Apparently, the National Spelling Bee is being picketed by the Simplified Spelling Society, because words like “knee” or “laugh” should be spelled differently. Who gets out of bed in the morning to picket irregular spelling? If a new, simpler spelling of a word catches on, like jail instead of gaol, fine, but people don’t seem to want that (as a conservative in temperament as well as politics, I sure don’t). The Washington Post 20-plus years ago changed its spelling of “employee” to eliminate the final “e” (“employe”), but it didn’t stick and they went back to the right spelling. I just hope the government doesn’t decide to get involved.