Improving English spelling

O reading problems

2010-10-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

(All posts on Improving English Spelling are listed at
http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/09/index.html )

The letter o is involved in many reading difficulties because of the overlaps between the spellings of o, o-e, ou, u, oo and ow
as shown below.
       Sounds     o          o-e              u            oo (long)  oo(short) ou
Spelling
   o                   on         only           other                           wolf
   o-e/ -o     gone   bone /no   done     move/do
   u                                                      cut            thruth         put
   oo                           brooch        flood          food         good
   Ou                           mould         couple       group        could        out
   Ow                          blown                                                                down

Reducing the ‘food/good’ problem would be tricky, because the short oo sound has no spelling of its own (wood, wolf, would). It’s pronunciation also varies between accents.

There is however no good reason to keep spelling
the short u sound with o, o-e and ou instead of u,
(* and sometimes to omit doubling the consonant after it as well):
Among, brother, colour*, comfort, compass, fishmonger, front, Monday, mongrel, monkey, month, mother, nothing, onion*, other, another, smother, somersault*, son, sponge, ton, won, wonder. Once [wunce],   stomach* [stummac], tongue [tung].     Above, come, cover*, done, dove, dozen, glove, handsome, honey*, love, money*, none, oven, shove, shovel, some.
One [wun].
Country, couple*, cousin*, courage*, double*, moustache, southern, touch, trouble*, young.
Enough, rough, tough [enuff, ruff, tuff].

Equally needless is spelling long oo with o-e, -o, ou and o
- improve, lose, move, movie, prove, whose, do, two, who,
group, mousse, route, soup, souvenir, through, toucan, you, wound [i.e. injury]),
tomb, whom, womb -
and using o instead of oa (as in 'oath, toast')
- both, comb, don't, ghost, most (+ almost), only, post, poster, programme.

Also gratuitous is the use of oll (as in 'doll') for ole (e.g. mole, stole)
- knoll, poll, roll, scroll, stroll, swollen, wholly.
and oul for ol (e.g. 'old') - boulder, mould, moult, shoulder, smoulder.

Reducing the irregular use of o, o-e, oll and ou in the above 103 common words would make learning to read them much easier. It would simultaneously improve the spellings of u, o-e/oa and long oo as well. Or conversely, if we made the spellings for short u, long oo and o-e more regular, we would make learning to read English much easier also.

The pages for long oo and o-e are the two most visited ones on my website www.EnglishSpellingProblems.co.uk. This suggests that the spellings for those sounds give teachers and students much trouble. The overlaps between the o spellings ‘on/only, go/do, one/bone, move/love, food/flood, dub/double, sound/soup’ are undoubtedly partly responsible for this.

Reducing the variant spellings for

o-e http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/08/o-e-oa-ol-o-ow-ou.html ,

–o http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/08/irregular-long-o-endings.html ,

oo http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/09/oo-spellings-and-exceptions.html ,

and short u http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/07/irregular-short-u.html ,

would therefore result in substantial reductions of both reading and spelling problems.

E, ea, ei, ie and a reading problems

2010-10-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/09/index.html
lists all posts on this blog.

The letter -e makes learning to read harder when used as a redundant ending
(margin, refine - engine, to deliberate – a deliberate act)
(http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/08/surplus-e-endings.html)
and as part of the letter pairs ea, ei and ie (treat – great, threat; ceiling – weight, height; field – friend, lied).
       Redundant –e endings create reading difficulties by undermining the English ‘open long’ / ‘closed short’ vowel rule (e.g. flat/inflate – climate). They add to the difficulties caused by undoubled consonants (bale, ballad - balance) and needlessly doubled ones (omit - commit). They are especially confusing for readers in the 25 words in which -ate endings change their pronunciation according to usage or context, such as ‘advocate’ [an advocat / to advocait].
       A final –v is habitually decorated with –e, irrespective of need (survive – negative). This makes some very common words tricky for beginning readers: gave - have;  five, alive - give, live; drove, stove - above, dove, glove, love, shove.

The main sound for ea is ee (e.g. eat, breathe... deal, real ...ear, near - in 149 common words), but in 47 words ea spells a short e sound and in 10 ear spells er, (e.g. breath, deaf, threat; early, earn, learn), as shown at http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/07/short-e-problems.html
In three identically-looking words ea has two sounds:
Lead (leed/led), read (reed/red), tear (teer/tair).
In another seven words ea replaces a-e or ai
(break, great, steak; bear, pear, swear, wear)
and in two more a (heart, hearth).
     Ea could be made much easier to read, if at least its use for short e was eliminated or greatly reduced. This would make its pronunciation far more predictable. The conflation of ‘I have red Mao’s red book’ would displease some, but this is surely better than expecting children to cope with ‘I read every day’ and ‘I read yesterday’? The chances of ‘red’ being used for both meanings in one sentence are slim, and would in any case be no more troublesome than ‘Did you mean to be so mean?’

Ei and ie cause reading difficulties
because they can both spell different sounds
(ceiling, veil, height; brief, friend, tie), and especially because
they are both used for spelling the ee-sound (seize, chief):
Ceiling, caffeine, codeine, conceive/conceit, deceive/deceit, perceive, receive/receipt, protein, seize, sheikh, weir, weird.
Achieve, belief/believe, brief, cavalier, chandelier, chief, diesel, field, fiend, fierce, friend, frontier, grief/grieve, handkerchief, hygienic, medieval, mischief, niece, piece, pierce, priest, relief/relieve, shield, shriek, siege, thief/thieve, tier, wield, yield.
     The simplest way of reducing both the reading and spelling difficulties caused by ei and ie would be to respell the 33 and 15 words in which they spell an ee sound with ee
(e.g. conceive, protein – like ‘proceed’ and ‘canteen’,
achieve, cavalier – like ‘sleeve’ and ‘pioneer’).
This would help to make the highly irregular spellings of the ee-sound (currently spelt with ea in 152 words, 133 ee, 86 e-e, 33 ei, 15 ie, 29 i-e and 13 assorted others) a little more regular too.

A reading problems
In addition to the variable pronunciation of –ate endings (inflate – climate) caused by redundant use of –e, the pronunciation of the letter a is tricky mainly before l and ll:
All, alligator, ally, alley, ball, ballet, callous, calling, fall, fallen, gallery, galling, gallon, gallop, gallows, hallowed, hall, mall, mallet, shall, shallow, small, stall, stallion, tall, valley, wall.
Also, always, balcony, balance, bald, chalk, halve, salmon, salt, stalk, talcum, talk, walk, walnut, walrus.
The reading of -al- and -all- could be made easier by reducing inappropriate use of al for aul (bald, ball - cf. fault, maul). This would also help to reduce the irregularity of the highly variable spellings for the au sound (haul - fall, crawl, bought, caught).

A has a variable sound in a few dozen other words as well:
Away, awake, awful, awkward, water.
Able, cable, gable, stable, table – tablet, vegetables.
Angel, ancient, April, apron - and, ant, apt....
Any, many - and Amy
Change, dangerous, pastry, strange - angle, dangle, jangle.

For speakers of standard British English, the pronunciation of a is made trickier by 81 words in which a is pronounced as in ‘car’ and ‘father’ (not as in ‘fat’ and ‘gather’):
Ask, bask, blast, cask, cast, caste, clasp, fast, flabbergast, flask, gasp, ghastly, grasp, last, mask, mast, past, rascal, task, vast, brass, class, glass, grass, pass.
Advance, avalanche, banana, branch, chance, dance, chant, enhance, glance, lance, plant, prance, slant, soprano, stance, trance.
After, craft, daft, draft, giraffe, graft, graph, raft, shaft, staff.
Almond, calf, calm, half, halve, palm, gala.
Drama, example, panorama, salami. Bath, path, lather, rather.
Baa, bra, la, ma, pa, spa, ah, hurrah, shah,
armada, fuselage, promenade, strata, vase.
I cannot see a solution to this last problem, other than speakers of British English adopting the more common pronunciation of those words.

Main reading problems

2010-10-06T03:58:00.000-07:00

http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/09/index.html  lists all items on this blog.

The biggest difference between English spelling and other writing systems is that it causes both writing and reading difficulties. Spelling problems are posed by several other languages too, such as French (ou - tout, choux) and German (wir – hier, ihr), although not as much or quite as unpredictably as in English (speech, speak; seize, siege; proceed, concede ...) . In addition to having more words with irregular spellings (at least 3700), English also has 2039 common words in which identical letters have different pronunciations (e.g. on – only, once, other, tomb). See Sight Words at http://www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk/ .

