On the 27th of February 1953, after a second debate MPs in the House of Commons voted by 65 votes to 53 to approve the Simplified Spelling Bill for consideration by parliamentary committees. The private member’s bill was introduced by Labour MP Mont Follick earlier in the month. The Bill proposed an investigation into the possibility of introducing a simpler version of English to make reading easier for younger children, who would switch to standard English when they got older.
It was Mr Follick’s second attempt to get parliamentary support for a new spelling system. In 1949, his bill was defeated by just three votes.
The new bill had cross-party support – it was seconded by a Conservative MP, James Pitman who was a member of the Simplified Spelling Society. Mr Pitman’s grandfather devised the Pitman shorthand system.
During the debate, Mr Pitman said that around 150,000 of the 400,000 children who started school each year would leave without being able to read properly. He told MPs that “English is halfway between the alphabetic system of Spanish and picture-writing of Chinese. ”
Mont Follick withdrew his bill after reaching a compromise with the government, the Ministry of Education backed a small-scale research project under the aegis of London University.
However, the idea was shelved until James Pitman devised the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), a phonetics-based system made up of 44 characters. The system was tested in a handful of schools in England in the early 1960s with mixed success for the children involved. It fell into disuse although James Pitman had some success in persuading schools in the USA and Australia to try out the system.
George Bernard Shaw, who had died two years earlier, was so passionate about spelling reform that he left money in his will for a national competition to devise a simplified version of English.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I mentioned the other day that IMHO the rate of illiteracy has not worsened, it’s just been highlighted. But back to the thread…..Norway ‘rationalised’ its spelling years ago so it’s no longer the same as the original Danish. I’ve no idea whether literacy has improved up there in the snowy mountains.
I thought of your comment when I read this!
It may be relevant that Norway recently considered assimilating the English word ‘bacon’ by respelling it ‘beiken’. But they decided against it. People could easily learn to pronounce the English word! Isn’t that the best answer to the Shavians? Children can learn the ‘old’ spellings as easily as the new ones!
There’s absolutely no way that one could possibly ‘reform’ English spelling phonetically. there are just too many regional accents. It would be a return to the days of no spelling – not that it’s far off that sometimes now!
How easy was the changeover in Norway?
The Germans had a go at spelling reform some years go – apparently caused a few problems. According to friends of mine, the main German paper simply reverted to the old spellings one day, and that, they reckoned, was more or less the end of that…
The simple answer is ‘not easy’. The Wiki summary is quite enlightening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language_struggle#Future_evolution_of_Norwegian
German of course was rationalised yonks go by Luther & Co. and remains extremely logical and consistent (unlike English!).
Sounds complicated, as you say.
I’m talking about the German reforms of 1996!
Ahaa! I have the impression that such modern controls are unwelcome and symptomatic of ‘nanny’ politics. We don’t elect politicians to fiddle with our heritage, do we?
No we don’t!
Korea successfully managed a similar change in the 15th century.
“In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, the system being currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennium.”
Thanks Sipu… perhaps a little easier, with a smaller literate population, in the 15th C than now? Still quite a task.
Yes, Boadicea, the attempted “simplification” of German spelling of the 1990s was a disaster. Speaking as a teacher and A level examiner, it was chaotic since of course we had to accept the old and the new spellings. Thank goodness it died the death.
PS Can you ask Bearsy why I keep having to log in every time, when I’ve never even logged out?
Sheona. One of my friends is a Professor at a German University. He said much the same as you, that it was a nightmare.
I have to log in if I shut the site down. I think it’s just part of the WordPress procedure.
Thanks, Boadicea.
My cousin blames her bad spelling non the ITA system she had to learn then unlearn as she took on the real spellings in life.
My spelling, however is bad, even without having to take on ITA first!
My Grandson is learning to write as we speak. (?) The children in his class are of various naionalities, From Arab to Somali and they don’t seem to be having any great problems learning to spell, nor did I, nor my own children, so it seems to me that the problem might not be with the learners…
mainland china went with simplified chinese a while back to try and improve literacy rates. the trouble is the simplification appears to be completely random and often ends up concealing the original structure of the character and hence its meaning. i was going to blog about it, but still collecting some examples.
CB. Strangely enough, I found it easier to memorise th full characters than the simplified ones – they seem to ‘flow’ better. (I have to confess, though, I generally use the simplified form when writing – which is, sadly, not often these days.)
Frankly, I’m quite appalled that the idea was even considered, Mr Pitman’s grandfather being the originator of that completely incomprehensible shorthand nonsense. Well, that was a bit harsh I suppose, but I tried to get to grips with it but failed miserably.
I think that would be one of the problems with simplifying English spelling. The ‘roots’ of the word would be lost and it would make it harder to work out what it means and how to spell it.
Look forward to your post CB.
I’ve just come across another blogsite which I have added to my blogroll which may interest you Boadicea it’s englistics.wordpress.com Take a look at it why don’t you.
Thanks Isobel… I’ll take a look.
Did you see it Boadicea? It’s on my blogroll on my page if you want the link.
I’ve just investigated it, Isobel. I own to being somewhat deterred by the titles of the posts, but persevered! Very interesting – will keep an eye on it!
It made me think of the Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch, at least I think it was on that programme, when sports commentators were buzzed for using certain words and phrase. I think IO should try to check it out on youtube. My memory is a bit faulty. I rather like the idea of Gary Lineker preparing to do his piece and inserting a word each time to increase viewers vocab.