Spelling Reform 1 or Spelling Reform step 1 (more commonly known as SR1) is an English spelling reform proposal advocated by Harry Lindgren

Harry Lindgren

Harry Lindgren was a British/Australian engineer, linguist and amateur mathematician. He was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in England.In 1935 he emigrated to Australia...

. It calls for the short /ɛ/ sound (as in bet) to always be spelt with E. For example, friend would become frend and head would become hed. SR1 was part of a 50-stage reform that Lindgren advocated in his book Spelling Reform: A New Approach (1969).
It had some success in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. In 1975 the Australian Teachers' Federation

Australian Education Union

The Australian Education Union is an Australian trade union, founded in 1984 as the Australian Teachers Union, which is registered with Fair Work Australia as an employee group, and is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions...

 adopted SR1 as a policy, although the Federation dissolved in 1987. In Geoffrey Sampson

Geoffrey Sampson

Geoffrey Sampson is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex....

's book Writing Systems (1985) he wrote:

This simple spelling reform has been adopted widely by Australians. Many general interest paperbacks and the like are printed in SR1; under Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...

's Labor Government the Australian Ministry of Helth was officially so spelled (though, when Whitlam was replaced by a liberal administration, it reintroduced orthographic conservatism).

Examples: represented by a: any→eny represented by ai: said→sed represented by ea: ready→redy represented by ei: heifer→hefer represented by eo: jeopardy→jepardy represented by ie: friend→frend represented by u: bury→bery represented by ue: guess→gess

The following short poem is an example of SR1:

Draw a breth for progress,

Tred abrest ahed.

Fight agenst old spelling,

Better "red" than "read".

Spred the words at brekfast,

Mesure them in bed,

Dream of welth and tresure,

Better "ded" than "dead".

Simplified Spelling Society

Using SR1 as a starting point, the Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) created a five-part reform proposal called Stage 1. The proposals were first printed in the November 1983 edition of the society's newsletter. In April 1984 they were adopted as the 'house style

Style guide

A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field...

' of the SSS at its yearly meeting

Annual general meeting

An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...

. The SSS said that the reforms could be used either together or individually (as a step-by-step change).

Their four extra proposals are:

DUE
DUE stands for "Drop Useless Es". This proposal would remove the letter E from words where it is unneeded or misleading. This would mean dropping the E at the end of have but not at the end of behave, because the E makes the A sound longer (see "magic e

Silent E

Silent e is a writing convention in English spelling. A silent letter e at the end of a word often signals a specific pronunciation of the preceding vowel letter, as in the difference between "rid" and "ride" . This orthographic pattern followed the phonological changes of the Great Vowel Shift...

").

Thus: are→ar, were→wer, give→giv, have→hav, large→larg, some→som, because→becaus, gauze→gauz, leave→leav, freeze→freez, valley→vally, achieve→achiev, examine→examin, practise→practis, opposite→opposit, involve→involv, serve→serv, heart→hart.

ph
Change 'ph' to 'f' when it is sounded as /f/ .

Thus: photo→foto, telephone→telefone, physical→fysical.

augh

• Shorten ‘augh’ to ‘au’ when it is sounded as /ɔː/.

Thus: caught→caut, fraught→fraut, daughter→dauter.

• Change 'augh' to 'af' when it is sounded as /f/.

Thus: laugh→laf, draught→draft.

ough

• Shorten 'ough' to 'u' when it is sounded as /u/.

Thus: through→thru.

• Shorten 'ough' to ‘o’ when it is sounded as /əʊ/.

Thus: though→tho, although→altho (but doh for dough).

• Shorten ‘ough’ to ‘ou’ when it is sounded as /aʊ/.

Thus: bough→bou, drought→drout, plough→plou.

• Change 'ough' to ‘au’ when it is sounded as /ɔː/.

Thus: bought→baut, ought→aut, thought→thaut.

• Change 'ough' to 'of' or 'uf' (depending on the pronunciation) when there is the sound /f/.

Thus: cough→cof, enough→enuf, tough→tuf.

See also

• List of reforms of the English language
• Cut Spelling
  Cut Spelling
  Cut Spelling is a system of English-language spelling reform which reduces redundant letters and makes substitutions to improve correspondence with the spoken word. It was designed by Christopher Upward and was for a time being popularized by the Simplified Spelling Society. The resulting words are...
  
  
• Handbook of Simplified Spelling
• CJ Dennis