But even if things are spelled phonetically (or fonetikly), isn't the problem with perception, so they'd have much the same problem?

More to the point, people who spell phonetically -- as T. E. Lawrence did, in his memoir -- have a bad habit of being inconsistent within one document! He wrote it Bayrut and Beroot and various other incoherent notions, whereas most of the western world would really really have been happier if he'd just stuck with one spelling (for the city of Beirut) and stopped tinkering.

(It's legit to have varying systems to transliterate into Roman characters, when the sounds don't match up exactly, but for criyi, a little internal consistency would be nice.)

I'm about 3/4 of the way through a memoir about the old west (1848), in which the author describes wandering all over what is now Colorado/Wyoming, among various Indian tribes including the Shians. It literally took me days to figure out that he meant what is now spelled Cheyenne. Ute is Yuta, Arapaho is being spelled with at least one hyphen in it (location varies), and yet, strangely, almost all references to the Sioux are spelled the way a modern speller would.

just be thankful he didn't get into the apostrophes

Relatedly, I received this email from a friend in London:

Read slowly


The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" is replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Ha ha ha ha!! That's awesome.

My husband spent his formative years in Germany, and he has a lifelong grudge against English spelling. "Why is there an e at the end of that! A c? Why is that a c?"

We tell people he married me for my spelling and I married him for his math.

Neil Gaiman describes how he came to write American Gods. I particularly liked the character naming and so will Teppy.

This was particularly resonant to me having just finished my book:

I wondered what I'd learned, and found myself remembering something Gene Wolfe had told me, six months earlier. "You never learn how to write a novel," he said. "You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

That was awesome, Hec. Thanks. I just finished reading that book, so it was a good time.

As for the Gene Wolfe quote...this is the umpteenth time I'm telling myself I haven't written fiction in over four years, and it's high time to pick that shit up again.

this is the umpteenth time I'm telling myself I haven't written fiction in over four years, and it's high time to pick that shit up again.

Yep. It was resonant for me because in writing the Swordfishtrombones book I felt like I had to invent something new every day. That it wasn't just laid out in front of me like a research paper or something. That it required active imagining.

And then I'd get stuck but I learned to trust that something would come and since I was in that good writing space something did come. Every time I looked at a section and could not imagine what came next - I'd imagine it.

But it felt like I was inventing writing itself from scratch. I knew what I wanted to say but there were no answers except for the ones I created.

In short, don't let Not Knowing How To Write A Book stop you. You're going to have to make it up anyway.

I think this is probably why writing works for me so much. What with the Imposter Syndrome and everything, it's best if I'm doing something where I'm supposed to be making it up as I go.

I think adults are only supposed to read things that have insightful things about the angst of modern existence. Anything else is trite escapism.

So true. And I'm so over Insightful Angst.

Another way to look at it: If Oprah recs it, it's OK. If not, random co-workers can have judgment about it.

SANDWORMS OF DUNE, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson?!!

Earworms of Dune.