Alkanadi:

Bemused:I've been toying with the idea (theoretically, I'm hardly going to start a movement) of a regularised international English. Something that wouldn't be too hard for native English speakers to pick up or understand, but not as hard as natural English for ESL students to learn. Something along the lines of Esperanto, but following English conventions.

Check out this list of pidgins. Other people have tried to do what you are talking about. I still prefer Globish though because it is grammatically correct.

Regularized English is NOT a pidgin. Pidgins are languages that are a mix of a substrate grammar (somewhat of a mixture of Whosis's "Universal Grammar" and the grammar mishmash of the native languages of the native upon whom the superstrate language was imposed) and the vocabulary of a superstrate language (English in Tok Pisin, French in Creyol (aisyen), etc). The grammar of a regularized English is still English grammar, just with the regularization process seen in verbs such as "help (principal parts of which USED TO BE help, hulp and holpen)" and such verbs as "dive" (past tense used to be only "dove" but now "dived" is also acceptable.....at some time in the future, "dove" will probably be cast aside for "dived" much like "healp/hulp" and "holpen" were cast aside in favor of "helped" ). In a regularized English, "speak" would have the principal parts of speak, speaked, speaked. And likewise, the plural of e.g. "child" would be "childs" instead of "children (which is itself actually a double plural)" in much the same way that the plurals of "shoe, egg, and cow" which used to be "shoon, eyer, and kyne" are now regular: shoes, eggs, and cows.

Mustelvulpo:

KStef:I was laughing when I saw "how to tie a tie"

Ty, show the Thai how to tie his tie.

Ty the Thai was in a race to tie his tie.
The race was a tie.

Bemused:

Mustelvulpo:

KStef:I was laughing when I saw "how to tie a tie"

Ty, show the Thai how to tie his tie.

Ty the Thai was in a race to tie his tie.
The race was a tie.

Ty, the tie disappointed the Thai who raced to tie his tie in the local Thai tie tying race.

Mustelvulpo:

KStef:I was laughing when I saw "how to tie a tie"

Ty, show the Thai how to tie his tie.

Just don't try to tie a railroad tie!

The two Tys tied in tying ties on an Amtrak tie
I have two friends named Quinn. One of them is very plain and runs around in jeans. But the other one like to wear drag. Now, I am on a ship called the 'Sea Queen' and I am looking for my friend who dresses in gowns. Someone [an Englishman, of course] sees my wondering eyes and asks: I do, pray, what are you seeking? I reply: I seek Quinn with the sequin on the Sea Queen. He stumbles and tumbles into the waves. Ahoy!
Fortunately, a fellow countryman has overheard our conversation and taps me on the shoulder, pointing afar: Yes, I see Quinn with the sequin here on the Sea Queen! Then I, too, see Quinn with the sequin on the Sea Queen.

morico:1-Alphabet non-phonetic (46 phonemes, 20 vowels)
2-Prononciation chaotic, elusive, impossible to standardise

'Impossible to standardise'? Thats pure non-sense. Of course that is possible (1;2). Big question is what will set standard of aesthetics: Is it spoken or written word? In my opinion spoken word should set the standard of aesthetics. First most children learn their native language by spoken words. Thats why spoken word should 'set the rules'. Teachers can tell lot of this students conduct 'they write like they speak their local dialect'.

Tempodivalse:A reform of English has been long-overdue. There are almost no orthographical rules - everything has to be learned by rote.

The problem is how to do it. Phonetic spellings won't always so well, because there are far more phonemes in English than letters to represent them, especially the vowels. Adding new letters to the alphabet would be prohibitive - think of all the computers that would need to be readjusted ...

English orthography is as irregular as Russian inflections and stress placement. In both cases, unless you are an educated native speaker, you have almost no hope of mastering the language.

George Bernard Shaw was very passionate about reforming English orthography. He left quite a bit of money in his estate for developing a writing system. After Shaw's death, Ronald Kingsley Reed created the Shaw alphabet (aka Shavian alphabet).

