Why are words not simply spelled the way they sound?

Question

For example, why is the word "phonics" not simply spelled the way it sounds? Wouldn't that make spelling words a whole lot easier?

Just an opinion question from an English/Linguistics major. ^_^

Answer 1

Imagine a Texan an a New Yorker writing a letter, and then reading the other ones letter, how easy would it be 4 them to understand?
A bit difficult, I would guess. Where I live it would be werry hard to understand the written language from one part of the contry to the other. But at a period of time it was leagal to write the way you spoke the language (Danish), but due to big prolems of understanding the different dialects among eachother (and only 3 million peapole), the law was banned again. So to make it possible for a nation to understand eachother, it is nessesarry to have a common way of writing a word, allso for other nations to understand your language.

Answer 2

it's only been relatively recently that words were standardized at all. spelling words phonetically would be easier, but that's not the way it worked out. some are spelled close to their language of origin. some are spelled differently to widen the distance between us and England.

Answer 3

The ability to read is vital for success. It helps your child succeed in school, helps them build self-confidence, and helps to motivate your child. Being able to read will help your child learn more about the world, understand directions on signs and posters, allow them to find reading as an entertainment, and help them gather information.

Here you can find a step-by-step online program that can help your child learn to read: http://readingprogram.toptips.org

Learning to read is very different from learning to speak, and it does not happen all at once. There is a steady progression in the development of reading ability over time. The best time for children to start learning to read is at a very young age - even before they enter pre-school. Once a child is able to speak, they can begin developing basic reading skills. Very young children have a natural curiosity to learn about everything, and they are naturally intrigued by the printed texts they see, and are eager to learn about the sounds made by those letters. You will likely notice that your young child likes to look at books and thoroughly enjoys being read to. They will even pretend to behave like a reader by holding books and pretend to read them.

For more info visit http://readingprogram.toptips.org
Good Bye

Answer 4

Because that smartass Noah Webster thought that words would be more "American" if they had accents from every country in the world.

Answer 5

I don't know. Someone just chose to make the words. Maybe you should use your own brain instead of using this thingy.