The Deseret Alphabet and Other American Spelling Reform Movements

Everyone that uses the English language has trouble with spelling at one time of another; most people have trouble with it all the time. The may complain about the inconsistencies of English orthography (orthography is a fancy word for the art of spelling) as they reach for the dictionary, but not many people do anything about it. However, a few do try to do something. With some it may become an obsession. This paper is about the various attempts of some of these people to reform spelling. It is traditional in papers about spelling reform to stop at this point and prove to the reader just how inconsistent English orthography really is, usually through some device such as listing all the sounds that the letter a can represent or all the ways there are to represent the sound/s/. But I\u27m not going to do that. You may stop and reflect about these inconsistencies if you wish