@Mitch That's what I thought, but if it really draws gunk out of your ear, I wouldn't care how it weird it is.

Respelling is often justified because it is easier to interpret by reference to traditional orthography, and also because it can be read by speakers of different accents, and so is less prescriptive than IPA.

Thoughts?

I sometimes think we cleave to IPA out of a desire to wield the secret keys of power, to speak in a hieratic tongue, the way Catholic priests did before Vatican II.

I could furnish an anecdote about my experience as an altar boy. But should anecdotes involving priestly matters properly be called sacerdotes?

> Both systems have their advocates, and both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. I don’t see the demise of respelling coming any time soon.

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@Robusto given my lack of research into it, that seem like a fair conclusion. I prefer IPA. I get confused when they respell, most of the time. But I guess that because I have been learning how the IPA works and I'm not particularly interested in learning every different dictionary's respell "standard". The phonemic/phonetic issue doesn't go away with respelling, it's the same problem with a different look.

@Robusto The only off-putting thing about that sentence is 'less prescriptive than IPA'. Using IPA is not at all prescriptive, it is as scientifically descriptive as possible, but it has to choose a single variety. That's not saying 'You all are supposed to say it this way or you're dumb', it's saying, 'this is the precise way most people say it' If there is a common alternative (say for another variety), then the alternative IPA is given.

Or rather, writing anything down is prescriptive, but IPA is more accurate. Because of its accuracy it may show up different varieties.

Also, respelling, even if accurate for more than one variety, has the problem that multiple sound changes in one variety (like a multiple vowel shift) may mess up the mapping for another variety.

@Robusto This is not untrue, but could also be akin to saying that using metric is a scientists guild secret when all you need is cubits.

@Robusto Wait.. what is 'respelling'? Is it anything other than IPA, like the M-W system ?

In other news...

ha ha ha

It's funny because that would definitely be worse.

Hey, quick question: if in a poem fishermen hunting whales symbolises humans exploiting nature as a whole, is that (the whale bit) a synecdoche?

@Mitch Not necessarily. But whatever one's orientation one tends to perceive that as The Way Better Than All Other Ways. I personally think you can have different orientations for, well, different orientations. Celsius for science, Fahrenheit for the human experience. I'm not arguing for cubits, which remark I feel is an unfair and unnecessary put-down.

I'm really not arguing for either, but for both. We don't have to be one or the other.

@Robusto an unfair and unnecessary putdown of respelling? Did I touch a nerve? I don't think we're insulting each other's taste in music. We're both saying (I think) that respelling is more informal and less accurate than IPA. The tradeoff with IPA is presumably that it is more difficult to understand/has a longer learning curve (because weird symbols (I am unsure what respelling is exactly but am guessing)).

having a long learning curve is associated with but not a defining characteristic of elitism . It can be abused to make a capricious sect. Or it can limit things to those who have the time to learn.

@Mitch A nerve? No. I don't really have a dog in this fight, if it is a fight. I just wondered what people thought. I thought your cubits remark exhibited the sort of hyperbole one associates with nerve-touching.

Out of closevotes again, but I'm pretty sure english.stackexchange.com/questions/484158 is a duplicate of english.stackexchange.com/questions/120721