[cpursley]

What’s that have to do with how terrible the English writing system is? Why not just reform written English to read the same way it’s sounds? I’m maybe a B2 level Russian learner and can near perfectly pronounce almost any modern Russian writing because it’s written almost exactly the way it’s spoken. I assume it’s the same with many other languages.

[justahuman74]

Go to England and try to get even two small towns to agree on what the sounds are

[sroussey]

That’s funny!

But really, these days we have Hollywood and it sorta decides what English sounds like. Even if it sounds different in your town in the USA.

[cpursley]

This does not even account for the bizarre spelling of many (most?) English words. For example, letters that are skipped.

[thefringthing]

The article touches on this, but there have been countless attempts to restandardize English spelling or replace the Latin alphabet with one more suited to English. But English is a global language with no central authority responsible for deciding what is correct, making coordinated change nearly impossible.

To my mind, the best such attempt was Kingsley Read's, made at the behest of G. B. Shaw: https://www.shavian.info