What TSR retains
TSR uses the standard Latin alphabet, most of the letters and combinations of letters in TSR are pronounced in the same way as in EO (English orthography), and with the same stress.
To a large extent, the rules are preserved:
- (Magic e) The letter e at the end of a word is not pronounced, but changes the pronunciation of other letters (lengthening the vowel). This happens in combination (vowel + consonant + e) – for example, in the word like.
- (Doubling rule) If a monosyllabic word ends with the combination short vowel + consonant, then when an ending (for example, -ed, -ing) is added to the word, the consonant is doubled. Examples: swim turns to swimming, but: fail turns to failed, because here the vowel is not short. In polysyllabic words, if a stressed vowel is followed by one consonant + another vowel, the previous vowel is usually lengthened: sad / sadist, set / scenic, bit / biter, fun / fuming.
If in EO a letter or letters can denote more than one sound, the rules for predicting pronunciation are usually preserved and systematized. Also, some suffixes and other common combinations that do not fully comply with the basic rules of EO, but unambiguously determine pronunciation, are preserved from EO.
Entirely retained (despite discrepancy with TSR rules):
- personal pronouns and adjectives: I. you, he, she, we, me, us, they, your, their(s), them;
- variations of verbs to be and to have: are, was, were, have, having;
- names of numbers, days of the week, months and seasons of the year;
- demonstrative adjectives, pronouns and adverbs: than, that, then, thence, there, these, this, those, thus;
- interrogative pronouns: what, where, who, whose.
A few common words are also preserved
- the, of, to(day), any(one), (n)either, nothing, some, woman, women, yes.
Homophones in TSR
In TSR, there are cases in which spellings of homophones will not merge. (e.g. stare / stair, sight / site / cite, none / nun, scene / seen, tail / tale) [21]
Bear turns to bair, to distinguish from bare.
Great turns to grait, to distinguish from grate.
However, it doesn't differenciate or / ore / oar. Neither does pore / pour.
Four is retained. [22] Fore is retained. [23]
Hour becomes 'our by using an apostrophe.
Know becomes 'no.
Write becomes 'rite.
"Father" or "faather"?
The word "aunt" can have /æ/ & /ɑː/. TSR retains this spelling because it may belong to "The 'bath' words". [24]
The word "rather" can have /æ/ & /ɑː/. TSR retains this spelling because it may belong to "The 'bath' words".
However, "father" becomes "faather", which has the /ɑː/ sound, not /æ/.
TSR retains "aunt", "brother", and "mother". However, it does not retain "father".
The "aa" grapheme is quite rare in TSR. "Calm" stays the same.
The "ange" sub-group
TSR retains the "-ange" combination in words such as angel, change, danger, mange, manger, range, and ranger. [25] [26]
Currently, in TSR, "flange" is respelled "flandge"(not "flanj"). And "anger", "banger", "hanger" turn to "angger", "bangger", "hangger" to indicate that there is no soft "g" sound and they have a short "a" sound rather than a long one. [27]
Example text
Gettysburg Address
Fourscore and seven years ago our faathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceeved in libberty and deddicated to the proposition that all men are creäted equal.
Now we are engaged in a grait civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceeved, and so deddicated, can long endure. We are met on a grait battle-feeld in that war. We have cum to deddicate a portion of that feeld, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might liv. It is altogether fitting and propper that we should do this.
But in a larger senss we cannot deddicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallo this ground. The brave men, livving and ded, who struggled here, have consecrated it far abuv our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the livving, rather, to be deddicated to the grait task remaining before us that from these onoredded we take increassed devotion to that cause for which they gave the last fuulmesure of devotion - that we here highly resolv that these ded shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that guvvernment of the peeple, by the peeple, for the peeple, shall not perrish from the erth. [30]
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