Here’s my proposal for a phonetic spelling system for English.
1) The only time letters might be doubled is when a vowel sound is held out long, for example, the end of “Utah”.
2) Many schwas are not represented by a letter–if there’s really a vowel sound in there, we don’t punt and call it a schwa, […]

English spelling is so busted, it sometimes amazes me that the language has been so successful. Take the letter “a” for example. Notice how it’s pronounced differently in each of the following words:
At
About
Father
Aim
Okay, there’s a rule for the last one: “when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.” Aha, so all of […]