A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

Adapted from a letter titled "Iorx feixfuli, M.J. Yilz" written to The Economist by M. J. Shields in 1971

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

This tool lets you explore a consistent, phonetic spelling for English, inspired by Shields' letter. The table to the right (or below, for mobile users) shows the complete symbol map of the new spelling system. It accounts for the 84 possible sounds (counting lexical stress) in English with additional letters where necessary. If a word turns red, it means the tool does not know the pronunciation for that word and left it untranslated.

Carnegie Mellon University created and is currently maintaining a large pronunciation dictionary, which this tool uses. You can find out more about the CMU Pronunciation Dictionary here.

You will need a modern browser to use this tool because it uses WebWorkers.