Talk:pronunciation spelling

RFV discussion: April–May 2020

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pronunciation spelling

Our definition:

"Spelling intended to represent a pronunciation not corresponding to a standard spelling."

In other words, we say that it excludes nonstandard spellings that correspond to a standard pronunciation (e.g. "lite" for "light").

Here are a couple of other definitions:

"A spelling that is supposed to represent a pronunciation more closely than a traditional spelling, as lite for light, or wanna for want to." [1]

"The spelling of words in accordance with their usual pronunciation" [2]

In other words, these definitions say that the term includes nonstandard spellings that correspond to a standard pronunciation.

Wikipedia seems confused about this subject. The article Pronunciation respelling starts out making a contrast between "pronunciation respelling" and "pronunciation spelling", saying that the latter "is an ad hoc spelling of a word that has no standard spelling". Then the rest of the article goes on to explain "pronunciation spelling", which is not supposed to be the topic of the article anyway, giving the examples "Pleez, mistur", "Lite" ("light") and "Froot" ("fruit"), which are contrary to the original statement in the article and also to our definition.

So far I have not found any reference that supports our definition. Mihia (talk) 22:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Our definition is foremost unclear. Does the pronunciation /laɪt/ “correspond to” the standard spelling l·i·g·h·t ? What does that mean? Although not the worst offender, English is notorious for the lack of correspondence between the written graphemes and the spoken phonemes. However, I do not think that, as phrased, it excludes nonstandard spellings unless they are not intended to represent an actual pronunciation. So I think ghoti would not qualify. Summary: our definition is unusable and needs to be fixed, but I do not see it means to say something essentially different from the other definitions.  --Lambiam 08:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

In answer to your question, the standard spelling is "light". This "corresponds" to the pronunciation /laɪt/. "lite" also represents the pronunciation /laɪt/. Therefore "lite" is not a "Spelling intended to represent a pronunciation not corresponding to a standard spelling", and does not come under the scope of our definition. Our definition is intended (I believe) to cover cases such as "ekcetera" or "quincidence" (and hence be mutually exclusive with the "strong" definition of "eye dialect"). Mihia (talk) 09:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

If I understand your position correctly, any standard pronunciation corresponds to the standard spelling of a word. So /ˈhɛfə/ “corresponds to” the spelling heifer. /sɔːd/ “corresponds to” the spelling sword. and /ˈtʃʌmli/ “corresponds to” the spelling Cholmondeley. This does not correspond to my understanding of the meaning of correspond to.  --Lambiam 11:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

So how do you understand "corresponding to" in that definition? Mihia (talk) 20:02, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

RFV-resolved I have changed the definition so that it is more explicit. Kiwima (talk) 21:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)