Short Stuff: Simple Spelling Movement

简短之道:简易拼写运动

Stuff You Should Know

2026-04-01

12 分钟
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Pretty much everyone agrees that English is a chaotic language. There are nutso rules of grammar and spelling other languages don’t have. More than once, movements have emerged to simplify English and each time they were beaten back with a vengeance.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • This is an iHeart Podcast.

  • Guaranteed human.

  • Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff.

  • I'm Josh, and there 's Chuck, and there 's Jerry,

  • and Dave's here in spirit, and this is Short Stuff, which should be spelled exactly like it 's spelled right now.

  • Yeah.

  • Should another simple spelling movement come along, Chuck.

  • Yeah, although they may drop an F. Yeah, you're right.

  • Although that could be stoof.

  • But there is no such word as stoop, so I guess it wouldn't be a problem.

  • Yeah, but that's what we're talking about.

  • We 're talking about the idea that English is a really tough language to learn and that there have been many movements

  • over the years to simplify things and spell things out a little more phonetically.

  • And back in 1906, none other than Teddy Roosevelt, who was president, got into this idea.

  • And he was a very, very popular president who had some other very famous people on board at the time as well, right?

  • Andrew Carnegie.

  • Mark Twain.

  • William James, the father of psychology, an unnamed Supreme Court justice.

  • Basically, a lot of thinkers in America came together to basically put their might behind this,

  • what was another progressive movement at the time.