Minor things that bother you

[vdeane]

The idea of spelling books and spelling bees are foreign to children in non-English speaking countries. In their languages, every distinct sound or phoneme is associated with 1 letter or digraph, meaning that if you can speak the language, you can easily write it.

Ever try learning French?  Granted, it's more regular than English, but it definitely doesn't correspond to one letter = one sound.  In fact, most sounds are made from groups of letters!

We can fix this however; numerous countries have conducted spelling reforms for similar reasons, Turkey in fact switched from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet in 1928. Let's māk Ēnglish ēzē tū understand fōr everēone!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_become_official_language_of_the_eu/?rdt=60848

Similarly, the seven-day week is a Judeo-Christian construct. Go to a six-day week (bonus: the four-day workweek becomes standard).

Careful what you wish for.  Knowing the way the world works, it's more likely they'd keep the five-day work week and make the weekend only one day.

I remember one year in high school a teacher I disliked required us to keep a record tracking our grades on assignments

Isn't that her job?

[GaryV]

Ever try learning French?  Granted, it's more regular than English, but it definitely doesn't correspond to one letter = one sound.  In fact, most sounds are made from groups of letters!

A lot of letters are silent. Except when you're singing - then every letter and syllable is pronounced, despite not doing it when speaking.

[kernals12]

The idea of spelling books and spelling bees are foreign to children in non-English speaking countries. In their languages, every distinct sound or phoneme is associated with 1 letter or digraph, meaning that if you can speak the language, you can easily write it.

Ever try learning French?  Granted, it's more regular than English, but it definitely doesn't correspond to one letter = one sound.  In fact, most sounds are made from groups of letters!

That's what I said: "1 letter or digraph". And much of the English language has French origins (you can blame the Duke of Normandy for that), so we can blame the French for part of the mess.

[Rothman]

Most of the time, I'm amused by this thread, so seeing it taken over by yet another stupid K12 idea is frustrating.

[Max Rockatansky]

Most of the time, I'm amused by this thread, so seeing it taken over by yet another stupid K12 idea is frustrating.

Let me try to get us back on track then.

A minor thing I keep finding annoying on the Facebook road groups is the general complaints about CA 99 not being I-7 or I-9.  None of these takes have nothing new to offer and are full of misunderstandings about how non-chargeable corridors work.

[kernals12]

Most of the time, I'm amused by this thread, so seeing it taken over by yet another stupid K12 idea is frustrating.

I don't like you either, pal

[kkt]

But there are 2 other bothersome things that we probably can change.
1. Calendars: There's no need for your any day of the year to fall on a different day of the week every year. We could divide the year into 4 quarters of 91 days for a total of 364 days. The extra day we could have as a leap day at the beginning of the year. Only snag: many holidays would now permanently fall in the middle of the week meaning fewer 3 day weekends
2. Spelling: The idea of spelling books and spelling bees are foreign to children in non-English speaking countries. In their languages, every distinct sound or phoneme is associated with 1 letter or digraph, meaning that if you can speak the language, you can easily write it. That's not the case for English. We have 250 different ways to spell the 40 sounds that make up the American dialect of English (British English has 44 sounds), egregious examples being how "gh" makes a different sound in the words "tough", "though", "thought", "through", and "throughout" and the inconsistency of the "i before e except after c" rule. The result is lots of time wasted in classrooms and terrifyingly high levels of illiteracy. We can fix this however; numerous countries have conducted spelling reforms for similar reasons, Turkey in fact switched from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet in 1928. Let's māk Ēnglish ēzē tū understand fōr everēone!

Many calendar changes have been proposed.  Some have even been tried.  Very very few changes last more than a few years.  Check out the French Revolutionary calendar sometime if you're interested.

Wouldn't it suck if your birthday was on a Wednesday and would ALWAYS be on a Wednesday?

Yes, in English, when English acquires a loan word it usually keeps the spelling in the source language.  Being phonetic is one possible objective for spelling, but not the only one.

[SEWIGuy]

Most of the time, I'm amused by this thread, so seeing it taken over by yet another stupid K12 idea is frustrating.

I don't like you either, pal

It's not about liking or not liking you.

This is the "Minor Ideas that Bother You" topic and you have decided to use this as another forum for one of your ridiculous ideas that as no chance of adoption - and you're going to post about it endlessly.

[1995hoo]

...

Wouldn't it suck if your birthday was on a Wednesday and would ALWAYS be on a Wednesday?

...

That's a great point that didn't even occur to me, and it should have because when mine falls on Monday, it's on a holiday (Memorial Day). As a kid I loved that. Doesn't matter so much anymore.

[Max Rockatansky]

Does K12 have a Smarch in his calendar ideas?  If so, they might actually have appeal. 

[hbelkins]

I'm surprised calendar reform is getting more discussion than spelling reform

In my case, I simply find calendar reform more interesting.

It's not calendar reform, but it's related: A recent trend on Twitter/X the last couple of weeks has been time reform. (I'll leave the subject of said reform up to your imagination to keep this thread from being locked).

As far as Twitter goes, it's frequently said in AASHTO Subcommittee on Transportation Communications (TransCom) meetings/webinars/emails that Twitter is much more heavily used than Facebook. For me, it's the opposite. Our Facebook page (24,500 followers) gets more than 10 times the traffic of our Twitter page (fewer than 2,000 followers).

[Scott5114]

Our Facebook page (24,500 followers) gets more than 10 times the traffic of our Twitter page (fewer than 2,000 followers).

Your page only covers rural parts of Kentucky, correct? Perhaps your district has a higher median age than typical, so there's more Facebook users than typical.

[CtrlAltDel]

It's not calendar reform, but it's related: A recent trend on Twitter/X the last couple of weeks has been time reform. (I'll leave the subject of said reform up to your imagination to keep this thread from being locked).

