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Click here for an index to words discussed throughout this project, in chronological order, most recent first, from the commencement of the project on June 1st, 2004 thru January 2017; and here for words added from February 1st, 2017 onward..

Click here for an index to words discussed throughout this project from A-M, and here for an index to words discussed throughout this project from N-Z, in alphabetical order.

(Within the webpages noted above are clickable links to all the discussions, organized by quarter year.)

Click here for a list of possible future words.
Click here for the principles that govern the selection of words for this project.
Click here for a list of words rejected for this project because of those principles.
Click here for links to other websites concerned with spelling.

Simpler Spelling
Word of the Day

(In general, only the base form of a word to be revised is given, but closely related forms, such as inflected variants of a verb or a noun created from the verb take the same change (e.g, the reform of "saturate" to "sachurate" carries over to "sachuration", "sachurated", and "sachurating"; "abizmal" carries over to "abizmally"; and so on.)

The distribution of words that require reform is wildly uneven from one initial letter of the alphabet to another. Ordinarily, we have considered one word a day for each initial letter, but we have just about run out of words in various parts of the alphabet, so will treat of the letters that have many, many words (e.g., C, D, P, M, and S) on multiple days in a row before moving to the next letter in alphabetical order.

Sunday, May 28, 2017:  "dessecrate" and "dessecration" for "desecrate" and "desecration"

Today's closely related words are both ambiguous as to whether the first-E is long or short, because the two-letter sequence SE that follows allows the reader to see the E before it as long. It's short. To show that, we need to double the S: "dessecrate" and "dessecration".

Saturday, May 27, 2017:  "erithrocyte" for "erythrocyte"

It's Science Saturday again, and we have the formal name for a red blood cell to deal with. Y, midword, should be reserved to the long-I sound in "dynamite", "pyorrhea", and "hydration". Here, however, the sound is short-I, so let's write I. Everything else in this four-syllable word is fine: "erithrocyte".

Friday, May 26, 2017:  "dissonnest" for "dishonest"

There are two problems with today's word. First, the two-letter sequence SH occurs, but there is no SH-sound, as in "dish", "shush", and "sheen".  Second, a single-N followed by E would ordinarily be seen as marking the preceding vowel — here, an O — as long, as in "cone",  "drone", and "alone".

Fortuitously, there are quick fixes for both these problems. First, we should drop the H, which comes not from this word but its opposite, from which it derives, "honest".  That then leaves a single-S after the I, which renders unclear whether it's long or short. It's short. To indicate that, we need to double the S.

The second problem, making clear that the O is short, is solved by simply doubling the N after it: "dissonnest".

Thursday, May 25, 2017:  "distinctiv" for "distinctive"

As with yesterday's word, we can save a letter here and make the sounds clearer. The IV at the end does not represent a long-I, as in "jive", "alive", and "derive". If we simply drop the final-E, the fact that the sound is short-I will be clear: "distinctiv". 

Wenzday, May 24, 2017:  "discorse" for "discourse"

We have here an OU that does not represents the OU-sound. If we take the U out, the actual sound will become clear, and we will have save a letter, which is always to the good if dropping that letter does not make things unclear: "discorse".

Tuesday, May 23, 2017:  "derizhon" for "derision"

In today's word, we have a DE that does not represent either long-E or short-E, but the first element in the two-letter sequence that is the most common spelling of the ER-sound, as in "iceberg", "better", and "person". Few native speakers of English will have trouble with that part of today's word, but they might want guidance as to the sound of the SION at the end of the word, given that there is a word "Sion",  a variant of "Zion" prounced like Zion but with an S-sound rather than Z; and that there are some other words in which the SI in SION represents an SH-sound ("ascension", "compulsion", "expansion"). Here, the sound is that which is more clearly, if now only rarely, shown by ZH (as in "muzhik" and the surname of the historical figure Leonid Brezhnev). Let's use that: "derizhon".

Munday, May 22, 2017:  "denizen" for "dennizen"

DE- is a common prefix, ordinarily pronounced with a long-

E ("deny", "defy", "decent"). We need to show that in this word, the E is short, and the way we usually, and easily, do that is by doubling the following consonant. Good idea: "dennizen".

We are running low on, or have already run out of, words in need of reform that start in I, J, K, L, N, O, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. If readers see the need for reform of words that start in any of those letters, and which have not already been used (as recorded in this project's chronological archives) or rejected for this project files, please suggest reforms. But we need not change spellings unless the present spelling is inadequate or misleading, or there is more than one spelling and we need to settle on only one.

Please bookmark this page and stop by regularly. Tell your friends. Tell your teachers. Tell the world!

This website proposes modest spelling changes to make English easier to read and write. Each day, we list (at least) one word that could usefully be respelled as would make English easier for kids and non-native speakers to learn, and for all of us to use, every day. If ordinary people, in their emails and personal communications, note-taking, etc., were to adopt these little changes each day, over time we would achieve significant simplification of English spelling, because publishers and educators would have to follow the people's lead. (Proposed reforms apply to all derivatives of the word reformed, not just to the base word.)

Tho it would be neater to change all words of a pattern at the same time (e.g., all -OUS endings to -US), that is implied in the change of individual words of that pattern. But traditional English spelling isn't consistent, which is why it is so hard to master. Some words that sound the same are spelled differently (there, their, they're); some words that are spelled the same are pronounced differently (refuse as verb and noun). To impose complete consistency on English without radical reform is impossible. Short of radical reform, then, we can either reform some words or surrender to spelling chaos and do nothing.

English spelling didn't become crazy all at once, but one word at a time. Old English was phonetic, and such variations in spelling as occurred reflected variations in pronunciation. New words have come into the language one by one, with their own individual spelling, sometimes quite unreasonable. In like fashion, we can change some unreasonable spellings to reasonable, one word at a time, inefficient tho that approach may be. See below for radical reform that does address all the issues at once.

* SSWD is a project of L. Craig Schoonmaker, Newark, New Jersey, United States, creator of Fanetik: Reformed (Phonetic) Spelling - at Least for Teaching. [NOTE: On April 5, 2017, I corrected the link above, and the two below. They had pointed to a website I was paying for, but the Australian webhost proved unreliable. So I moved the key files to the free webhost Tripod, which is compensated for its webhosting by ads atop each hosted webpage. These links now point to my free Tripod website.] Phonetic pronunciations on this site are rendered in Augméntad Fanétik, which employs accents for syllabic stress. For information about other ways to change irrational spellings, search the Internet for spelling reform.

Comments? Suggestions? If you have suggestions as to words to reform, please check first if they have already been used or have already been placed on the list of words to be addressed in the future or words that have been considered but rejected. Please also check the principles that control whether a word will or will not be offered. Once you have done that, or for any other purpose, please write to Fanetiks@aol.com. Because, for reasons I do not understand, some people have written under temporary email addresses that are abandoned before I can reply, I will not make personal replies to anyone who (a) does not request reactions and (b) does not provide a valid return email address (which will be checked, before I write any substantive reply, by a test email). And if you'd like credit on this page for any suggestion you make that is used, please provide a name and location (city, state/country) for that credit. Absent a personal name, credit will be given to an abbreviated form of the email address, without the at-sign or domain information (e.g., if the email address is "mjmartin@gmail.com", credit might be made to "mjmart...")