Grammar, not spelling, is the true impediment to clear expression Many are those who have wished to simplify English, but their efforts are misguided. Education is the correct answer 18 April 2021 • 7:01pm Prince Philip’s remarkable range of causes and passions has been exhaustively anatomised in the past week. But one that seems to have been largely overlooked was his interest in language reform. A former patron of the Simplified Spelling Society (now the English Spelling Society), he expressed his views in a 1964 interview: “I would like very much to see a simplified version of spelling introduced for English… as a medium for international communication.”