In other languages the use of identical letters for different sounds is regarded as abuse of the alphabetic principle and is simply not allowed, except for newly imported foreign words. When they become part of common vocabulary, they get respelt according to the rules of their spelling system, as used to happen in English too (boeuf – beef, povre – poor, souple – supple).

Unlike other orthographies, English spelling can therefore be improved not only by reducing irregular spellings for identical sounds, such as 'stole - stroll, coal, bowl',  but also by reducing the use of identical letters for different sounds (sound – soup, couple). The latter would make learning to read English easier and would probably bring even greater educational benefits than a reduction of spelling problems.

The ability to read is more essential for other learning and for coping with everyday life. It helps with learning to spell too, by aiding the imprinting of ‘correct’ spellings on our brains. When trying to identify the spelling changes which would bring the greatest educational gains, it is therefore always worth considering if they would make learning to read easier too.

Not all irregular spellings have irregular sounds, e.g. ‘bite, kite – bright, light’. And of the 69 spellings which have some irregular pronunciations
http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-problems.html
many have them in just a few words, e.g. 'ai' in ‘said’ [sed] ‘plait’ [plat] and 'plaid' [plad].

The greatest reading difficulties are caused by the following 11 spellings:
a (and - any, apron)
-e (locate - delicate)
ea (treat – threat, great),
ei (veil – ceiling, height),
ie (field – friend, diet),
o (on – only, once, other, wolf),
o-e (bone – done, move, women),
ou (sound – soup, couple, shoulder, should)
oo (food – good, blood)
ow (down – blown)
    and
undoubled consonants after short, stressed vowels, (e.g. hideous - cf hidden, hide).

Undoubled consonants cause reading difficulties because they break the English ‘open long’ / ‘closed short’ vowel rule for a, e, i, o and u (e.g. came/mammal - camel; tedious/teddy - edible; hide/hidden - hideous; hole/holly - holiday; student/studded - study).

Needlessly doubled consonants (arise – arrive; acolyte – accord) occur predominantly in less common words and pose fewer reading problems for English-speaking beginners, although they are distracting for them too. They suggest the wrong stress. The gratuitously doubled letters in 'apply' and 'occur', for example, make them look as if they have the same 1st letter stress as 'apple, appetite' and 'occupy'.

Amending the 384 words with undoubled consonants (e.g. cabin, robin, radish) would help to make both learning to read and write English much easier, but deleting the needlessly doubled ones (afford, commit – cf. afar, omit) would help too.

The spelling difficulties which irregular consonant doubling creates are explained at http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/consonant-doubling-difficulties.html
with the words listed at http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/double-trouble.html

Index

2010-09-17T03:26:00.000-07:00

Air and au

2010-09-16T05:22:00.000-07:00

In comparison to the other 10 spelling inconsistencies which I have listed at http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/worst-irregularities-of-english.html and discussed in detail one by one, the irregularities of air and au are relatively minor.

The air-sound occurs in just 57 common words, 31 of which spell it with are or ‘open ar’ (Mary, malaria):
Bare, blare, care, dare, fare, flare, glare, hare, mare, pare, rare, scare, share, snare, spare, square, stare, ware. Area, aware, compare, declare, parent, prepare.
Hilarious, malaria, various, vegetarian.
Canary, Mary, wary.
     But nearly as many words spell it differently,
with only 15 using the easier-to-read air spelling:
Air, chair, fair, flair, hair, lair, pair, stairs,
dairy, prairie, affair, despair, éclair, repair, questionnaire.
Bear, pear, swear, wear, tear [tair /teer].
Aerial, aeroplane, aerobatics.
Heir, their/there, where.
     Despite the relatively small number of words with an air-sound, they cause quite a few reading and spelling difficulties. The their/there heterograph produces more spelling errors than any other English spelling irregularity, among children and adults alike. For some people this gets aggravated by they’re (the shortened version of ‘they are’).
     The redundant –e on the high frequency word ‘are’ complicates the decoding of the -are spelling in words like ‘care, dare, rare’ for beginning readers . They are also not helped by ‘there’ looking as if it should rhyme with ‘here’. The two pronunciations of ‘tear’ (teer and tair) cause difficulties too. (The main sound of ‘ear’ is ‘eer’, as in ‘ear, hear, near’, unlike ‘bear, pear’ etc.)
-----------------------------------------------------------
The au-sound has more exceptional spellings than air (39 au v 86 assorted different ones).
Its spelling is least predictable in the 53 words in which the au sound is followed by –l:
Haul/hall, maul, Paul;
All, ball, call, recall, fall, gall, pall, small, squall, stall, tall, wall.
Appal, install, instalment.
Bawl, brawl, crawl, drawl, scrawl, shawl, sprawl, trawl.
Almost, already, also, altogether, always.
Fault, vault. Assault, somersault; cauldron, tarpaulin.
Altar, alter, (alternate, alternative), falter, halt, salt,
bald, scald, chalk stalk, talk, walnut, walrus, waltz.
poultry.

Before –t, the spellings are also random:
Astronaut, cosmonaut, nautical, taut,
Caught, daughter, haughty, naughty, slaughter, taught.
Bought, brought, fought, nought, ought, sought, thought.

The spellings of another 26 words with au
- auburn, auction, audible, August, authentic, author,
authorise, automatic, autonomy, autumn,
daub, gaudy, sauce, saucer, haunt, jaunt, launch, launder, staunch, taunt,
applause, cause, pause, Santa-Claus, exhaust, caution -
are made trickier by:
Awe, awful, awkward, awning, bawdy, dawdle, hawk, squawk,
broad.

As a final sound and before a final –n, the au-sound is consistently spelt aw:
Claw, draw, flaw, gnaw, jaw, saw, straw, thaw, law, paw, raw.
Brawn, dawn, drawn, fawn, lawn, pawn, prawn, sawn, spawn, yawn.
     This is problematic only for speakers of standard UK English in which au has the same sound as or.
For them, it worsens the unpredictable spellings of:
Bore, chore, core, fore, gore, more, ore, pore, score, shore, snore, sore, store, tore,
swore, wore.
For, nor, or.
Door, floor, moor, poor.
Four (fourth, fourteen, forty), pour, tour, your.
Oar, boar, roar, soar.
War, warm, warn.

Oo - spellings and exceptions

2010-09-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

The different spellings for the long oo sound
create another long rote-learning list. Oo is the main spelling for the long oo sound, but just as many words spell this sound differently:
Baboon, balloon, bloom, boom, boon, boost, boot, brood, broom, cartoon, choose, cocoon, cool, coop, doom, droop, food, fool, gloom, goose, groom, groove, harpoon, hoof, hooligan, hoop, hoot, lagoon, loom, loop, loose, loosen, loot, macaroon, maroon, mood, moon, moor, moose/mousse, moot, mushroom, noodle, noon, noose, pontoon, poodle, pool, poor, proof, roof, room, root/route, saloon, school, schooner, scoop, scoot, scooter, shoot/chute, smooth, snooker, soon, soothe, spoof, spook, spool, spoon, stool, stoop, swoon, swoop, tool, tooth, troop/troupe, whoop, zoom.
Boo, coo/coup, goo, loo, moo, shoo/shoe/choux, too /to /two, woo, zoo,
bamboo, cockatoo, hullabaloo, igloo, kangaroo, shampoo, tattoo, voodoo, yahoo.
Pooh.
Brutal, brute, crucial, crude, fluent, fluid, Fluke, flute, frugal, glucose, guru, intrude, jubilant, July, June, Jupiter, Jury, Juvenile, lubricate, ludo, ludicrous, lukewarm, luminous, lunar, lunatic, plural, prune, recluse, ruby, rude, ruined, rule, rural, secluded, truant, truce, truly, zulu,
acoustic, bivouac, boutique, coupon, group, recoup, soup, toucan, tourist, wound, youth,
bruise, cruise, fruit, recruit, sluice,
lose, move, prove,
tomb, womb,
shrewd, strewn,
gruesome, sleuth, truth, manoeuvre.
Blew/blue, brew, crew, drew, flew/flu/flue, grew, screw, shrew, slew, threw/through, cashew.
Clue, glue, rue, true, accrue, construe,
Gnu.
Do, who, lasso. Canoe. You.

