Weekend Edition
Sunday, July 20, 2008: "baze" for "baize"
We don't need an I in this name for a felt-like fabric used mainly to cover pool and card tables. The I adds nothing but length and the possibility of misreading the sound, which is a simple long-A. The reader may reason that if it were just long-A, there would be no reason for an I to be there, so figure that some other sound occurs there, such as long-I (caravanserai), short-A (plaid), or perhaps two vowel sounds in sequence (algebraist, contraindicate). So let's just drop it, OK?: "baze".
Saturday, July 19, 2008: "acaysha" for "acacia"
-CIA- is ambiguous, and can be read as -see.ya-, -see.yae-, -shee.ya-, -shee-yae-, or -sha- (e.g., glaciate, emaciate, facial). Here, the sound is the SH-sound followed by schwa, which is most plainly written -SHA.A before a single consonant (acacia) need not be long, as it is supposed to be in the case of the second-A here. How is the reader to know that, when an A before a C in two places in the same word is pronounced two different ways, and an A before a single consonant has different pronunciations in many other words as well? Compare acid, capacity, hacienda, facilitate.
There are two common ways to show a long-A sound midword, AI and AY (paid, payment). Each of those spellings is pronounced otherwise in some words, with AI being more variable: airmail, captain, daiquiri, dais, daishiki, haiku). -AY- midword is less common, but there are many words in which that spelling for a long-A does occur, for instance, cayman, crayfish, layman, waylaid. -AY- thus seems the clearer choice: "acaysha".
____________________Note: We have run out of commonplace words that start with X, Y, and Z, so return to the beginning of the alphabet today.
Friday, July 18, 2008: "waulnut" for "walnut"
The A in this Food Friday word has none of A's most common sounds, not long (as in date), not short (as in cat), not even "broad" (as in father). No, the actual sound is that of AU in haul. So let's just write AU: "waulnut".
____________________My thanks to "Multi..." for this suggestion.
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SSWD is a project of L. Craig Schoonmaker, Newark, New Jersey, United States, creator of Fanetik: Reformed (Phonetic) Spelling — at Least for Teaching. Phonetic pronunciations on this site are rendered in Augméntad Fanétik, which employs accents for syllabic stress. For information about other ways to change irrational spellings, search the Internet for spelling reform.
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