Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell with Author Gabe Henry (online)

Have you ever wondered why the English spelling of words is sometimes… well… just weird? Come on a surprisingly hilarious online journey with the South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach and author Gabe Henry, through the history of the English language and discuss troublemakers like Mark Twain who broke all the rules. 

Anyone who has the misfortune to write in English will, every now and then, struggle with its spelling. In our erratic system, choir and liar rhyme, daughter and laughter don’t, and somehow you and ewe can’t agree on a single letter. So why do we still use it? If our spelling is so inconsistent, why haven’t we tried to fix it? 

In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to simplify English spelling. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Eliza Burnz, Noah Webster, Upton Sinclair, Emma Dearborn, Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, and countless other “simplified spellers” who, for a time, became fanatic about writing kof instead of cough, tung for tongue, and fyzics for physics (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too).

In "Enough is Enuf", Gabe Henry humorously traces the “simplified spelling movement” from medieval England to Revolutionary America, from the birth of standup comedy to contemporary pop music, and explores its lasting influence in words like color (without a U), plow (without -ugh), and the iconic ’90s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Finally, Henry brings us to the digital age, where the swift pace of online exchanges now pushes us all 2ward simplification. 

Register now for this informative and entertaining conversation to find out why Gabe Henry thinks UR not a bad speller, the English language is.