English: Dumb It Down!

It's been 100 years since Andrew Carnegie helped create the Simplified Spelling Board to promote a retooling of written English and President Theodore Roosevelt tried to force the government to use simplified spelling in its publications. But advocates aren't giving up.

They even picket the national spelling bee finals, held every year in Washington, costumed as bumble bees and hoisting signs that say "Enuf is enuf but enough is too much" or "I'm thru with through..."

"It's a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this," says Alan Mole, president of the American Literacy Council [no irony intended], which favors an end to "illogical spelling." The group says English has 42 sounds spelled in a bewildering 400 ways.