if you have an issue, you can write to Congress. I would like to write a letter to the spelling Congress so that they can change the rules to make things simple. Finding out who makes the rules is one thing, but how do they make these rules? Do they really have Congressional meetings to decide how to spell a certain word? Do they spend weeks arguing how a word should be spelled? Are there different parties competing with each other for election? I can see it now: "I think we should keep laugh spelled like it is. I'm a conservative." Then the opponent says" "No, we should spell it lauph." Ph also can make the f sound." I assume nobody would just make things simple and spell it laf.

Maybe I should just overthrow the guys who write grammar rules and make create new grammar government. I will put the laws into my own hands and be a grammar vigilante. I think a lot of people would support me. Many Americans already break these grammar rules when they write text messages and do on-line chat. People write "2moro" instead of "tomorrow." Now that's what I call a democracy, or maybe that is a grammatical anarchy.

It is a miracle that some words actually sound like they are spelled: Dog, hat, bit, hi, land, top, or, and; these words are spelled like they sound. That's the way all words should be. I will finish with a sentence using my own spelling standards.

Laftur givz yu lots uv fun.