everyone else’s, as the psychologist Allport has pointed out. Until you become familiar with a spelling change, it can seem spittable. Yet it would be possible to keep English spelling looking pretty much as it is, by applying the 8 morphological and phonemic principles briefly revealed in the Sealed Sexion of Chapter 3. These have been now applied to make possible English spelling rules on only one page, set out in the next chapter. They make possible spelling-withouttraps for reading, spelling-without-traps with long-vowel accents to help learners’ pronunciation, spelling-withouttraps for writing, and beginners’ learning that starts with a sensibl pronunciation guide also used in dictionaries. Today the English language belongs to the world, not just to the English. The rest of the world has a claim for an international standardised English spelling. It cannot be owned by the small elite who scorn those who cannot spell accommodation or broccoli. If they want dificult initiations and exclusiveness, they can keep their antiquarian delights for themselves. The difficulties of its writing system risk the English language losing out as the efective lingua franca of the world, with reports that its use is declining by 15% per year. Reserch and Development makes rapid and well-funded progress in all other tecnologies of comunication. It is time for grants for human engineering in spelling, and for an International English Spelling Commission – rather than yet another Spelling Bee. What would publishers and writers not do to extend their reading markets beyond present readers, or test the waters to do so, if they realised it was as posibl as radio comunication from Mars? ‘To argue that what has not occurred will not occur at all is to argue disbelief in the dignity of mankind.’ Mahatma Gandhi.
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