Following a link from the blog Agoraphilia I came to a page entitled Spelling Reform - arguments against and for from the Simplified Spelling Society's website.

The arguments on the site are nothing if not thought-provoking, and a strong case is made for simplifying the spelling of English words, principally with a view to helping those trying to learn English, and protect them from that long list of cautionary tales of those trying to apply any particular kind of law to English spelling.

In the end though, I find it difficult to have sympathy with those who would impose a change such as this on the English language. The reason for the varieties of spelling rules come from the very success of the language in absorbing and assimilating other tongues, rather than being assimilated into them. English has fought against the odds to survive against a number of languages across the centuries and has won through by taking in the best from its rivals. To throw away this richness in the interest of uniformity has an element of the Khmer Rouge's flavour about it to me.

The argument about accent is the clincher for me. Any such system could only be based on an agreed master pronunciation. This would immediately militate against anyone under the misapprehension that the rules could be applied phonetically to them. At a time when we are finally used to hearing a welcome selection of regional accents throughout the broadcast media, any such step would be likely to be accompanied by a return to an elitist 'standard' English.

Such thinking, while good for exercising the grey matter, should be kept firmly under the category of interesting academic exercise.