Join us for an informative and entertainin g virtual event with "simplified spelling" historian and author Gabe Henry . Find out why Henry thinks UR not a bad speller\, the English language is . \;
\nHave you ever wondered why the English spelling of words is sometimes&hellip\; well&hellip\; just weird? Come on a surprisingly hil arious journey with us and author Gabe Henry through the history of the En glish language\, while we discuss troublemakers like Mark Twain who broke all the rules. \;
\nAnyone who has the misfortune to write in En glish will\, every now and then\, struggle with its spelling. In our errat ic system\, choir and liar rhyme\, daughter and laughter don&rsquo\;t\, and somehow you and ewe can&rsquo\;t agree on a single letter. So why do we still use it? If our spelling is so inconsistent\, why haven&rsquo\;t we tried to fix it? \;
\nIn the comic annals of linguistic history\, legions of rebel wo rdsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform\, risking their reputati ons to simplify English spelling. Henry's book Enough is Enuf is about them: Mark Twain\, Eliza Burnz\, Noah Webster\, Upton Sinclair\, Emm a Dearborn\, Theodore Roosevelt\, Benjamin Franklin\, and the countless ot her &ldquo\;simplified spellers&rdquo\; who\, for a time in their lives\, 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 i t too).
\nIn Enough is Enuf\, Henry humorously traces the & ldquo\;simplified spelling movement&rdquo\; from medieval England to Revol utionary America\, from the birth of standup comedy to contemporary pop mu sic\, and explores its lasting influence in words like color (without a U) \, plow (without -ugh)\, and the iconic &rsquo\;90s ballad &ldquo\;Nothing Compares 2 U.&rdquo\; Finally\, Henry brings us to the digital age\, wher e the swift pace of online exchanges now pushes us all 2ward simplificatio n. \;
\nGabe Henry is the author of three books including the po etry anthology Eating Salad Drunk\, a humor collaboration with Je rry Seinfeld\, Bob Odenkirk\, Mike Birbiglia\, Margaret Cho\, and other ti tans of comedy. Eating Salad Drunk was featured in T he New Yorker in February 2022 (&ldquo\;A Smattering of Haiku for the Burnout Age&rdquo\;) and ranked one of Vulture&rsquo\;s Best Com edy Books of 2022. Henry&rsquo\;s work has been published in TIME \, New York Magazine\, The New Yorker\, the Weekly Humorist\, US News &\; World Report\, and more. H e has spent more than a decade exploring the strange and forgotten history of simplified spelling\, which\, by his own admission\, has only made him a worse speller. \;
\nSponsored by the Friends of the Library.< /p>\nhttps://hplibrary.libnet.info/event/14367175 URL;VALUE=URI:https://hplibrary.libnet.info/event/14367175 ATTACH:https://static.libnet.info/images/events/hplibrary/image_Gabe_Henry _1_.jpg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR