Appendix talk:English spellings

I don't know that we need to start incorporating spelling reforms for English into the Wiktionary, but I think that it makes sense to have a place to talk about them. Certainly other languages have significant spelling reforms that will affect our content, and there's a remote possibility that certain spelling reforms will affect ours. In any case, this page should be good for pulling together information on various spelling reforms that may or may not affect our content.

Additionally, we will want to outline some policy regarding these spelling variants. A large number of them are used, with varying degrees of acceptability. There are some questions about what qualifies as a "simplified spelling" and what is simply an abbreviation, informal variant, or alternate spelling. Among other things, I think the main criterion should be that the variant follows stronger (less variable) conventions of pronunciation than the standard form (e.g., doughnut -> donut; through -> thru). Alternatively, the simplified form could be shorter, but still follow conventions of pronunciation that are equally strong (e.g., night -> nite; light -> lite). Any simplified spellings must also have the same pronunciation, otherwise they decisively become abbreviations. If the simplified spelling is fully accepted and is more common than the longer version, then we should no longer consider it a "simplified spelling variant," but rather just a full-fledged term with the longer form in the etymology (e.g., colour -> color). Last, but not least, words should meet the normal attestation rules to qualify for an entry (e.g., there's not much precedent for blite instead of blight), and the level of formality/acceptability should be noted on the page, using a usage note where appropriate.

Relevant Articles and Links

 * Category:English simplified spelling variants
 * http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060705/ap_on_re_us/simpl_wurdz_1