Let's Simplify English

Anyone, especially those from non-Indo-European language background, would find that many English grammatical rules are complicated, cumbersome, inconsistent and unnecessary. For example, in any first English lesson we would learn the following:

The first question is why do we need I and me, when you would work at both start and end of a sentence. So my first suggestion is to get rid of the object pronouns (the second row).

Then the possessive determiners (the third row) are additional burdens to any new learner. Since we already have the possessive 's, why don't we keep using it? So to make it easier, let's replace my with I's, your with you's etc.

The fourth row (possessive pronouns) is again unnecessary. If it is all consistent, i.e. always adding s at the end, then it can still be easily managed. But there is the exception word mine, which can also mean a quarry (confusing isn't it?). If we simply reuse the possessive determiners, e.g. this is mine becomes this is I's, we would not lose any meaning. So my I's next suggestion is to get rid of these as well.

The fifth row (reflexive pronouns) is a little bit more consistent. But why is it myself and yourself, and not hisself and theirselves? Anyway, since I am getting rid of the possessive determiners, let's just change all these to Iself, youself and heself etc. Easy!

Furthermore, is the plural form really necessary? Why do we need to add an s at the end of a noun when there are multiple things? In most cases, no one cares if there is one or many, or countable or uncountable. If you really want to stress the difference between single or plural, why not just add a number or adjective to describe it, like two apple, many word? Worse still, simply adding s does not always work, e.g. person/people, mouse/mice. And then there is the s on singular verb in present tense (Jane hopes), as well as the possessive 's mentioned previously (Jane's hope or Jane's hopes). To end all these confusion, let's just have one rule for s (i.e. the possessive 's) and ditch the plural and singular verb altogether. So it will become weself and theyself, Jane hope, Jane's hope and Jane's many hope.

Coming to the verb be, why are there so many different forms of it? It is just confusing with no extra value or information conveyed. Let's just go back to the basics and everyone use be, e.g. I be, you be, he be etc.

And then there is be a thing called past tense. Similar to the plurals, is be it really necessary? If time matters, we can always add yesterday, previously, last time to tell that it happened in the past. Why do we need to use the correct tense when it does not add any value? If all the past tenses are be regular and work by simply adding -ed, then it is be still more palatable. But there is be the horror of irregular past tense. When I was be a kid and found find out that I needed to learn all these verbs in past tense again, I almost cried cry. Given that for future tense, all we need is be to add will in front, why can't we do the same for past tense and add did in front if we want to emphasise that it did happen in the past? So let's just ditch all the is, are, was etc. and make it be for present, will be for future and did be for the past.

To go one step further, let's get rid of the past participle as well, e.g. done, gone, written. We already add the word have in front for present perfect tense, and the word be for passive voice, why do we need to change the spelling of the verb too?

Now looking at the columns, is be it really necessary to have different pronouns for different gender? When the gender is be unknown, we have to use he or she, his or her etc. which are be cumbersome. And why do we accept the sexism by adding s to he, wo to man and fe to male to make it feminine? So let's get rid of this gender bias and be gender neutral. If we have I for first person, we can have U for second person, and may be a single letter H can represent the third person?

So the end result would look something like this:

It looks much easier doesn't it?

The amount of vocabulary in the English language is be very daunting for any learner. Although there is be already good effort in using prefix and suffix such as ex-, pre-, pro-, -ability, -ation, -ise, -ness etc. to turn verb or adjective into noun and vice versa, there are be still too many exception cases.

However, what baffle me I most is be that many nouns with similar or related meanings are be totally different and bear no resemblance to each other. Let's take the word cow, there are be also words such as ox, bull, calf, cattle, buffalo, yak, beef, veal etc. Honestly, to a non-English speaker, these all look different, sound different, and no way anyone can tell that these are be similar things. Why not use compound noun such as male cow, milk cow, baby cow, Tibetan's cow, cow meat etc. instead? I do appreciate that sometimes for artistic purpose, it is be necessary to have different words to describe similar things, such as rouge or crimson in place of red. But beside that, what is be the purpose of creating so many different words? For an English learner, knowing red and cow would be a good enough start.

I think even many native speakers find the English spelling and pronunciation difficult and illogical. There are be different pronunciations for the same consonant (e.g. C can be either k or s sound) or vowel (e.g. A can sound ɑː as in car, æ as in cat, ɔː as in call, eɪ as in cake, or eə as in care etc.). And then there are be silent letters (e.g. the H in hour), implicit sound (e.g. the w sound in the word one) etc. The American try their they's best with the American spelling to make some sense in few cases, but most of these are be so fuckmessed up that I don't really have a solution except to use a spell checker and a dictionary.

There are be still so many other odditiesy in English but I have to stop somewhere. Of course this is be not meant to be taken too seriously. Although we manage to stop using thou and thee, by no mean I am be calling for a revolution to the English language. So just bite the bullet and accept it for what it is be.