The oo spelling causes reading difficulties, as well as spelling ones, for many children,
because it spells the shorter oo sound too:
Good, hood, stood, wood. Book, brook, cook, hook, look, rook, shook, took.
Wool. Whoosh. Foot.
The spelling of short oo is also irregular. And just like the oo spelling (good - food, mood), all the other graphemes used for it are more usual for other sounds (u in ‘put’ – but, cut, nut;
‘oul’ in ‘could’ – mould, shoulder, boulder;
o in ‘wolf’ and ‘woman’ – golf, wonton):
Bull, bullet, bullion, bush, butcher, cuckoo, cushion, full, pull, put, pudding, pussy, push, sugar, shush.
Could, should, would. Courier.
Wolf, woman.

Ee-sound spellings

2010-09-05T03:22:00.000-07:00

The irregular spellings for the ee sound, create a rote-learning list of 457 words (the second longest after consonant doubling), with the different spellings often making no sense at all (e.g. speak speech, seize siege). Their irregularity is not due to influences from other languages. There was, for example, no need to give the French ‘recevoir’, an extra i (receive), or to end up with different spellings for proceed and precede.

Chaucer (1343-1400), who gave post-Norman English the spelling system which still forms the basis of the present one, spelt the ee-sound mainly with the open vowel method (kene, mene; leve, sleve; resoun, sesoun).
In the Chaucer texts available to us now, identical words sometimes have different spellings (bene/been, sene/seen) but this inconsistency may be due entirely to copying errors by scribes and printers. He wrote a poem to his scribe Adam in which he complains about the errors which he kept committing (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jul/20/highereducation.books). Some copiers clearly had difficulty learning Chaucer’s newly created English spelling system.

The greatest dilution of spelling consistency for the ee-sound occurred in the 16th century - with the introduction of ea (mean, leave, reason). Gradually this new fashion became increasingly popular. Expanding its use to some words with short e as well (dread, feathers, early), made learning to read and write English much more difficult than with Chaucer’s simpler spellings (dred, fethers, erly).

Now the ee sound is spelt predictably only in the stressed endings of longer words:
agree, chimpanzee, degree, dungarees, employee, guarantee, interviewee, jamboree, jubilee, marquee, referee, refugee, settee, trustee.

Among the 457 unpredictable spellings for the ee sound, are 48 words with two spellings:
Bee/be, beech/beach, been/bean, beet/beat, breech/breach, cheep/cheap, creek/creak, deer/dear, discreet/discrete, eerie/eyrie, eve/eaves, feet/feat, flee/flea, freeze/frieze, jeans/genes, Greece/grease, heel/heal, hear/here, key/quay, leech/leach, leek/leak, meet/meat, need/knead, pee/pea, peace/piece, peek/peak, peel/peal, peer/pier, reed/read, reek/wreak, reel/real, sealing/ceiling, seamen/semen, see/sea , seem/seam, seen/scene, serial/cereal, sheer/shear, sheikh/chic, steel/steal, sweet/suite, tee/tea, teem/team, wee/we, week/weak, wheel/weal
+ (in UK English) geezer/geyser, leaver/lever.
Many other words with an ee sound have several meanings but just one spelling (lean, mean, seal), and some spellings for it have more than one pronunciation (lead, read, tear: leed/led, reed/red, teer/tair).

The other 361 words with an ee sound are spelt as follows.
Ee: beef, beer, beetle, between, bleed, bleep, breed, breeze, career, cheek, cheer, cheese, cheetah, creep, deed, deep, eel, exceed, feeble, feed, feel, fleece, fleet, geese, greed, green, greet, indeed, jeep, jeer, keel, keen, keep, kneel, meek, needle, peep, pioneer, preen, proceed, proceedings, proceeds, queen, queer, reef, screech, screen, seed, seek, seep, seesaw, sheep, sheet, sleek, sleep, sleet, sleeve, smithereens, sneer, sneeze, speech, speed, squeeze, steep, steeple, steer, street, succeed, sweep, sweet, teeth, teetotal, thirteen, tweed, tweezers, weed, weep, wheedle, wheeze, wildebeest.
Ea: appeal, beacon, bead, beak, beam, beard, beast, beaver, beneath, bleach, bleak, bleat, breathe, cease, cheat, clean, clear, colleague, conceal, congeal, cream, crease, creature, deal, dean, decrease, defeat, disease, dream, dreary, each, eager, eagle, ear, ease, east, Easter, eat, fear, feast, feature, freak, gear, gleam, glean, heap, heat, heath, heathen, heave, increase, lead, leaf, league, lean, leap, lease, leash, least, leave, meagre, meal, mean, measles, near, neat, ordeal, peach, peat, plead, please, pleat, preach, queasy, reach, really, reap, rear, reason, release, repeat, retreat, reveal, scream, seal, sear, season, seat, sheaf, sheath, smear, sneak, speak, spear, squeak, squeal, squeamish, steam, streak, stream, teach, teak, tear, tease, theatre, treacle, treason, treat, treaty, veal, wean, weary, weasel, weave, wheat, wreath, year, yeast, zeal.
Open e: he, me, she,
adhesive, arena, cafeteria, cathedral, cedar, chameleon, Chinese, comedian, compete, complete, concrete, convene, convenient, decent, demon, equal, era, even, evil, experience, exterior, extreme, female, fever, frequent, genie, genius, hero, hyena, imperial, inferior, ingredient, intermediate, legal, legion, lenient, material, medium, mere, meteor, meter, millipede, mysterious, obedient, period, peter, polythene, precede, previous, query, recent, recess, region, relay, scheme, sequence, sequin, series, serious, serum, species, sphere, stampede, strategic, superior, supreme, swede, tedious, theme, theory, these, torpedo, trapeze, vehicle, Venus, zero.
Open i: albino, antique, aubergine, bikini, clementine, fatigue, guillotine, machine, magazine, margarine, marine, mosquito, plasticine, police, prestige, ravine, regime, routine, sardine, suite, tambourine, tangerine, trampoline, unique, vaseline, pizza.
Ie: achieve, belief, believe, brief , chief, diesel, field, fiend, fierce, grief, grieve, hygienic, medieval, niece, pierce, priest, relief, relieve, shield, shriek, siege, thief, thieve, tier, wield, yield.
Ei: Caffeine, codeine, protein, seize, weir, weird,
conceive /coneit, deceive /deceit, receive /receipt.
Assorted irregulars: People; cathedral, secret; pizza, ski, souvenir, debris.

Irregular a-e and i-e

2010-08-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

The a-e spelling (of ‘face, fate, flame’)
has quite a few exceptions too. It is least predictable when followed by the letter l (13 ale and 18 ail), with seven words having two spellings for that syllable:
Ale/ail, bale/bail, male/mail, pale/pail, sale/sail, tale/tail, whale/wail,   dale, female, gale, inhale, scale, stale,
assail, cocktail, detail, fail, hail, jail, prevail, rail, retail, snail, trail.

When the a-e/ai sound is followed by n, it is spelt mainly ain:
Abstain, again, ascertain, attain, brain, chain, chilblain, complain, contain, detain, drain, explain, gain, grain, obtain, , refrain, remain, retain, slain, sprain, stain, strain, sustain, train;
acquaint, ain’t, faint, paint, quaint, saint.
This subgroup has 16 exceptions, and five words have more than one spelling:
Crane, lane, main/mane, pain/pane, plain/plane, sane, membrane, rain/reins/reign; reindeer, vain/vein,   skein;
deign, feign, campaign, champagne.

Another 46 words all disobey the main a-e pattern in various ways:
Able, cable, cradle, fable, gable, ladle, sabre, stable, table
(cf. label)
Aid, made/maid, braid, laid, afraid, paid, raid.
Brake/break, stake/steak.
Aim, claim, exclaim, maim, proclaim.
Haste, paste, taste, waste/waist; place/plaice.
Daisy, praise, raise, raisin.
Ate/eight, bate/bait, grate/great, straight/straits, wait/weight,
fête, freight, traitor, waiter.
Faith, neighbour.

The i-e spelling (of ‘file, fine, kite’)
is disobeyed by 82 words, but is unpredictable in a total of 103, because the use of ite/ight is completely random (22 v 22):
bite/bight, knight/night, mite/might, rite/right/write, slight/ sleight(of hand),
ammonite, appetite, despite, dynamite, excite, ignite, invite, kite, polite, quite, recite, satellite, site, spite, termite, trite, unite, white,
blight, bright, fight, flight, fright, light, sight, tight, alight, delight, lightning, mighty,   fahrenheit, height, indict.
The words with -ight are all of Germanic origin, but those which have survived into modern German now have spellings which cause neither reading nor spelling problems: e.g. flight - Flug, fright – Furcht, light – Licht.

