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Taikonerd · 2025-07-17 · Original thread
If anyone is interested in the history of spelling reform, I recommend Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell.[0]

It's light and fun -- good beach reading, if you're a word nerd. And it does cover the ITA, from the article.

One thing I thought was funny: English spelling became more-or-less standardized in the years after the printing press made it to England in 1476. And almost immediately after the spelling was standardized, 15th-century Englishmen started complaining that the new system made no sense. ("Why is there a b in 'debt'?")

More than 500 years later, we're still complaining ;-)

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063360217/