Spelling reforms are tricky. Even the French haven't been able to get the ones from the 90s to fully stick (tho IMO most of the good ones, like the feminine professional titles & more sensible numbers have; it is mainly stuff like ognon for oignon that gets refused).
In my humble opinion, French spelling rules around the accent circonflexe when it marks the disappearance of 's' or another letter, is the dumbest and most elitist rule and it should be done away with like yesterday. I am not familiar with other reform proposals, but I am sure that there are plenty, especially around letter groupings that are always silent or that could be represented by a simpler letter combo ('eau' comes to mind). In summary, I believe French spelling could be made more phonetic and friendly and I also believe a significant portion of French people strongly oppose anything of the sort :) Don't even get me started on English spelling madness.
But the circumflex makes it relatively straightforward to adjust to reading Rabelais and any prior writers, because ut allows one to expect the old spellings of the words.
If someone like me can muddle through Chaucer, I am quite certain a bilingual Canadian with a basic Latin vocabulary can muddle through Rabelais without training wheels, ness paw?
Haha, as an anglo, I actually quite like that one. But I do think it is largely optional in the reformed spelling (except to disambiguate homonyms). The ones I hate are how like, amour is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. And the rules for which colors take agreement with the noun & which don't.
BUT they only stopped saying their equivalent of "lady policeman" like 10 years ago so...
Now that you brought it up, gendering all nouns in Romance languages (and many others) has to be one of the silliest and most vestigial linguistic sinkholes there are (amongst many others). This becomes even more annoying and exasperating when one learns more than one language with such arbitrary and randomizing features.
It is mostly annoying, but can be fun. For example, I think it's an interesting challenge to use epicene constructions when writing about people in general. Though I also will just employ the feminine default to be contrarian. :p
As to the epicene constructions, ain't it so much nicer when that is the default, like in English? Having to remember a gender for random objects has to be right up there with other major time wasters like figuring out which sky daddy is the true one and sucking up to it or worrying/complaining about things largely out of our control (like why nouns have gender in some languages).
No, it is crucial everyone know that a table is a girl!
But, idk. I have an ambiguous name (and appearance T-T) and, in my experience, it has been much easier and less awkward to communicate how people should refer to me in French than in English. English had solved this with the whole idea of putting your pronouns in your email signature, but now the worst people ever will just say the opposite of what you put.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2025-10-05 12:23 pm (UTC)Reverse the Great Vowel Shift (for English)? I mean, it puts us out of step with everyone in Europe...
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Date: 2025-10-06 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-05 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-06 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-06 09:35 pm (UTC)But the circumflex makes it relatively straightforward to adjust to reading Rabelais and any prior writers, because ut allows one to expect the old spellings of the words.
This actually made a difference to me when I was dropped into a Lycée in Seconde and started out the year reading Rabelais and Montaigne, as it simplified my adjustment to Early Modern / Late Middle French.
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Date: 2025-10-07 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-07 01:36 am (UTC)BUT they only stopped saying their equivalent of "lady policeman" like 10 years ago so...
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Date: 2025-10-07 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-07 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-08 01:32 pm (UTC)As to the epicene constructions, ain't it so much nicer when that is the default, like in English? Having to remember a gender for random objects has to be right up there with other major time wasters like figuring out which sky daddy is the true one and sucking up to it or worrying/complaining about things largely out of our control (like why nouns have gender in some languages).
no subject
Date: 2025-10-08 04:58 pm (UTC)But, idk. I have an ambiguous name (and appearance T-T) and, in my experience, it has been much easier and less awkward to communicate how people should refer to me in French than in English. English had solved this with the whole idea of putting your pronouns in your email signature, but now the worst people ever will just say the opposite of what you put.