In 16 words with l and n there is nothing to show that the i is long:
child, mild, wild, whilst,
behind, bind, blind, find, grind, hind, kind, mind, ninth, pint, rind, wind.
This makes learning to read similar-looking words harder:
children, mildew, wilderness, wildebeest; hinder, kindle, windy (weather), window.
In the 16th century words ending with a d-sound were nearly all spelt with an extra –e (childe, wilde, finde). It would have been better not to delete it from words in which i has a long sound, if moving it where it should be (chiled, wiled, fined) seemed too drastic.
It is puzzling why 'nine lost its e in ‘ninth’, while ‘height’ was given a surplus e (cf. high).

Nineteen words break the i-e pattern in various ways:
Eye/I. Aisle, bible (cf. libel), bridle, choir, climb, disciple, eider-down, idle, island, kaleidoscope, resign, sign, scythe, stifle, trifle + (in UK English) either, neither.

In 25 English words (mainly less common ones, of Greek orgin) long i is spelt y, sometimes with omission or displacement of e as well;
Asylum, cycle, cypress, dyke, dynamic, dynamite, dynamo, hyacinth, hydrangea, hydrogen, hyena, hygrometer, hypothesis, nylon, paralyse, psychology, pylon, python, rhyme, scythe, style, thyroid, type, tyrant, tyre.
The use of y for i creates reading as well as spelling difficulties, because y can spell short i too:
Cycle/cyclical, type/typical, tyrant/tyranny.

Irregular long –o endings

2010-08-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

English sometimes also uses the open o for spelling the long o-sound in word endings (‘no, go’ as opposed to ‘not, got’ where the t closes the vowel and makes it short).

The –o spelling has the alternative –ow (slow) and several others (50 –o v 59 others):
Go, no, fro, pro, so/sow/sew.
Ago, albino, also, armadillo, banjo, bingo, buffalo, cargo, cello, disco, domino, duo, dynamo, echo, Eskimo, flamingo, halo, hello, hero, judo, motto, piano, piccolo, Pluto, polo, potato, pseudo, radio, ratio, solo, soprano, studio, tango, tobacco, tomato, tornado, torpedo, trio, video, volcano, zero.
Blow, bow, crow, flow /floe, glow, grow, know, low, mow, row/ roe, show, slow/sloe, snow, stow, throw, tow/ toe.
Doe, foe, hoe, woe.
Dough, though.
Oh. Owe.
And in words of more than one syllable:
Arrow, barrow, bellow, below, billow, bungalow, burrow, elbow, fellow, follow, gallows, hollow, marrow, narrow, pillow, shadow, shallow, swallow, sorrow, sparrow, tomorrow, wallow, widow, willow, window, yellow.
Oboe. Cocoa. Pharaoh. Depot.

The pronunciation of –ough is famous for its variability: Though, through, cough, rough, bough (tho, throo, cof, ruf, bou). English words with -ough are all of Germanic origin, but in modern German their relations have phonic spellings (doch, durch, keuchen, rauh, Bug).

The –ow endings have two pronunciations and therefore create reading difficulties too (low now; follow allow), especially with the spellings of ‘bow, row’ and ‘sow’. These each spell two entirely different words, with different pronunciations in different contexts. The reading and spelling progress of young children would be greatly assisted by cutting the redundant letters after –o in all words which end with a long o-sound.

The different meanings and pronunciations of ‘bow, row’ and ‘sow’ (a red bou, bo your head; a loud rou, 1st ro, ro a boat; a fat sou, so some grass) show, once again, that spelling differentiations like 'flow /floe, row/ roe, so/sow/sew, slow/sloe, tow/toe' are completely gratuitous. Even if it was deemed that some of these must survive, the current memorisation burden for 109 words with –o/ -ow/ -oe/ -ough/ etc, could easily be made much smaller.

Early scribes and printers appear to have become muddled over the use of u and doubled u after o (thou, now, show). The doubled u after o in words which end with a long o-sound (blow, snow, show) is clearly redundant. It is another surviving relic from the common 16th practice of adding extra letters willy-nilly, like the many surplus –e endings discussed earlier.

O-e / oa / ol / o / ow / ou ...

2010-08-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

Of the four vowels a, i, o, and u for which English uses mainly the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ system for showing when they are long or short (male /mallet; mile /millet; mole /mollusc; mule /mullet) - the spellings for long o are the most irregular.

For the most frequently used English words, learning to spell this sound is simply a matter of memorisation word by word, as only 81 words use the o-e spelling, while at least 100 use either oa, o, ol, ow, ou, and some rarer ones (brooch, comb, goes, gross, sewn, mauve).

Robe, October – noble.
Code, rode, soda, strode. Load, road, toad.
Approach, cockroach, coach, poach. Brooch.
Sofa. Oaf, loaf.
Broke, choke, joke, poke, smoke, spoke, stoke, stroke, woke.
Cloak, croak, oak, soak.
Dole, hole, mole, pole, polar, role, sole, stole, stolen, whole, holy, tadpole.
Coal, foal, goal, shoal.
Knoll, poll, roll, scroll, stroll, toll, troll, swollen, wholly.
Control, enrol, patrol.
Soul. Bowl.
Bold, cold, fold, gold, hold, old, scold, sold, solder, soldier, told.
Mould, shoulder, smoulder.
Folk, yolk. Holster.
Bolt, colt, dolt, jolt, revolt.
Moult.
Dome, home. Foam, roam. Comb.
Alone, bone, bony, cone, drone, lonely, phone, pony, stone, throne, tone, zone.
Groan, loan, moan.
Blown, grown, known, mown, own, shown, sown, thrown, rowan.
Only *1. Sewn.
Cope, grope, hope, pope, rope, scope, slope, opal, open. Soap.
Grocer, close, dose. Gross.
Boast, coast, roast, toast. Host, most, post *2, postal, poster.
Note, wrote, motel, notice, remote, total.
Boat, coat, float, gloat, goat, stoat, throat, oats.
Clothes. Loathe. Oath. Both, sloth. Growth.
Cove, drove, clover, over, wove, alcove. Mauve.
Arose, chose, chosen, close, hose, nose, pose, rose, primrose, suppose.
Doze, froze, frozen, bulldoze.
Goes. Coax.
*1 The missing e in ‘only’ (cf. lonely) is especially puzzling, as the word is clearly related to ‘one’.
*2 It is also a pity for beginning readers that the earlier spellings of ‘hoste, moste, poste’ were deprived of their –e endings in the generally sensible 17th century cull, making them look as if they rhyme with ‘cost, frost, lost’. - The surviving –e on ‘paste, haste, taste, waste’, by contrast, helps to differentiate them from ‘blast, cast, fast, past, last’.

The tidying up of English spelling by pamphleteers of the English Civil War (1642-9) was done mainly to get the maximum number of words on a page. Improving the consistency of English spelling was largely a by-product of this, although making their writings more widely accessible may have motivated them a little too.

Learning to spell the o-e sound gets easier as pupils move up through school, because more sophisticated words tend to use the pattern more reliably:
Chrome, commotion, component, compose, casserole, devoted, diploma, dispose, elope, explode, expose, heroic, impose, Joseph, jovial, local, locate, lotion, mobile, mode, moment, motive, node, nomad, note, oboe, ocean, omen, oval, oppose, opponent, poem, postpone, potion, proboscis, process, programme, promote, proposal, protest, quote, Roman, rover, slogan, sober, sociable, social, socialist, solar, token, trombone, utopia, vocal, vote, yodel, yoke, zodiac.

Surplus -e endings

2010-08-01T02:18:00.000-07:00

In addition to omitted consonant doubling after short vowels (offer - profit), using them needlessly (afraid - afford) and alternative spellings for some sounds (much, mud – touch, flood), the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ method for spelling long and short vowels (mate, mat, matter) is also seriously undermined by the use of surplus –e endings.

In the 16th century most words were sometimes decorated with an extra –e (olde worlde wordes), if a writer or printer felt like it, or there was spare space at the end of a line. In the 17th century most redundant -e endings were dropped. Unfortunately several dozen escaped the cull and survive still, predominantly after the letters n, t and v, and continue to make learning to read and write more difficult than need be.

The pronunciation of the 24 relatively common words ending with –ine (having a long i-e sound)
- combine, confine, decline, define, dine, divine, fine, incline, line, mine, nine, pine, porcupine, saline, shine, shrine, spine, swine, turbine, twine, valentine, vine, whine, wine -
is undermined by at least 16 words with –ine spelling -een (as in ‘canteen’)
- chlorine, clementine, gasoline, guillotine, machine, magazine, margarine, marine, plasticine, ravine, routine, sardine, tambourine, tangerine, trampoline, vaseline .
But the sound of –ine is made even more uncertain by the 16 words with a surplus –e after -in:
- destine, determine, discipline, doctrine, examine, engine, famine, feminine, genuine, heroine, imagine, intestine, jasmine, masculine, medicine, urine.
They make the spelling of all words ending with an -in sound less certain too:
- aspirin, basin, boffin, cabin, catkin, coffin, dolphin, gherkin, goblin, mandarin, margin, origin, penguin, pumpkin, raisin, sequin, tarpaulin, urchin, vermin, violin.

