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On 10 December 2012 11:47, tom <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> One thing to be said for phonetic spelling is that it makes the lives of >> dyslexics easier. Indeed, in Spain and Italy (presumably Portugal, too), the >> amount of diagnosed dyslexics is vastly smaller than in the UK, for this >> very reason. >> > Its a diagnosis thing - dyslexia involves not being able to perceive the > positioning of the letters in words - phonetics doesn’t help and has been > shown to slow down the progress of dyslexics. Quite. As a dyslexic, who had to work very hard to achieve a passable level of English and who did very poorly in school during the 80s when it wasn't well understood, I don't think it makes any difference (at least for me) whether you spell flavour or color. I learned by forcing myself to read, re-read and re-read again - had I been born American, I would have happily learned their way of spelling. What matters is consistency whilst learning, and I think the "americanisation" of our society has already changed peoples spellings and word usage. I've seen diapers in supermarkets, let alone the o/ou debate in spelling. But fortunately I was blessed to be born English and as such, believe any language that claims to /be/ English should adhere to our spellings. By all means continue to spell words that way, Philip, but at least have the honesty to admit you're speaking American, not English... And while you're at it, give me more than an "English (American)" option for software installations, and encourage spellcheckers not to underline "flavour" in red even when a "British English" dictionary is chosen as Firefox is doing to me right now! Now I'm beginning to see why the Welsh are so fierce about protecting their language. Si -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq