I'd like to see 'qu' dropped in favor of 'q'. The 'u' is redundant.

Of course, we'd have some tidying up to do. The contentious 'barbeque' would be spelled 'barbeqe' which looks rather strange. But then the word looks strange to begin with. 'Barbeq'? No. All right, a radical change: 'Barbecue'.

Plus:

'The exact same' instead of 'the same' or 'exactly the same'. I wish someone would drop that expression into a deep, dark hole. It's the 'at that point in time' of the new millennium.

Oh, I think the 'u' does have a place in most 'q' words. 'Quick' without the 'u' becomes 'kick'. It could certainly go in a few words such as 'unique', though, where the 'u' is not sounded - but then that's a French word.

I used to have a gobbledegook phrase which meant absolutely nothing, which I would trot out on occasion, 'Taking an overview as at this moment in time, the bottom line is that we have an ongoing praxis in a meaningful and relevant interface scenario .....' Sound kinda familiar, even if not the exact same?

Isn't "at that point and time" also redundant? It could just be at that point or at that time.

and who cares?
maybe there are more worthwhile things to extract from the english language, dear flamethrower.

I got a qick out of your answer, Ewood. Kite right!

I'd also like to know if babthrower's u-deletion rule is to apply iteratively, to "queue," for example, so that you'd have to qe up to buy theater tickets.

Imagine the havok you would create with spell check?

I wonder if 'q' or 'qu' are needed at all. 'Ku' would replace them.

queue - kue
quick - kuik

Also, now that I think about it, 'ck' is pronounced just like 'k'.

Why do we retain 'c' which can be produced as 's' or as 'k'? It has no unique sound in English.

Meantime we need letters to represent consonants like 'th'. So why don't we use a redundant letter like 'c' to represent consonant sounds that now use two letters? (e.g. 'ch')

And we need more vowels. Or else we should use diacriticals to distinguish the sounds of 'long' and 'short' vowels. The letter 'e' following a vowel acts like a diacritical. Sometimes. But this system causes generation after generation of school kids to need to memorize and apply rules and rules and rules, and exceptions, of course. This is child abuse.

The aspiration in 'wh' has practically disappeared in North American English. "Ware oh ware has my little dog gone?"

So much to do. So little time. So hard to reach consensus.

I can just hear the protests now: "But it looks - silly! If we do not retain traditional spelling, I do not wish to live!"

"Is qis a dager wic I see before me
Its handl toward my hand?
Com, let me cluc thee."

Rap music is gonna straiten it all out.