February 24, 2009

John Hodgman on "meh"
posted by homunculus 15 years ago
  • ahem.
  • meh
  • what evar
  • Mu
  • bleah
  • I see no reason why a "g" should sound like a "j" unless it is followed by a vowel. I would lose a million dollars in the world spelling bee by spelling "judgment" "J-U-D-G-E-M-E-N-T" just to prove my point.
  • .
  • I don't know how I could possible pronounce "Hodgman" without the "g" sounding like a "j".
  • I don't know how I could possible pronounce "Hodgman" without the "g" sounding like a "j". Right. So you either take out the "g" altogether, or your put an "e" after it. You only get the "s" sound out of a "c" if it is followed by "i" or "e." The same true for "g." Example: Judge - Judgment Place - Placement You don't spell it "placment." That would be idiotic. It would destroy a rule of spelling. Who the hell wants to do that? Judge - Judgment Manage - Management See? It can be done with a "g." If you think "Hodgman" and "judgment" are so good, then why not "managment?"
  • While bernockle ponders his vowels, I continue to enjoy the comments on Waxy. Like one of the commenters, my six-year-old likes to respond to me with a, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Well, he did like to.
  • eh?
  • Yeah, but how would you pronounce "Hodgman"? I don't disagree that "judgement" is a better spelling than, "judgment".* I just don't see any other way to pronounce "Hodgman" or "judgment" than by using a soft g. I can't pronounce with a hard g. * English spelling as a whole needs an overhaul. There's no reason for "ck". Heck, there's no reason for the letter "c" at all. There's no reason for "wh-" or "-gn" or "kn-" or "-mb". There's no reason "ea" and "ee" and "ie" to all sound the same, and to all sound different. There's no rules of spelling, except in that each and every word has it's own rules, and those rules can contradict themselves within the same word. I would put "judgment" far down on the list of totally hosed spellings. Fix all the vowels to One Letter, One Sound. the consonants will follow.
  • Spelling is overrated.
  • Proponents of "spell it as it's pronounced" should study Latin or Finnish some time. My hypothesis, based entirely on intuition and having studied way too many languages, is that languages have an innate "minimum complexity" requirement... make spelling "logical" (because the so-called logic of as-pronounced is in fact subjective), and you get a gazillion cases, declensions, etc. Heck, Mandarin Chinese has no real plural and hardly any conjugations -- the grammar is dead simple. Plus, they don't even have an alphabet! Yay, right? Nope, urk is more like it. You get to deal with their bajillion ideograms and tonal pronunciation (which it could be argued are just as logical as alphabets and Finnish-type pronunciation, which is why I say "logic" in such matters is quite subjective). Et maintenant, je vais boire un thé avec mon quatre-heures. Miam.
  • (Oops -- by "conjugations" I meant "verb tenses", there are no conjugations in Mandarin Chinese at all. And the verb tenses aren't really, since the "infinitive", present tense, is always used, and adverbs or particles are used to express others.)
  • After reading this judgement/judgment debate I was writing a work email that included: "Doing it this way would be a huge kludge". I immediately wanted to write "hudge kluge" instead. Curse you deliberate monkey misspellers who have polluted the frail brain of this old codger (or codjer/cojer?).
  • Wait till you've spent all day proofing papers written by teenagers who think texting is the ultimate in composition. These are the kids that don't get their/they're/there, to/two/too, are/our, and the difference between affect/effect is purely metaphysical. Their idea of using spell check is to select the first word at the top of the list--no matter what it is. There's a calendar on the wall by the door, and the date is written in 5" letters on the whiteboard in red. Every. Damn. Day. some kid asks me what date it is. The next question is usually, "When do we get out of this class?" Dear, it's the end of third quarter, and the answer is SAME TIME AS YESTERDAY, YOU MORON!!
  • Their idea of using spell check is to select the first word at the top of the list--no matter what it is. I'm stealing that line. It's damn funny.
  • Only if you don't actually have to live it. *head on desk* *sobs*
  • I can't say that I even know how spell check works. When I spell something wrong or make a typo, then a red line appears underneath the word. I then make the adjustment if one is needed. I actually almost never misspell a word. Typo? Sure. But I know when I don't know how to spell a word. So when I don't know how to spell a word, I either pick an alternate word I do know how to spell or I look it up. The red line doesn't appear for me on words I don't know how to spell because I will look them up before typing them. I think spell check has ruined spelling for people. The amount of misspellings on handwritten notes to me in my office blows my mind.
  • Spell Czech sais their is knot any thing wrong hear.