English is a weird language. It has evolved over centuries while also incorporating words from other languages until it's become fertile ground producing tons of puns. You'd think someone would try to do something about that. Well, they have. There's been a movement for hundreds of years to make English words easier by spelling them the way they are pronounced. Proponents say this would make spelling more consistent across the board, and we might even be able to drop a few of the 26 letters of the alphabet. But it doesn't really work that way.
“I attrybute my suksess in life to mi devoshun to spelyng.” –Josh Billings
When you spell words as they are pronounced, you find that it's honestly a chore to read them. And they look funny. While serious linguists were just trying to make reading and writing easier, simplified spelling made the writer seem undereducated, to say the least. Quite a few humorists jumped onto the simplified spelling bandwagon as a means of comedy, including Mark Twain. Read about the comedy backlash to the simplified spelling movement and the giggles they produced at LitHub. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Cbaile19)