Spelling Reform
xibalba.demon.co.uk
xibalba.demon.co.uk
In 1789, he wrote "An Essay on the Necessity, Advantages, and Practicality of Reforming the Mode of Spelling and of Rendering the Orthography of Words Correspondent to Pronunciation" (reprinted at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/DKitchen/new_655/webster_langua...).
The problem with all such attempts at spelling reform is that language is not "top down" but rather "bottom up."
From ancient Saxon/Germanic words that defined much of the Old English to Latin words that flooded in via the various Romance languages such as French to Greek words that often came in via academic roots to scientific words that were coined as new developments occurred, English has absorbed all manner of word forms over many centuries - word forms that are ingrained in real-world usages that define how people speak, think, and write, not just in learned circles but in the street. Such words have taken on spelling characteristics connected with their origins (e.g., words of French origin that have many silent letters) and hence may vary significantly from one type to another.
It is a desirable goal to make English spelling more consistent but, if the very guy who came up with the leading American dictionary used for over 200 years could not even made a dent in the system, what chance does anyone else have?
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez c, y and x -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Mark Twain
Copied from http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/spell.htm
I wouldn't be caught dead calling Beijing "Peking".
Calling Beijing "Peking" or Mumbai "Bombay" may be what older people are used to, but it's not what's on any map I've seen this century.
This phenomenon exists in Chinese as well. How for, example, do you say UK in Chinese ;)?
In Taiwan, there's a (I find) humorous translation of 蔣中正 as Chiang Kai-shek. It's as if they knew they'd be laughed at if they tried to translate the Generalissimo's name as Fair and Upright Jiang.
Also the competing translations of Tibet as 西藏 (a Qing term that locates Tibet as the West, or in other words, in relation to its location relative to China) and the newer term 圖博, which is much closer to Tibetan (and the English).
Anyways, not even really disagreeing with your original point to call Peking Beijing, but linguistic lag is actually a quite common phenomenon, and while you notice it in this case, there are many cases where things aren't really consistent, but you may not have noticed.
The names of Chiang Kai-Shek is a complicated issue. He went by at least half a dozen different names over his life. One of them was 蔣介石, which he started using in Japan, I think. "Chiang Kai-Shek" is the Cantonese romanization of that. 蔣中正 was a name he adopted when he got closer to Sun Yat Sen (also a non-mandarin romanization from a different name), who was going by 孫中山.