The surplus –e’s in –one (gone, scone, shone)
undermine the phonic reliability of the pattern in ‘bone, cone, phone, etc’.

Perhaps even more detrimental for literacy learning is the redundant –e in 30 –ate endings:
Accurate, adequate, affectionate, candidate, chocolate, climate, considerate, corporate, delicate, desperate, extortionate, fortunate, frigate, illiterate, immaculate, immediate, intermediate, intricate, laureate, legitimate, obstinate, palate, passionate, pirate, private, proportionate, senate, temperate, ultimate, vertebrate
(cf. acrobat, democrat).
They undermine the phonic reliability of words in which –ate has the regular -ait sound:
Crate, date, fate, gate, grate, hate, late, mate, plate, rate, skate, slate, state.
Accelerate, accommodate, accumulate, aggravate, agitate, amputate, appreciate, asphyxiate, assassinate, calculate, celebrate, circulate, commemorate, complicate, concentrate, confiscate, congratulate, create, cremate, cultivate, debate, decorate, dedicate, demonstrate, dominate, donate, eliminate, emigrate, estate, evacuate, exaggerate, exasperate, excavate, extricate, germinate, gyrate, hesitate, hibernate, humiliate, illuminate, illustrate, impersonate, indicate, inflate, infuriate, inoculate, interrogate, investigate, legislate, locate, lubricate, magistrate, migrate, navigate, obliterate, operate, participate, penetrate, pollinate, relate, rotate, saturate, suffocate, terminate, tolerate, translate, vaccinate, vibrate.

Even trickier are the 25 -ate endings which change their pronunciation according to usage or context (e.g. advocate: an advocat / to advocait):
Advocate, alternate, appropriate, approximate, articulate, associate, certificate, co-ordinate, degenerate, delegate, deliberate, designate, desolate, dictate, duplicate, elaborate, estimate, graduate, intimate, laminate, moderate, separate, subordinate, syndicate, triplicate.
This use of identical spellings for different sounds makes nonsense of spelling differentiations, such as ‘there/their’ or ‘it’s/its’, with which we give pupils a hard time.

The pointless –e’s of
Definite, exquisite, granite, infinite, opposite (cf. admit, bandit, benefit, culprit, hermit...)
don’t help with learning to read
ammonite , appetite, despite, dynamite, excite, ignite, invite, polite, recite, satellite, termite, unite.

The habitual decorating of a final ‘v’ with –e also obscures vowel length in reading
Have – save;
give, live – dive, drive, five, jive, skive, strive, thrive (cf. ‘spiv’);
Above, dove, glove, love, shove,
Cove, drove, stove, wove, alcove.

We can teach children that in longer words the –e of –ive tends to serve no purpose
- creative, decisive, defensive, detective, exclusive, expensive, explosive, extensive, forgive, fugitive, give, impressive, initiative, massive, motive, narrative, native, olive, perspective, positive, primitive, productive, progressive, prospective, radioactive, relative, respective, selective, sensitive, subjective -
but occasionally it does:
alive, arrive, revive, survive.

Dropping the 19 surplus –e’s after n and the 60 after t would do enormous good, but even just cutting them from ‘give, have’ and ‘live’ (to differentiate it from the adjective ‘live’) would be of some help.

Irregularly spelt short u

2010-07-14T03:25:00.000-07:00

In 48 common English words the short u-sound of ‘fun, sun, summer’, is spelt o. This happened mainly because before the arrival of printing in England in 1476, copiers of handwritten books disliked having too many short downward strokes next to each other, as would result from a sensible spelling of ‘munth’. When an u-sound occurred next to the letters m, n, v and w, they often spelt it with o instead. The practice has become known as ‘minim stroke avoidance’ and was mostly abolished after the invention of printing (much, mud, summer), but continues to survive in 48 words.

The minim stroke avoidance probably started with v and w, because the v-sound and short u-sound were both spelt with the letter u until almost 1700, as can still be seen in many inscriptions in old churches. This is also why w is called ‘double u’.

‘Luue’ and ‘duue’ would have been a little hard to read before the introduction of v, but there is no good reason why the u-sound next to v should continue be spelt o. Nor is there any need to continue decorating a final v with –e, irrespective of need (e.g. drove - glove, stove - love). At one time printers were fond decorating nearly all words with an extra –e (olde, worlde, worde). Most have since been dropped, except after v.

* Many of the 48 words with an irregular o have missing doubled consonants too (e.g. onion):
Above, among, come, comfort, company, compass,
*cover, *covet, *covenant, done, dove, front,
glove, *govern, *honey, love,
Monday, *money, monger, mongrel, monk, monkey, month, mother, none, nothing, once, *onion, *oven, pommel, shove, *shovel, slovenly, some, smother, son, sponge, stomach*, ton, tongue,
won, wonder, worry,
one,
brother, other,
*colour, *dozen.

Why ‘one’ has ended up without its w is a mystery.
‘Brother’ and ‘other’ probably acquired their o by analogy with 'mother'.
‘Colour’ and ‘dozen’ derive from the French words ‘couleur’ and ‘douzaine’, but have been shorn of the wrong letter.

Most imports from French have been respelt according to English rules, to show their changed English pronunciation, (e.g. bouger – budge, bouton - button, souple – supple), but 7 words with a short u-sound still conform mostly to French rather than English rules:
*Couple, *courage, *cousin, *double,
*nourish, touch, *trouble.
In the earliest editions of Shakespeare’s plays ‘cousin’ is often spelt ‘cuzzen’.

Another 12 words have ended up with irregular spellings for the short u-sound (sometimes with other irregularities too, e.g. enough) for assorted, often no longer fathomable reasons:
blood, flood, country, does, enough,
hiccough, rough, slough, southern, tough, *thorough, young.

It is frequently claimed that many English spelling irregularities are valuable because they show how English connects with other languages. The spellings of ‘blood, flood, brother’ and ‘mother’ show that this is often also not the case.

‘Blood, flood, brother’ and ‘mother’ are clearly related to the German words ‘Blut, Flut, Bruder’ and 'Mutter’. Their irregular English spellings obscure their Germanic roots, as well as making learning to read and write more difficult.

All the 67 tricky words with irregular spellings for the short u-sound could easily comply with the English spelling patterns of 'fun run' and 'sumptuous summer'. 'Summer' somehow managed to end up spelt regularly, despite its relation to the German ‘Sommer’ and having an u next to an m, just as 'sum' and 'pump' have, despite their connection with French 'somme' and 'pompe'.

If spelt as shown, the words below would all be much easier to learn to read and write:
Abuv, amung, blud, bruther, cumpas, culler, cum, cumfort, cumpany, cuntry, cupple, currage, cuvvenant, cuvver, cuvvet, cuzzen, dubble, dun, dus, duv, duzzen, inuf, flud, frunt, gluv, guvvern, hickup, hunny, luv, Munday, munger, mungrel, munk, munky, munny, munth, muther, nun, nurrish, nuthing, pummel, ruf, shuv, shuvl, sluf, sluvnly, smuther, spunge, stummac, sum, sun, suthern, thurru, trubble, tuch, tuf, tun, tung, unnion, uther, uvn, wun, wunce, wunder, wurry, yung.

The simplest spelling for 'couple, double, pommel' and 'trouble' would really be 'cupl, dubl, puml' and 'trubl'. The patterns exemplified by 'bubble', 'rubble' and 'pummel' are hangovers from the time when unnecessary letter doublings and extra e's were common (hadde olde shoppe). They have many exceptions as well (triple, model) and are ripe for simplification.

Irregularly spelt short e

2010-07-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

Improving the irregular spellings of the short e and u sounds would most help to improve the literacy progress of young children. They cause more reading and spelling difficulties than the variant spellings for a, i or o, because they are more numerous and occur in more everyday English words.

The short a of ‘sad cat’ and ‘rang’ is spelt differently in just ‘plaid, plait’ and ‘meringue. The short o of ‘on hot spot’ is spelt mostly predictably too. It has the exceptions ‘cough, trough, laurel’ and ‘sausage’ and is made slightly more complex by its sub-patterns wa and qua (swap, squat), but these are almost entirely regular (except ‘wont’ and ‘wonted’).

