comment: >
  
  Sure English spelling is terrible and unhelpful, but all your other items are just like, something that happens to every language, words change meaning over time. And words like literally almost always become an exaggerater (note: despite many claims otherwise, literally can never actually be used to mean figuratively, it has a figurative usage, but take any use of literally and replace it with figuratively and you'll completely change the sentence). In the past we had the words really and very that meant "this actually happened" (think about it it's really and very from Latin veritas which means truth). But now both have shifted to be exaggeraters more than their original use. Literally will do the same thing and that's fine
context: /u/CallMeCorona1 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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  The Académie Française is a shitty institution that, amongst other things, objected to acknowledging the regional languages that already existed in France. The French shouldn't even have it, so the idea definitely shouldn't spread.
  Plus, like. Which country gets to decide how all the other anglophone countries gets to talk? Because whatever answer you pick will piss off everyone else. >
  
  They also tried to ban the word eSport. >
  
  They dislike loanwords, yeah.
  Fundamentally, this idea of a top-down language is just completely contrary to how languages actually work. >
  
  Except Korean, which was invented by a single person >
  
  Korean writing system was invented by a single person, not the Korean language. >
  
  Many poets prefer the English language because of its uniqueness in this regard. It can make things sound and look different than they should. >
  
  This is a good point >
  
  
  Poughkeepsie is pronounced "p'kipsee"
  Cordial is pronounced "cor-di-el"
  Psychology is pronounced "sci-col-o-gee"
  Conclusion: English is an abomination, because how you say it and how you spell it are in many cases totally distinct
  
  Silent letters exist in multiple languages. Look up egg in french as an example.
  
  "Awesome", which used to be used only with divine intervention, now often is used to mean simply "okay by me".
  "Literally" is used to mean it's opposite: "figuratively"." 
  Fuggedaboutit", instead of having the literal meaning "you should forget this", means, er, awesome ;)
  
  These are anecdotes, awesome isn't "okay by me" in the dictionary, neither have litteraly and figurativly switched meaning.
  Fuggedaboutit is dialect which isn't the standard english that is taught in schools in any case.
  You are arguing how other people use language. And that is not a point that can or should be changed.
  
  In France, the French have the "Académie Française" which functions as the official custodian of the French language. I think if English speaking countries HAD SOMETHING similar, English would be easier to teach and understand. In France, the language also stands as a cultural symbol - why not try to turn English into the same?
  
  Maybe because the scope of it is too big to handle? You've got at least 3 major countries talking english in their own way with their own rules as standard english.
  And the size of france isn't comparable to the size of the usa.
  But you do have standard english already, it's the english taught in schools, used for official communications and used in the papers.
  And I do have to say "academie anglese" I don't know if you tried to do it in a french twist or what. But anglese doesn't exist unless you are talking about the dogbreed or the guitar chord. It's anglais in french. If you want to be pedantic about language use then others will do the same. But it mostly just crashes into your whole cmv if you write it like that.
  Dialect and coloqualisms aren't a thing to throw away imo. They add character and panache to a personality. >
  
  As someone who lives in Korea, let me compare two completely different languages.
  Like any language, there are advantages and disadvantages. One of English’s disadvantages is also an advantage: it’s enormous vocabulary. You can say things in so many ways and still be understood that it’s almost inconceivable. But, unless you know that specific vocabulary, you would be confused on what someone is saying. Korean is not as extensive in its vocabulary. There are only certain words you can use, otherwise you sound totally unnatural.
  I think English’s greatest advantage is actually it’s grammar, particularly it’s word order. Someone can speak broken English, but if someone has a least the word order correct, then usually the English speaker can understand what the person is trying to say. For example, I had a someone ask me “You me go restaurant?”. Even though it’s grammatically incorrect, because if the word order, I can understand what they were trying to say. You can’t do that with Korean. Usually, unless you speak grammatically correct, you will not be understood.
  Lastly, another advantage of English is how expressive it can be. It’s often said, somewhat derisively by non native English speakers, that English is an idiomatic language. And I think it’s true. The many cultures that have English is the dominant or major language has so many beautiful infusions and expressions to show and mean different things. No other language has the same amount of phrases, at least of the major ones that come to mind. I could say something like “Wow, that car is going like a bat outta hell.” and I would be understood. Korean does have idioms, but nowhere the same amount.
  All of this is because English doesn’t have a “correct” way to be used or spoken, which leads to its adaptability. This is a daunting task for those trying to learn English, but from what I was told by Korean learners of English, the grammar of English is rather easy compared to other languages. It’s just learning all the words and phrases. >
  
  
  In France, the language also stands as a cultural symbol - why not try to turn English into the same?
  
