About this Event
DOORS 7PM | SHOW 8PM
Join us for an evening with author Gabe Henry as he selebrates the release uv his latest book, "Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell" (HarperCollins).
Event will include a reading, signing, and spelling bee.
Admission is FREE with RSVP.
Books sold on-site by Books Are Magic.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a philologist faints, but not polight to laf about it?
Anyone who has the misfortune to write in English will, from time to time, struggle with its spelling. So why do we continue to use it? If our system of writing words is so tragically inconsistent, why haven’t we standardized it, phoneticized it, brought it into line? How many brave linguists have ever had the courage to state, in a declaration of phonetic revolt: “Enough is enuf”?
The answer: many. In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead of through, tho for though, laf for laugh, beleev for believe, and dawter for daughter (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too).
Henry takes his humorous and informative chronicle right up to today as the language seems to naturally be simplifying to fit the needs of our changing world thanks to technology—from texting to Twitter and emojis, the Simplified Spelling Movement may finally be having its day.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
littlefield, 635 Sackett Street, Brooklyn, United States
USD 0.00
