Comment on Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it
palordrolap@fedia.io 1 day agoWe have a diacritic in English text already. Rather than above or below, it goes to the right of the letter it modifies and looks an awful lot like a letter h.
And if you don't quite buy that, remember that a lot of diacritics started life as letters that were eventually moved above a preceding letter and then simplified. The tilde on ñ was an n itself; the ring on å was another a; and in at least some cases the umlaut was an e.
Modifying-h may be only stuck where it is because technology did away with the need for economical scribes before they had a chance to start messing with it.
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I think you’re making my point for me, a diacritic instead of an h to indicate a sound change would be more efficient and reduce ambiguity.
The problem is that not only is there no central authority for spelling reform in English, the cost of replacing the existing body of work would be too large, even for changes that would be more consequential.
My argument was never that my proposal should replace the current system, just that if you did want spelling reform, it would make more sense than the thorn.