It's one thing to be a total dumbass with spelling and/or punctuation
and be brilliant with language otherwise. Yeats is a good example.
It's another thing to just be a dumbass :).
From what I've heard standard spelling of English started no later than
the publication of the first English dictionary (don't recall the year,
but certainly before 1880), and before then some unwritten standards
were being applied.
Just think about a lot of the 19th cent. stuff you read -- say, like
Matthew Arnold, or the Brownings, or Twain's non-fiction -- and you
won't find too many spellings that seem irregular.
Jim
Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:
>Correct me if I'm wrong, nah correct me any way, but didn't standard
>spelling result from the mass printing of primer books and formal spelling
>lessons in the middle to latter 1800's? So oll korect was OK in the early
>1800's? I know that standardized spelling was slow revolution which left
>the Brits with the uneconomical colour etc. And concerning spelling, I know
>some of the great 20th century writers were horrible at it, so lower your
>expectations Jim and keep up.
>Daniel
>
>POOF!
>
>
>
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Wed Aug 27 16:23:43 2003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Oct 16 2003 - 00:28:18 EDT