Shifts

Shifts, as Paradigm Shifts

 Aren't spelling fascists actually spelling anarchists?

  “Spelling fascists” (the ones who correct or ridicule people who make spelling errors) are in fact (if one really thinks about it long enough) “spelling anarchists”, who are making all the spelling errors, continually destroying “the system” (the spelling system) and forcing others to disrespect the 91 spelling rules of English like them! Ironic, isn’t it? Why are they not respecting those 91 spelling rules? Email them this post!

  Yes! You read well! “Spelling anarchists” not only misspell when they ask others to “spell it right”, but they want everyone else to do so too * !  Isn’t ironic that the “spelling fascists” (SF) are –in fact– “spelling anarchists” (SA)! They are the ones forcing everyone to break down the system, to misspell those words that could be spelled phonetically, spoiling what is an otherwise beautiful system? Why is there a concerted effort by the prescriptivists to be and act as “de-scriptivists”, as anarchists, because kids and learners –and people in general– across the Commonwealth are wasting their time and money being sold a defective good: the current English spelling system with all its irregularities? After all, it is not exactly breaking news that English spelling has the worst phonemicity of all Western languages, retarding kids (literally) –disabling and labelling them as such– and retarding learning by 3 years on average! It is the language that is disabled … and disabling! Not the kids! No wonder “those young people” don’t know anything, but they know that the English spelling system is amiss, a mess, a monstrosity. No wonder they appear rebellious or lost at an early age while the “spelling police”, AKA the SA (better known as SF), exert their might on them. WOW! The anarchists and the police in bed with each other. Who would have ever thought that this could be possible? Young learners want to conform … to those spelling rules. They also want the anarcho-police to conform to those rules too! While English has a relatively easy grammar, its spelling needs to be regularized and regulated. Anyone arguing the opposite is THE anarchist! To that end, a Commonwealth committee or academy should be formed at once to make all the de facto “spelling anarchists” happy because everyone will finally be spelling words the way they really should be spelled: phonetically!

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This whole blog is about changing, shifting paradigms, reforming things. Yet, it seems humans are deeply reluctant to do so. Change is stress, granted, but avoiding change can be stress too! Case in point?

Take the 2011 Japanese tsunami. A recent report by a panel on the accident that the nuclear issues could have been prevented had a shift in the way Japanese manage things had happened.

"After 900 hours of hearings and 1100 interviews over a six-month period, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission – chaired by Kiyoshi Kurokawa, an academic fellow at Tokyo's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies – said that the accident was 'a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented'."

'The Kurokawa report's biggest criticism is reserved for what it calls "the Japanese mindset" that meant the disaster was very much "made in Japan". The disaster's "fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority," Kurokawa says.'

(http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22031-fukushima-nuclear-accident-down-to-human-factors.html)

But, this is not new! Korean airlines (as explained in "the Ethnic theory of plane crash" in Outliers by Malcom Gladwell) had to go through the same cycle of disasters to eventually get to the paradigm shift.  Korean airlines used to have the worst airplane crash records and now that the change has taken place, it is among the best and safest airlines in the world! Sadly, had Japan (and its nuclear industry) learned from the Korean shift, it is likely that there would not have been a nuclear disaster like there was one at the time of the tsunami! The Korean's airplane industry shift took place about 10 years ago! Change is slow. Old habits die hard! Cultural legacies can have profound effects on people! It seems it takes great leadership and perhaps a disaster or two for people to embrace change because, it is not until that people see the true effect of the legacy of their culture that they can change it!

I imagine that many English-speakers are very proud to be English-speakers, very proud of their language, and/or very proud of belonging to the Commonwealth. For some messing with the language amounts to suicide: a cultural suicide!