Ghoti
I had an E-mail from my Mother-in-Law yesterday, in which she inveighed against the current trend of "text" spelling, where an attempt is made to match spelling to sound. This is not a great idea in English, a language in which "fish" could be spelt "ghoti"; using GH as in cough, O as in phoenix and TI as in action.
Actually, Ma, a sprightly and cultured lady in her nintieth year, was regretting the richness being lost from the language. She quoted "rains", "reigns" and "reins" as examples of words lost to the texters, each carrying their meaning and their derivation in their spelling capsules.
I think that spelling and more importantly perhaps, grammar, are keys to clearer thinking processes. Grammar is like algebraic formulae which allow us to perform complex calculations without constantly developing methods from first principles. Rules, like making verbs agree with nouns and pronouns in number, and maintaining tense, keep our thinking as tidy as our speech.
Of course rules are made to be broken and poets may play fast and loose with both words and grammar, but just as a musician may extemporise and jam, the performance is always based on the basics.