  For which culture? >
  
  It’s almost like a ton of English words are borrowed/originated from other languages. >
  
  Every language has slang. French too. Especially when you leave the borders of France and go to Haiti or Quebec, Cote d'Ivoire or any other place where French is the primary language or lingua franca. If the OED were prescriptive instead of descriptive, nothing would change. People would ignore it in the UK, and the US and Canada and Australia wouldn't even know it existed.
  Slang aside, what would your proposal mean for words and phrases whose meaning and pronunciation are already established? You can complain that "psychology" or "Poughkeepsie" or "Worcestershire" don't have intuitive pronunciations, but what would you do about it? Rewrite the entire dictionary to be perfectly phonetic? Change definitions?
  At that point, you're basically just creating a whole new language, and no one is going to listen to you.
  [Edit: grammar] >
  
  You've given me a lot to think about I'd like to give you a !delta (I'm not sure I'm doing this right though) >
  
  Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Not-your-lawyer- (74∆).
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  English is also the most communicative and expressive language we have - it's massive vocabulary and ability to adapt and include other ideas and words is it's strength.  
  The French take a very, very strange view in my mind of the management of both language and culture.  I find this approach to be regressive and ultimately limiting - control over adaptability.  There is a reason that the lingua franca ain't french anymore!  France says you can't show non-french movie premiers in cinema on Friday, made massive attempts in the early days of the internet to prevent the ruination of the culture of france through control of information flows.  These are the ways you hold on to things, not the way you make them great.  
  English is the most flexible, adaptive and expressive language the world has seen thus far.  Being void of dogma about right and wrong and control has allowed it to remain useful and pragmatic internationally, and relevant and locally.  France has failed at both.  In fact, you see more use of english words in french to address the inabilty of french to adapt!  
  Language should be about expression and communication.  Culture is derivative, not the thing to go about willfully creating.  That is the mistake of France - to focus on creating culture, rather than creating awesoness and recognizing that culture is the result. >
  
  
  English is also the most communicative and expressive language we have - it's massive vocabulary and ability to adapt and include other ideas and words is it's strength.
  
  Really? Do you have any references for this claim? I' d be interested in learning more. >
  
  It comes down to this:
  
  In France, the French have the "Académie Française" which functions as the official custodian of the French language.
  
  And the reason why - is because French is a romance language (Gallo-Romance). When we're talking about western linguistics - we're talking about Rome. And English isn't a romance language - it's origins are Germanic. It's an off-shoot of an off-shoot. (Of an off-shoot, of an off-shoot of Vulgar Latin)
  That's why there isn't really any official context for it - because it wasn't an official language in the first place. It's never been recognized (or developed naturally with a set of rules) as having any official rules. And the evolution of English over its history has made it what it is today - what you're seeing is not a recent development.
  The issues you're describing, things like contronyms - exist in almost all languages. These qualities of linguistics are not unique to English.
  Hope that provides some context. English was never intended to have a custodian of rules - because it wasn't originated that way - and was never intended to be used as such. Putting that in place now would destroy an entire history of linguistic development because you think it's weird to have colloquialisms.
  * After writing this - it occurred to me that the context of this implies that people have most likely had the exact same feeling you do about how confusing and contradictory language can seem to be - forever. It's cool to think that is something we share across time with our ancestors. >
  
  Thanks >
  
  English is like 800 different dialects. A centralized authority deciding what is and isn't correct English could only possibly result in the majority of those (completely valid) dialects of English being arbitrarily written off and looked down on. >
  
  Unfortunately, the original British English is even worse... see Worcestershire.
  You do have something similar in the scientific community with regards to the heavy use of latin pre-fixes and suffixes. But unfortunately I think English is inherently weird and hard to learn even if you fix all the pronunciations. >
  
  So, how are they going to define the word chips? Or the correct way to spell color? is it neighbour or neighbor? Labour or labor? >
  
  French sounds very different in Canada and other French colonies.
  English sounds very different in different regions too.
  Every language changes over time, influenced by social and environmental factors, if it didn’t we would all be writing like Beowulf. There’s no perfected moment of a language, only an endless flow of what works for the people alive today.
  Also, all of our varied spelling rules are complicated but tell a story about the history and etymology of our language, while providing more avenues for creativity. >
  
  I'm not in the mood to retort, but if you're interested in English language and its derivatives, you should read work by linguist John McWhorter. >
  
  Thanks >
  
  You're talking about something beyond what the Académie Française is doing. To fix all the problems you've given as examples here, what we'd actually be doing is adopting a new written form of English entirely, with very different spellings of many if not most words. It would not be unlike learning a second language. People who had grown up before this new form was invented would struggle to learn it and many simply would not bother. Meanwhile, because the old form of English would still be used ubiquitously in writing, children would have to learn both forms anyway, and if society is slow to adopt the new form, then even the next generation of English speakers will likely come to prefer the old form because it will simply be more common.
  Then you have to consider English is a language spoken by over 2 billion people across dozens of countries. No organization would have the international clout necessary to get all of those countries to agree to start teaching children the new form simultaneously. So at best you'd get a slow, clumsy rollout of the new form that took generations to be fully adopted. But most likely it would fail completely and eventually stop being taught because no one was using it, and it would go down in history as a waste of everybody's time.