The alphabet consists of 44 symbols for the estimated 44 phonemes in British Received Pronunciation, plus a few characters joined as ligatures.

It looks pretty cool and it was inspired by shorthand, so it might be quick to write, but it's probably a nightmare for dyslexics because so many letters are mirror images of each other.

The idea was that each symbol would stand for a phoneme, and regional differences wouldn't matter because everyone would consistently pronounce the phonemes in their own way.

In practice, it isn't so neat. Where two phonemes have merged in some dialects (e.g. the father-bother merger), the choice between letters seems arbitrary to those with the merger. Also, the pronunciation upon which the alphabet is based includes the Rosa's roses merger (Rosa's and roses sound exactly the same). Speakers without this merger will be inclined to use different spellings.

Then there are plenty of instances where people disagree on which phoneme is used in which word. Plenty of people swear that the E in egg sounds like the E in Ed. To others, it sounds more like the EY in hey. Those people can hear the same person say the same word and they hear it as different vowel sounds. Is the I in king the same as the I in hip, or does it sound like the EE in Jeep?

Still, the Shaw alphabet is far better than what we have now. However, in America, we can't even switch over to the metric system! It would take something extraordinary to get people to learn to read and write all over again.

eshapard:Still, the Shaw alphabet is far better than what we have now.

Seriously? In what manner writing ʃ with a Shawian letter (which is not even in BMP) is better than writing it with two plain letters 'SH'?

Tempodivalse:A reform of English has been long-overdue. There are almost no orthographical rules - everything has to be learned by rote.

The problem is how to do it. Phonetic spellings won't always so well, because there are far more phonemes in English than letters to represent them, especially the vowels. Adding new letters to the alphabet would be prohibitive - think of all the computers that would need to be readjusted ...

English orthography is as irregular as Russian inflections and stress placement. In both cases, unless you are an educated native speaker, you have almost no hope of mastering the language.

This is a mistaken idea. Look at the harm that has been wrought by tinkering with Dutch. Half the population is confused about how to spell many words that were supposed to have been made regular (most national languages have irregular forms and homonyms). So much so that they have to keep printing a book that explains the new rules every time they meddle with it, and it's not a thin book.

The number of people who are not natives and have attained a good command of English disproves your last claim. Irregularities are taught and learners accustom themselves in the way natives have to, though natives will obviously get more practice.

The whole idea is an argument for Esperanto, not for fiddling with English, which clearly already works.

This is a mistaken idea. Look at the harm that has been wrought by tinkering with Dutch. Half the population is confused about how to spell many words that were supposed to have been made regular (most national languages have irregular forms and homonyms). So much so that they have to keep printing a book that explains the new rules every time they meddle with it, and it's not a thin book.

I am not aware of Dutch spelling reforms, but the 1918 Russian reform was quite efficient and adopted uniformly after a matter of a few years, if not months. I think this depends partially on politics.

Also, if the language is continually being tinkered with, that's going to be more problematic than a one-off reform (accomplished successfully by the Russians in 1918 and the Greeks in the 80s).

The number of people who are not natives and have attained a good command of English disproves your last claim. Irregularities are taught and learners accustom themselves in the way natives have to, though natives will obviously get more practice.

Well, I meant "master" in a strong sense, which is a pretty high standard. I don't know a lot of non-native English speakers who can write as spontaneously and confidently as a native speaker of the same education level - though I'm sure there are exceptions.

It's not as easy to see this in practice, because (unlike spoken language) you can go back and correct a misspelled word without anyone noticing, and there are spellcheckers to catch errors, etc. However, I think there is definitely some kind of intuition that makes it easier for (educated) native speakers, and which is difficult to teach.

But then I see less-educated native English speakers with a poorer grasp of English than well-educated foreigners, and I think - well, maybe it's uniformly difficult.

If English is to have a reform, it should be done swiftly, in one take - otherwise you end up in an Ido-like situation where nobody knows what's today's correct usage.