> learned that "missiles" are not spent "missles"

I choose to believe that the author was channeling the spirit of Noah Webster as a deliberate champion of phonetic spelling reform.

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cyphar 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

And are British, at least in Australia (and the US, I guess?) we pronounce the second "i".

It is always fun when you notice where someone is from based on secondary clues like that -- my favourite is the choice of "a" or "an" where it is ambiguous (for instance, I recently ran across "an HTTP request" where I would've said "a HTTP request").

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somat 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or Andrew Jackson approaching the problem from the other end.

“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.”

As a rather, well... "creative" speller I blame Webster for locking things down and ruining it for the rest of us.

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jimmydddd an hour ago | parent [-]

I few years ago I saw a TV interview where some gen-z kid confidently stated: "the dictdionary is supposed to reflect how I talk, not the other was around."

	▲	tux3 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Also known as descriptivism. That's what it do.
	▲	xboxnolifes 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The tricky part is that spoken language and written language are not the same. Even if you are a descriptionist that believes dictionaries should represent how people write, it doesn't necessarily mean that the spelling changes based on how people pronounce it.
	▲	saulpw 4 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		A natural descriptivist.
	▲	eru an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's actually how many of the dictionary people see themselves.

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saghm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd argue that "le" is not really phonetic to how people pronounce words ending in that; "missils" would be more phonetic

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eru 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Should be missels then?

	▲	rkagerer an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They're where they keep the nuclear wessels.
	▲	rmunn an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Let's settle the argument by all agreeing on mussels instead, and enjoy a nice seafood dish with garlic and a white wine sauce. Delicious.