Too stupid to spell? Join these people.

[Cure]

WASHINGTON – The nation's capital always draws its share of protesters, picketing for causes ranging from health care reform to immigration policy.

But spelling bee protesters? They're out here, too.

Four peaceful protesters, some dressed in full-length black and yellow bee costumes, represented the American Literacy Council and the London-based Spelling Society and stood outside the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. Their message was short: Simplify the way we spell words.

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

"Our alphabet has 425-plus ways of putting words together in illogical ways," Mahoney said.

The protesting cohort distributed pins to willing passers-by with their logo, "Enuf is enuf. Enough is too much."

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for "fruit" to be spelled as "froot," "slow" should be "slo," and "heifer" — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be "hefer."

Meanwhile, inside the hotel's Independence Ballroom, 273 spellers celebrated the complexity of the language in all its glory, correctly spelling words like zaibatsu, vibrissae and biauriculate.

While the protesters could make headway with cell phone texters who routinely swap "u" for "you" and "gr8" for "great," their message may be a harder sell for the Scripps crowd.

Mahoney had trouble gaining traction with at least one bee attendee. New Mexico resident Matthew Evans, 15, a former speller whose sister is participating in the bee this year, reasoned with her that if English spellings were changed, spelling bees would cease to exist.

"If a dictionary lists 'enough' as 'enuf,' the spelling bee goes by the dictionary, therefore all the spelling words are easier to spell, so the spelling bee is gone," Evans said.

"Well," Mahoney replied, "they could pick their own dictionary."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/...ng_bee_protest

F*ck. That.

[gobo]

Peepole can be so stoopit sometimes... -_-

[Luzmagica]

There is happening something similar with spanish idiom.....

[Mutated Turtle]

Who the hell invented chatspeak? There's the answer.

[plastroncafe]

This is hardly the first time this has happened.

Heck, Noah Webster, the guy who wrote the dictionary, did something similar in the early 1800s. For instance he's the reason Americans don't spell "color" with a "u". Basically his theory went like this: For the US to be a totally different country than England, it had to have its own dictionary with its own spelling of words.

Stuff like this still happens, and constantly. I believe now it's the Associated Press which dictates how new words should be spelled and how they're used. Apparently in the last year or so they've decided that "tweet" remains lower case, while "Twittering" uses a capital T because "Twitter" is now a proper noun.

Who knew?

[jaymq]

So, what happens to the people that already know how to spell?

Seriously, I doubt this will get very far.

And yes, whoever invented chatspeak needs to be smacked a good one.

[Spacebabie]

This made my brain hurt.

[Candy Kappa]

the tried something similar in Norway, a few things got approved as well.

it's beyond stupid.

[Guitar_Raph]

It was a good spelling bee. Some of those words that sound hard to spell are really easy.

Ostrichism
Lorimer

At least the judge didn't use as a punful sentence...

"From 1986-89, Lorimer/Telepictures was established."

[Dinny]

I think you mean 'ostracism' unless your word describes being like an ostrich...

Also who is Lorimer?

[gobo]

Originally Posted by Dinny

Also who is Lorimer?

I'm guessing that's the pun he's referring to...

[Samhain]

Wow, humans. Just wow.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

This is hardly the first time this has happened.

Heck, Noah Webster, the guy who wrote the dictionary, did something similar in the early 1800s. For instance he's the reason Americans don't spell "color" with a "u". Basically his theory went like this: For the US to be a totally different country than England, it had to have its own dictionary with its own spelling of words.

Who knew?

Shouldn't they introduce an own language if so instead of just being some kind of dialect?

[gobo]

It's not a dialect. It's plagiarism. Get it right.

[Spitfire]

Old people suck. I seriously hope my generation isn't this lame when we're all old, hell even my Father's generation.

[Sage Ninja]

...

people will protest on just about anything, huh?

who the f*ck cares? These people need something else to fulfill their lives.

[shuriken]

Old people suck.

Dude chill with the gross generalizations. I'm sure for every Old guy that wants to change "slow" to "slo" there are at least 6 more that wanna smack him for being lame or whatever. This is just funny to me though, cuz honestly there are so much more important things they can be protesting that might actually HELP THEM as opposed to making them look like idiots in front of millions.

[BubblyShell22]

Sometimes people are so dumb. There are so many other bad things going on in the world, and these guys want to protest spelling. Get a life, people. It's not our fault you can't spell. Just deal with it. I have a learning disability in math, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go out and protest about it. I just deal with it. Yeah, it sucks sometimes, but I get through it.

[Cipher]

Stuff like this still happens, and constantly. I believe now it's the Associated Press which dictates how new words should be spelled and how they're used. Apparently in the last year or so they've decided that "tweet" remains lower case, while "Twittering" uses a capital T because "Twitter" is now a proper noun.

Who knew?

As a copy-editor for my college's daily paper, I actually did.

Anyway, as someone who actually believes the English language and spelling have some innate aesthetic value, this is the worst idea I've heard all day. On the plus side, none of it will ever be adopted. At least not all at once like that; I'm totally aware that lexicon and language change over time.

and "heifer" — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be "hefer."

Wait, they're advocating an entirely phonetic dictionary and they don't have enough sense to realize that "heifer" should become "heffer"? Dumb f*cks.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

It was some Internet website in Sweden too, protesting against words being written apart, which hasn't been done since the 19th and early 20th century (when it probably was considered right), but is still popular, both at school and in the names of companies.