Short i is irregular in 53 words, but predominantly in relatively uncommon ones, 45 of which use y:
Abyss, crypt, crystal, cyclical, cygnet, cymbals, cyst, eucalyptus, gym, hymn, hypnotise, lynch, lynx, mystery, myth, Olympics, rhythm, syllable, symbol, symmetry, sympathy, symptom, synchronise, syndicate, syndrome, synthesis, system - all with a stressed i-sound; and unstressed y for i in: Analysis, bicycle, chrysanthemum, hysterical, pyjamas, platypus, synopsis, syringe.

Among the other 8 irregular spelling for short i, only 7 occur in high frequency words:
Build, built, busy, English, pretty, sieve, women.
The less common vineyard has a surplus e (cf. vine).
The irregular spellings for short i create some difficulties in learning to read (cyclical cycle) and to write (winning women), but not nearly as many as those for e and u.

The short e of ‘bed, men, then’ is spelt irregularly in 64 words, including some extremely high frequency ones (said, any, many), with 16 of them having a missing doubled consonant as well:
Any, many; bury, jeopardy, leopard; heifer.
Already, ready, steady; jealous, pleasant; meadow, peasant, pheasant, weapon, zealous.
The other 47 are:
Bread, breadth, dead, dread, head, leadx2, readx2, spread, thread, breast, breath, deaf, dealt, death, health, realm, wealth, dreamt, leant, meant, leapt, sweat, threat.
Breakfast, cleanliness, cleanse, endeavour, feather, heather, heaven, heavy, instead, leather, measure, stealthy, treacherous, treadmill, treasure, weather.
Every, friend, said, says, seven, Wednesday, against; leisure,
lieutenant [‘leftenant’ in UK].

The main alternative spelling for short e is ea (49 /63). This causes considerable difficulties for children learning to read, because the main pronunciation of ea is ee (each, speak, teach... in 152 words), with other pronunciations in a further 12 (great, break, steak; bear, pear, swear, wear; heart, hearth; create, theatre, reality). Reducing some of this confusion would clearly be of great help with learning to read and write.

Of the 63 irregular spellings for short e, 61could easily be improved (preferably with rule-governed
the consonant doubling too):
Alreddy, reddy, jellous, meddow, pezzant, phezzant, plezzant, steddy, weppon, zellous.
Enny, menny, jeppardy, leppard, berry, heffer.
And:
Agenst, evry, frend, sed, ses, Wensday.
Bred, bredth, ded, dred, hed, led, red, spred, thred, brest, breth, def, delt, deth, helth, relm, welth, dremt, lent, ment, lept, swet, thret.
Brekfast, clenliness, clense, endevour, fether, hether, hevn, hevvy, insted, lether, mesure, stelthy, sevn, trecherous, tredmill, tresure, wether.

This regularisation would conflate the four currently different spellings of bred/bread, bury/berry, led/lead and red/read. But anyone worried about this, should remember that over 2000 English words have just one spelling for several different meaning (e.g. mean, lean, arm, bank, bar...), without ever causing problems.

‘Lead’ and ‘read’, on the other hand, which are both used for spelling two completely different words (as in ‘lead me’ and ‘lead weights’, and ‘learn to read’ and ‘read yesterday’) cause considerable reading and spelling difficulties for children. Reducing such impediments to learning would certainly help to make both learning to read and write easier.

Harry Lindgren suggested in 1969 that merely improving the spelling consistency of short e would be a worthwhile first regularisation of English spelling. Although undoubtedly beneficial, making just 63 irregularly spelt words out of 3695 better is very little. That’s why I am offering several other improvements for consideration as well.

Long and short vowels

2010-06-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Consonant doubling is part of the rather complex English system for spelling short and long vowels which is used with a, i, o, u and, to a lesser extent, e, as in:
flat, flatten – inflate; hem, hemmed – theme;
hid, hidden – hide; dot, dotty – dote;  tub, tubby – tube.

When the vowels a, e, i, o and u are follow by just one consonant, they are closed and are supposed to have a short sound, as in: at, pet, pin, dot, bun.
If the consonant after the letters a, e, i, o and u is followed by another vowel, they are supposed to be ‘open’ and long, as in: 'hale, halo;   peter, period;    fine, final;   sole, solo;
tube, tubular'.
If a stressed vowel before a consonant and another vowel is to stay long, it is supposed to be followed by a doubled consonant: attitude, petty, pinnacle, dotty, bunny.

Several thousand English words conform to this system. Unfortunately, there are also hundreds of words which break the ‘open and shut’ rule in five different ways.
Two of them have already been discussed:
1. Nearly 400 words of more than one syllable break the doubling rule by failing to double a consonant after a short, stressed vowel (habit, very, city, body, study) .
2. Another 158 words have doubled consonants which are unrelated to keeping a stressed vowel short
(accommodation, hello, immense, occur, hurrah).

In addition to the above,
3. Several hundred words with short vowels have a misleading, surplus –e: have, seven, gone – cf. save, even, bone.

4. Nearly 200 words have other spellings for the short vowels
e, i and u (bread, pretty, touch),
often combined with missing doubled consonants as well (many, women; money).

5.The ‘open’ vowel spelling method is disobeyed
by 87 words for long a (made /paid, make /break),
by 79 for long i (while /whilst, mime /climb),
and  the ‘e-e’ spelling used in just 86 words
and different ones in 366 (eke – seek, speak, shriek).

This adds up to over 1000 common English words that disobey the ‘open and closed’ method for spelling long and short a, e, i, o and u. Since many pupils find even grasping the basic ‘bit, bitter, biting’ system quite difficult, the numerous exceptions leave them utterly confused.

Alternative spellings for the short vowels which are more often used for other sounds (busy bus, women wove, dreamt dreams) are clearly not helpful to young readers trying to crack the English alphabet code. The reading difficulties caused by missing double consonants are not as obvious, but they impede literacy progress too: hide, hidden – hideous??
As do incomprehensibly doubled consonants: arrow - arrive??

Any system that has more than 1000 exceptions is not really much of a ‘system’ at all. With the ‘open and closed’ method of spelling long and short vowels, the confusion that the irregularities cause is even worse. Abuses of one affect the other. Bringing more consistency to any of the five ways in which the ‘open and closed’ system is broken would help to strengthen this uniquely English way of spelling some vowels.

It took a quite while for English to be regarded as language fit for intellectual and scientific discourse. Now that this is firmly established, it is surely high time for its spelling rules to be made more applicable too?

I have already explained why the adoption of consistent consonant doubling would make learning to spell English substantially easier, and would help to turn many adults into more confident writers. I will next discuss and list the other groups of words which break the ‘open and closed’ vowel rule.

Consonant doubling difficulties explained

2010-06-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

My blog Double Trouble http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/double-trouble.html lists 642 words which disobey or abuse the consonant doubling rule for showing that a stressed vowel is short rather than long, as in ‘diner - dinner’. Because the doubling rule is so frequently broken (miner – mineral, cone – conifer - connect), errors with consonant doubling are the most often committed English spelling mistakes.

The irregularities leave most English-speaking adults confused about why some words have doubled consonants (arrive, arrest, ballad), while many similar ones don’t (arise, around, balance).They use the rule when adding suffixes to short words (fit – fitting, fitted). For the rest, they simply try to remember which words have a doubled consonant, but the memorisation involved is more than the majority of English speakers can cope with.

The troublesome doubling burden in longer words is made even worse by several dozen erratic doublings in the endings of one-syllable words, such as
bad – add, odd – cod,
peg – egg,
if – cliff, sniff, stiff, whiff,
of - off – cough, trough,
cuff, duff, gruff, puff, stuff - rough, slough, tough;
yes – bless, chess;
this – miss;
us, plus, bus, thus – fuss, puss, truss.

Such doublings are mainly leftovers from the days when printers were in the habit of inserting extra letters willy-nilly, to make texts longer in order to earn more money (e.g. inne anne olde worlde shoppe). This ancient abuse of the alphabetic principle also continues to survive in the endings
–bble, -ddle, -ffle, -eggle, -ckle, -pple, -ttle and –zzle
which occur in 87 words (e.g. babble, fiddle, baffle, buckle, apple, battle, puzzle). Such words could all be spelt more simply (e.g. babl, fidl, bafl, bucl, apl, batl, puzl), like ‘and, ant, milk, apt, arm, yarn’. Spelling them as ‘annde, millke’ or ‘arrme’, on the model of ‘middle’ would strike us as demented.

