YPL Presents: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell With Gabe Henry

Have you ever wondered why the English spelling of words is sometimes just ... weird? Come on a surprisingly hilarious journey with author Gabe Henry through the history of the English language, while we discuss troublemakers like Mark Twain who broke all the rules. 

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Anyone who has the misfortune to write in English will, every now and then, struggle with its spelling. In our erratic system, choir and liar rhyme, daughter and laughter don’t, and somehow you and ewe can’t agree on a single letter. If our spelling is so inconsistent, why haven’t we tried to fix it? 

In Enough is Enuf, Gabe Henry humorously traces the “simplified spelling movement” from medieval England to Revolutionary America, from the birth of standup comedy to contemporary pop music, and explores its lasting influence in words like color (without a u), plow (without -ugh), and the iconic ’90s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Finally, Henry brings us to the digital age, where the swift pace of online exchanges now pushes us all 2ward simplification. 

The YPL Presents: Virtual Author series is funded and supported by the Foundation for the Yonkers Public Library.

Gabe Henry is the author of three books including the poetry anthology Eating Salad Drunk, a humor collaboration with Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Odenkirk, Mike Birbiglia, Margaret Cho, and other titans of comedy. Henry’s work has been published in TIME, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, the Weekly Humorist, US News & World Report, and more. He has spent more than a decade exploring the strange and forgotten history of simplified spelling, which, by his own admission, has only made him a worse speller. He lives and works in New York. Learn more at gabehenry.com.

Enjoy past author talks here.