Proper Spelling? Its Tyme To Let Luce ! By Anne Trubek

Essay assignment 2: English spelling

The ongoing debate on the importance of consistent spelling has once again seen the light when professor in rhetoric Anne Trubek commented on the issue with an article called Proper Spelling? Its Tyme to Let Luce!. In the article, Anne Trubek addresses the issue of traditional spelling stand-ards and argues that language is “ever evolving” and that the strict rules of spelling should be done away with. She insists that the message of the written word still would be understood even if the actual words were to be shortened or misspelled, making rules of traditional spelling seem highly unnecessary. She even goes on to say that “There is no additional reason, other than snobbery, for spelling rules” which

First and foremost, Simmons’ article is responding to another article, which indicates the way he wants to convince his readers that Trubek’s viewpoint is wrong. Lee Simmons is giving justifica-tions and reasons to why traditional spelling rules must remain and he disproves her arguments by showing how important the rules are for our understanding. In an extract like: “The system isn’t intended to be phonetic. Pronunciation evolves, spelling abides” , Lee Simmons disproves Anne Trubek’s argument that language is ever-changing and therefore shouldn’t have any strict rules in regards to spelling. On top of this, Lee Simmons asks questions right in the middle of the article to provoke critical thinking among his audience, asking questions like “Are we saying that profession-al news sites should spell words in any way that strikes their mood or fancy?” , and lastly “what exactly would be the benefit of that?” . He is also trying to make Anne Trubek’s arguments seem invalid by calling her reasoning “an odd sort of logic” and that her suggestion for eliminating spelling rules once and for all is “a paradox requiring a good, strong supporting argument” . Fur-thermore, Lee Simmons is responding directly on quotes from Anne Trubek’s article, often with sarcasm and satire. He uses sarcasm to get his point across; an example could be when Trubek claims that civilization has worked fine without spelling rules and Lee Simmons adds “Sure – if you like confusion and inefficiency.” . This kind of tone can also be seen in a remark like “So if you want to chat in leetspeak, or use cutesy abbreviations in your texts, go crazy”