The –le endings with a surplus -e and the pointless consonant doubling before it (a – pp – le) would be less bothersome if they were at least regular. Unfortunately, there are 38 exceptions as well:
Double, treble, trouble, model, nickel,
camel, pommel, pummel, channel, flannel, funnel, kennel, panel, tunnel,
chapel, couple, triple,
barrel, laurel, quarrel, squirrel,
apostle, bristle, bustle, gristle, hassle, hustle, jostle,
muscle, mussel, rustle, tassel, thistle, trestle, vessel, whistle, wrestle, subtle, chisel.

Given all the hassle which the unpredictability of consonant doubling creates, it might be tempting to conclude that the practice should simply be dropped. Consonant doubling is, however, part of the wider-ranging uniquely English system of spelling several short and long (or closed and open) vowels, such as ‘nap, nape, nappy’ or ‘hop, hope, hopper’ which I will explain in my next blog.

The irregularity of English consonant doubling was caused mainly by the reverence in which most intellectuals held Latin in the 17th and 18th centuries. English was then still widely regarded as a rather lowly language. Newly imported words from Latin were therefore deemed not needing to conform to the English consonant doubling rule, even if their pronunciation demanded it, although quite a few derivatives from Latin obey the English doubling rule too (offer - profit, billion - bilious, ammonite – amateur).

If it was now decided that the consonant doubling rule can be used with all words to which it is applicable (mellow mellon, ballad sallad, offer proffit ...), this most difficult area of English spelling would cease to be problematic. We could, as H. W. Fowler, the author of the still much-consulted ‘Modern English Usage’ recommended in 1926: “substitute ...for our present chaos...a phonetically consistent method that did not sacrifice the many merits of the old spelling”.

Double trouble

2010-06-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Schoolchildren learn to double the final consonant of one-syllable words before the suffixes -ing, -ed, -en, -er, -y or -ish (e.g. bat - batting, batted, batty, batter; snob – snobbish, rot – rotten) to show that the preceding stressed vowel is short, instead of long, as in ‘bate, bated, bating’. With one-syllable words this rule is used consistently, but longer verbs can have doubled consonants before suffixes even when the preceding vowel is not stressed: benefitted, travelled – preferred, permitted.

In longer root words, English consonant doubling is totally random:
372 words (e.g. mellow) have a doubled consonant after a short, stressed vowel
384 words (e.g. melon) disobey the doubling rule and
158 words (e.g. satellite) have unpredictable doubled consonants after unstressed vowels.
The words below show how much rote-learning the unpredictability of English consonant doubling creates.
Consistent use of the doubling rule would make this unnecessary.

Abbey, cabbage, jabber, rabbit, Sabbath, shabby, ribbon, hobby, lobby, chubby, rubber, rubbish, stubborn, stubby.
Cabinet, cabaret, cabin, elaborate, fabulous, habit, nebula, treble, liberal, liberty, tribute, probable, robin.
Abbreviate.

(For a k-sound after a short vowel ck is the main spelling.)
Bracken, bracket, jacket, packet, package, racket, reckon, bicker, chicken, cricket, flicker, rickety, sticky, ticket, wicked, wicker, wicket, cockerel, crockery, hockey, jockey, locket, pocket, rocket, rocky, socket, stocking, bucket, sucker, cuckoo.
Vacuum, accurate, tobacco, lacquer, decade, executive, recognise, record (noun), second, secular, echo, mechanism, chequered, piccolo, liquor, liquorice, crocodile, documents, occupy, succulent.
Accommodate, accommodation, accompany, accomplish, accord, accordion, account, accumulate, accuse, accustom, occasion, occupation, occurrence, succumb.

Adder, caddie, caddy, daddy, ladder, eddy, teddy, wedding, giddy, hidden, ridden, shoddy, sodden, rudder, shudder, sudden, pudding.
Academy, adequate, radical, radish, credit, dedicated, edible, edit, educate, federal, medical, pedal, pedigree, meadow, ready, already, steady, hideous, video, body, modern, modest, produce (noun), study.

Daffodil, scaffold, traffic, effigy, effort, different, difficult, jiffy, coffee, coffin, offer, office, buffalo, buffer, buffet, chuffed, ruffian, suffer, suffocate.
Café, refuge, refuse (noun), heifer, magnificent, significant, profit.
Affair, affect, affection, afford, paraffin, effect, efficient, differential, diffusion, offend, official, sufficient, chauffeur.

Baggage, jagged, maggot, scraggy, stagger, swagger, beggar, snigger, trigger, soggy, luggage, nugget, rugged.
Agony, dragon, flagon, hexagonal, negative, brigand, frigate.
Aggressive.

Badger, fledgling, midget, dodgems, dodgy, podgy, budgie, budget, drudgery.
Exaggerate, legend, legislate, regiment, register, vegetable, digit, pigeon, religion, rigid, logic.
Suggest (Can be [sugjest] in US.)

Alley, alligator, ally, ballast, ballet, ballot, challenge, gallant, gallery, gallon, gallop, gallows, mallet, rally, shallow, stallion, valley, bellow, belly, cellar, cello, cellophane, fellow, intelligent, jelly, pellet, rebellion, sellotape, trellis, umbrella, yellow, armadillo, artillery, billiard, billion, billow, billy, brilliant, frilly, gorilla, guerrillas, guillotine, illustrate, milligrams, million, pillar, pillow, silly, syllable, vanilla, villa, village, villain, collar, colleague, collie, colliery, dollar, follow, hollow, holly, jolly, lollipop, lolly, mollusc, pollen, pollinate, trolley, volley, college, swallow, wallaby, wallet, wallop, wallow, lullaby, sullen, bullet, bulletin, bullion, bullock, bully, pulley, pullover.
Analysis, balance, battalion, calendar, chalet, galaxy, italic, morality, palace, palate, palette, reality, salad, salary, salon, talent, talon, valentine, valiant, valid, value, vitality, celery, delegate, delicacy, deluge, develop, element, eligible, helicopter, jealous, melody, melon, pelican, relevant, relic, skeleton, telescope, zealous, ability, bilious, military, ventriloquist, cylinder, abolish, colony, column, demolish, holiday, olive, policy, politics, polythene, solemn, solid, tolerate, volume, voluntary, knowledge, quality, colour.
Llama, parallel, excellent, hello, jewellery, marvellous, satellite, constellation, caterpillar, illegible, illiterate, illusion, illustration, illuminate, pastille, tonsillitis, collage, collapse, collect, collide.
With long, instead of short vowels: controlled, roller, swollen.

Ammonite, clammy, hammer, inflammable, mammal, mammoth, stammer, dilemma, glimmer, simmer, symmetry, comment, commentary, commerce, common, communism, communist, dummy, mummy, rummage, summary, summer, summit, summon, tummy.
Amateur, camel, camera, damage, dynamic, enamel, famished, laminate, cemetery, chemical, democrat, emerald, epidemic, memory, remedy, lemon, feminine, premise, semi, criminal, eliminate, image, limit, timid, women, abominable, comet, comic, dominate, domino, economic, prominent, promise, vomit, stomach, plumber.
Ammunition, programme, immediate, immense, immortal, immune, command, commemorate, commence, commercial, commit, commodities, commotion, communication, communion, community, commuter, committee, recommend.

Annual, banner, cannot, granny, manner, nanny, pannier, savannah, spanner, uncanny, antenna, pennant, tennis, penny, dinner, inner, innocence, innocent, spinnaker, bonnet, sonnet, bunny.
Animal, anorak, banish, banister, canopy, manage, manor, manual, organic, panel, panic, spaniel, vanish, benefit, enemy, energy, menace, penetrate, venison, lieutenant, any, many, aluminium, clinical, continue, finish, linear, minimal, minister, opinion, sinister, spinach, vinegar, cinema, cynical, synagogue, synonym, minute (minnit), astonish, conifer, economy, electronic, monastery, monarch, monument, supersonic, tonic, honey, money, onion, punish.
Anniversary, announce, annoy, connect, personnel, mayonnaise, questionnaire.

Appetite, happen, happy, nappy, pepper, flipper, kipper, skipper, slipper, copper, coppice, opposite, poppy, sloppy, puppet, puppy, supper, upper.
Capital, capitol, rapid, tapestry, capita, epic, jeopardy, leper, leopard, tepid, separate, weapon, copy, opera, operate, proper, property, topic, popular, tropics.
Appal, apparatus, apparent, appeal, appear, appendix, applaud, apply, appoint, appreciate, apprentice, approach, appropriate, approve, approximate, hippopotamus, opportunity, oppose, suppose, supply, support.

