What would happen to society, the Arts or any area of life if it was acceptable for people to spell any way or direction they desired?

Well, they survived through the 19th century with a lot of non-standard spelling around. I don’t think there would be much of a noticeable effect now—except that all the English Teachers and poor Gailcalled would totally flip their lids. However, once people got used to the idea of made-up spelling (which is how kids learn these days), there would be little problem. And I think people would get used to it pretty fast, except for those with a sense of righteousness about it.

!!ayninhtg raed 2 albe be wluod Nboody

˙sʞɔıp ɟo ƃɐq…. That is what would happen.

Idk. wtf? w/e

A child could decode all those examples about as fast as if they were so-called “standard” English. With a little practice, it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Kind of defeating your own points, gentlemen.

It would lead to a lot of time wasted trying to puzzle out what people meant.

You could get sentences like this: “Hic jacet a stone, qui missed.” – copied from an early manuscript shortly before Chaucer was born. There were three languages competing in England – Latin, French and English. Modern English is the result.

If you can’t be bothered to communicate so others can understand and respond to your written thoughts, then you we be treated as if you have nothing worthwhile to write.

Lazy written habits demonstrate either laziness, ignorance or both.

You might as well wear urine and feces soiled filthy rags and drool and vomit on yourself. That demonstrates a lazy, unconcerned attitude about how you present yourself too!

I don’t think Shakespeare spelled his own name the same way twice (slight exaggeration, but not by much) and he authored some plays that people say are fairly decent. ;) He came from an era where there wasn’t really any standardized spelling (and that’s persisted today in some words like gray and grey). People will still pour their hearts out in art and engage others in society (look at texting, 4 xmpl) without standardized spelling or grammar.

Heck – look at the language we have today. Chaucer would think it was all FUBAR – but we still communicate pretty well, no?

^ Quite

Languages are self-regulating systems – they work whether or not people write them down and analyse the patterns, or attempt to prescribe which patterns are acceptable and which aren’t.

Therefore, if a language had no standardisation, it would not be a language.

As @laureth says, there was very little in the way of standard English spelling between about 1300 and 1700. People spelled how they wanted to spell. As far as I know, when monks copied texts, they might have spelled words differently – this wasn’t considered a mistake, it was just how people wrote. And yet society survived!

@the100thmonkey Surely you mean that if a language had no standardisation, it would still be a language?