I know what you have in mind, but the thing that really riles me up about the time, when I think about it, is that there are two of each time in a single day. That really makes no sense at all.

The flight leaves at nine o'clock on Tuesday. Wait, no, not that nine o'clock. The other nine o'clock.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

It's not calendar reform, but it's related: A recent trend on Twitter/X the last couple of weeks has been time reform. (I'll leave the subject of said reform up to your imagination to keep this thread from being locked).

I know what you have in mind, but the thing that really riles me up about the time, when I think about it, is that there are two of each time in a single day. That really makes no sense at all.

We're meeting at nine o'clock on Tuesday. Wait, no, not that nine o'clock. The other nine o'clock.

Obviously that's easily mitigated by 24-hour time, but most people who need to know generally understand from context of the situation which time is meant when AM or PM isn't specified.

[wanderer2575]

It's not calendar reform, but it's related: A recent trend on Twitter/X the last couple of weeks has been time reform. (I'll leave the subject of said reform up to your imagination to keep this thread from being locked).

I know what you have in mind, but the thing that really riles me up about the time, when I think about it, is that there are two of each time in a single day. That really makes no sense at all.

The flight leaves at nine o'clock on Tuesday. Wait, no, not that nine o'clock. The other nine o'clock.

"A Winchester acknowledges only one 5:30 a day.  This is not it."
(Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III, "'Twas the Day After Christmas," M*A*S*H.  Also Mrs. wanderer)

[US 89]

Spelling reform is an interesting idea because it addresses the problem of difficulty memorizing spellings, by making everyone memorize new spellings for words they already memorized.

Except under reformed spelling there is no memorizing. You can spell a word just based on how it sounds

¿Like in Spanish?

Mike

More or less. Spanish is a very phonetic language with few exceptions (e.g. "ll" making a "y" sound in words like "tortilla")

Not 100% the best example. 'll' is considered a single letter in the Spanish alphabet that makes the English 'y' sound. So it is actually phonetic. 'ch' is also a single letter.

I thought they stopped considering those separate letters.

At any rate, Spanish is at least a language where you can pretty much without fail get the pronunciation right from the spelling. Usually you can spell a word from the pronunciation too, but there are exceptions (c and s both make /s/ before e or i and s and z have the same sound throughout Latin America, ll and y have the same sound most places, etc...

Even in French, you can pronounce a word correctly just from the spelling the vast majority of the time once you learn the silent letter rules. It's spelling a word you hear that's the hard part there...

[Scott5114]

Obviously that's easily mitigated by 24-hour time, but most people who need to know generally understand from context of the situation which time is meant when AM or PM isn't specified.

It is really funny when you're used to a 24-hour context (casino employee) and then when the dentist asks if a 3 o'clock appointment is okay you habitually ask if they mean AM or PM.

[1995hoo]

Obviously that's easily mitigated by 24-hour time, but most people who need to know generally understand from context of the situation which time is meant when AM or PM isn't specified.

Heh. I remember my first year of college our RA didn't have his own computer. He asked me if I could help him use mine to revise his resume and I said sure. We agreed on "10 o'clock." That afternoon comes and I run into him and he's mad—where was I? He meant 10 AM (I had a class then) and I meant 10 PM. In my defense, 33 years later I still think most college students would assume 10 PM.

[Rothman]

Obviously that's easily mitigated by 24-hour time, but most people who need to know generally understand from context of the situation which time is meant when AM or PM isn't specified.

It is really funny when you're used to a 24-hour context (casino employee) and then when the dentist asks if a 3 o'clock appointment is okay you habitually ask if they mean AM or PM.

Oh-300...

[CtrlAltDel]

the thing that really riles me up about the time, when I think about it, is that there are two of each time in a single day. That really makes no sense at all.

Obviously that's easily mitigated by 24-hour time

True, and it annoys me that it's not more widely implemented, at least here in the US.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Not 100% the best example. 'll' is considered a single letter in the Spanish alphabet that makes the English 'y' sound. So it is actually phonetic. 'ch' is also a single letter.

I thought they stopped considering those separate letters.

You think right. CH and LL ceased to be considered separate letters in 2010, and sorting already overlooked that fact for a while before (previously CH and LL would be collated after Cz and Lz respectively).

Speaking of sorting, it really bugs me when letters with acutes are collated at the end instead of its proper place (i.e. as if the letter didn't have any diacritics). E.g. Cáceres and Cádiz should be before Castellón, not after.

At any rate, Spanish is at least a language where you can pretty much without fail get the pronunciation right from the spelling. Usually you can spell a word from the pronunciation too, but there are exceptions (c and s both make /s/ before e or i and s and z have the same sound throughout Latin America, ll and y have the same sound most places, etc...

However there are varieties in Spain that pronounce S and Z (or C before E and I) differently. Which is my case. Same goes for LL and Y, even though they only differ slightly.

[kernals12]

The way that, whenever I'm driving at dawn or dusk, my car is fooled into thinking it's night and puts the center display on night mode, making it virtually impossible to read the GPS.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

The way that, whenever I'm driving at dawn or dusk, my car is fooled into thinking it's night and puts the center display on night mode, making it virtually impossible to read the GPS.

Does your car have no manual brightness adjuster?

[SSOWorld]

The way that, whenever I'm driving at dawn or dusk, my car is fooled into thinking it's night and puts the center display on night mode, making it virtually impossible to read the GPS.

Does your car have no manual brightness adjuster?

Don't drive distract... Too dim!!!

[kernals12]

The way that, whenever I'm driving at dawn or dusk, my car is fooled into thinking it's night and puts the center display on night mode, making it virtually impossible to read the GPS.

Does your car have no manual brightness adjuster?

It does, but it defaults to this automatic one