In his July 21 letter ["Spellings have meanings"], Steve Dunham asks: If "through" and "threw" were both spelled "thru," it would simplify our spelling yet make reading more difficult.
Does the fact that they have the same sound make listening more difficult? We use context to sort them in speech. Why wouldn't context work in reading?
The alphabet and spelling evolved to make written communication easier. That is their function. It is on that basis that they should be judged.
The alphabet is effective, though for English it could omit duplications (c/k, kw/qu, etc.), and it would be better with a few more symbols.
Our spelling is not efficient. It has too many options for a given phoneme (word sound), at least 13 for the long e (e, ee, ea, e-e, ie, ei, i-e, ey, ay, eo, i, is, ir).
Young children learning to read and write and trying to cope with this kind of nonsense are really challenged. Many master the problem, though they take up to two years more than do children in 12 other European languages.
Many do not master it, and become part of the "long tail"
We update most tools and other mediums that make life better, from hand drill to electric drill, from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals. We also need to update and upgrade our spelling.
Allan Campbell
Christchurch, New Zealand