If "I" means I...

I have never really understood that the letter “I” when capitalized refers to the speaker, but the letter “U” cannot work when I am talking to U. We also have a bunch of other weird English language rules that make things harder to learn to read. Wait, isn’t reed pronounced the same way, but means something completely different? And isn’t “I read the book” pronounced the same as the color red but again means something very different? Can’t we do better and why hasn’t anyone tried to “fix” our English language? 

The short answer is “yes, it has been tried.” According to Gabe Henry, in 1906 President Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie tried to create a movement that would trim words like through to thru and although to altho and many others. And don’t get me started on 2. I mean too. No, I meant to. Argle Bargle. Why is it so complicated and difficult?

There is a connection to history and the importance of the past. But we don’t bemoan the fact that we don’t have to use the yellow pages (a phonebook that had the phone numbers and addresses of businesses) to find the phone number of the local police department, or ambulance service, to report an emergency; we can just dial #911. So, it appears that we can make significant changes that make our life easier when we want to, but we can’t make them about language and something we do every day. 

If we were really serious about improving children’s ability to learn to read, we would do a lot of things differently and I think that starts with simpler spellings.