Arrow, barren, barrier, barrister, barrow, carrot, carry, garret, marrow, marry, narrative, narrow, parrot, sparrow, merry, sherry, terrace, terrible, territory, terror, irritable, mirror, squirrel, stirrup, borrow, corridor, horrible, lorry, porridge, sorrow, sorry, tomorrow, torrent, quarry, warrant, warren, burrow, current, furrowed, hurricane, hurry, scurry, turret, worry, furry.
Arab, arable, arid, asparagus, baron, caramel, caravan, caricature, carol, chariot, charity, clarity, comparison, parasol, parish, transparent, America, beret, ceremony, cherish, derelict, herald, heritage, heroine, heron, merit, peril, perish, sincerity, sterilise, therapist, very, bury, conspiracy, empirical, lyric, miracle, spirit, syrup, tyranny, authority, coral, florist, forest, historic, horoscope, majority, minority, moral, orange, priority, laurel, quarantine, thorough, courage, nourish.
Arrange, array, arrest, arrive, barricade, erratic, interrupt, serrated, terrific, irregular, irrigation, torrential, correspond, correct, correlation, curriculum, surrender, surround, hurrah.

Ambassador, casserole, classic, massacre, massive, passage, passenger, delicatessen, essay, essence, lesson, message, necessity, professor, missile, narcissus, rissole, blossom, colossal, fossil, gossip, possible.
Acid, capacity, pacifist, glacier (US glaishier), fascinate, decimal, precipice, necessary, recipe, specify, specimen, adolescent, convalescent, crescent, discipline, chrysalis, electricity, explicit, municipal, participate, publicity, simplicity, solicitor, velocity, sausage.
Assail, assassin, embassy, assault, assemble, assert, assessment, assign, assist, associate, assort, assume, cassette, dessert, essential, possess, possibility.

Attic, attitude, batter, battery, chatter, clatter, fatty, matter, patter, pattern, regatta, scatter, shatter, tatter, latter, better, confetti, jettison, jetty, letter, lettuce, spaghetti, bitten, bitter, glitter, kitten, litter, mitten, pretty, sitter, titter, twitter, written, bottom, cottage, cotton, forgotten, lottery, motto, otter, potter, butter, button, clutter, gutter, mutter, mutton, putty, shutter, splutter, stutter, utter.
Atom, baton, catalogue, catapult, category, compatible, lateral, latitude, platinum, platypus, satin, strategy, athletic, magnetic, metal, petal, tetanus, veteran, yeti, competitive, British, citizen, city, critical, pity, literally, obliterate, botany.
Attach, attain, attempt, attend, attention, attorney, attract, attributed, battalion, tattoo, mattress, omelette, palette, settee.

Blizzard, dizzy, buzzard.
Hazard, desert, designate, desolate, hesitate, peasant, pheasant, pleasant, present, president, resident, lizard, miserable, prison, risen, visible, visit, scissors, wizard, wizened, lozenge, closet, deposit, positive.

The worst irregularities of English spelling

2010-06-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Although 80 of the 91 basic English spelling patterns have exceptions, 63 affect between them only 905 of the total of 3695 common words with unpredictable spellings. (The Overview page at www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk gives the individual figures for all exceptions to English spelling patterns.) Thirty one patterns have fewer than 10 exceptions (e.g. oil/oyster, zip /xylophone). They can all await improvement until much bigger difficulties have been reduced first.

Of the remaining 17 spelling patterns with more than 50 exceptions each, five necessitate substantial memorisation of spellings, but cause only minimal reading difficulties:
her / turn, third, search– in 206 words;
fasten / abandon, truncheon, certain- 205;
father / author, armour, nectar -136;
ordinary / machinery, inventory - 96 ;
fish / photo, stuff – 56.
They can remain unimproved for a little longer too.

This leaves just the following 'dirty dozen' which greatly handicap progress in both learning to read and write:

Irregular consonant doubling (yellow melon) affects 914 words
Eel - eat, even, ceiling, field, police - 452

food - rude, shrewd, move, group - 189
mole - bowl, roll, soul, boast - 179
sauce - caught, bought, always - 130
toe - go, dough, sew, cocoa - 104

plate - wait, weight, straight - 87
bite - might, style, mild - 79

up - front, some, couple, blood - 69
end - head, any, said, Wednesday - 63
ink - mystery, pretty, women, sieve - 53

air - care, bear, aerial, their, there - 58

Between them, the above 12 inconsistencies cause difficulties in 2334 of the total of 3695 common English words with some kind of spelling irregularity. Reducing them all would undoubtedly make initial English literacy acquisition much easier and faster. This would, however, probably seem like too much change in one go for most people.

Consonant doubling uncertainly and unpredictable spellings for the ee-sound create the longest rote-learning lists, with 914 and 452 words respectively. Improving just their regularity would already halve the spelling memorisation burden. I will therefore list all the words affected by them first of all.

Many people are reluctant to take a close look at facts and figures, but it is impossible to decide on the best and most feasible improvements to English spelling without it. I will therefore list all the words affected by the 12 main English spelling irregularities and discuss the spelling and reading problems which they cause.

How much to change?

2010-06-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

To some extent, the burdens of learning to read and write English can be expressed in numbers. By analysing the 6800 most used English words, I identified 3695 words which contain one or more spellings which make learning to write slow and difficult. Of those, 2032 words also have letters with irregular sounds (e.g. only, once, other). - Roughly half of all English words contain one or more irregular letters, and half of those cause reading difficulties too.

But even if the aim of reform was to make English spelling completely regular, not all of the 3695 words with tricky spellings would need changing. When a spelling pattern has many exceptions, such as those for the long oo-sound, for example, (fool, rule, stoop, soup, room, tomb, root fruit, tooth, truth...), the regularly spelt words become unpredictable too, but only the exceptions need amending to improve matters.

For this reason improving the spellings of roughly just 2000 of the 3695 English words which retard literacy progress, would make learning to read and write English much easier and less time-consuming than it is now. But even eliminating irregularities from just the few hundred words which most impede learning would greatly help learners.

Yet for proficient users of the current English spelling system, even the prospect of having to remember spelling changes for several hundred words may seem daunting. This is, however, much easier if amendments address only a few types of spelling inconsistencies.

If it was decided, let us say, to adopt a single spelling for the long oo-sound (fool, rool, stoop, soop, room, toom, root, froot, tooth, trooth...) there would be no need for any word-by-word memorisation of new spellings by people used to the currently irregular ones. They would merely have to remember that the spelling of the long oo-sound has been regularised, eliminating the need for children to memorise, word-by-word, the now 189 unpredictable spellings for it.

They may want to look at the list of words with a long oo-sound, to see which words contain it. But all they would need to learn, if they wanted to start adopting the new spellings, is the rule ‘the long oo-sound is spelt oo’. I have already explained in one of my earlier blogs that many people could continue spelling the way they have become used to. After reforms in other countries, the majority of adults have carried on spelling the way they were first taught, merely learning to read the regular new spellings, such as ‘rool, soop, froot...’, without any difficulties.

Because English spelling is exceptionally irregular, it is easier to make a big difference to children’s literacy progress by means of spelling reform than is still possible in other languages. It has several inconsistencies, such as spellings for the long oo-sound, which affect large numbers of words. Tackling just a few of them would change English literacy learning dramatically.

In other languages such problems were tackled long ago. Their recent reforms, like the German one of 2005, dealt with assorted problems which affected only a few words each. Such changes make less of a difference to learners and are more difficult for practised users, because they necessitate remembering numerous short lists of changed words.

I will next begin to explain which spelling inconsistencies consume most teaching and learning time, and cause most spelling errors and reading difficulties.

Which English spelling irregularities should be tackled first?

2010-06-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

Because major improvements to English spelling stopped at around 1700, it now offers far more scope for regularisation than other systems did when their deficiencies first began to be tackled: 80 of its 91 basic rules now have exceptions. No other European orthography was allowed to become so unsystematic before it began to be amended. So even just deciding what to change first requires some consideration.

Tackling all 80 English spelling irregularities in one go would be ideal for learners but just too challenging for current users. There will therefore have to be compromises. The changes must make a noticeable difference to learners, but without overloading proficient users of current English spelling conventions. For this reason, the following points need to be taken into account.

Not all spelling irregularities are equally bad. Some cause only spelling difficulties (note coat). But uniquely among alphabetic languages, many irregular English spellings hinder progress in both reading and writing (oath – both – froth).

Spelling irregularities also vary in the amount of word-by-word memorisation they necessitate. Some patterns have very few exceptions. ‘Cat, sat, mat...’ has just one exception: plait. Consonant doubling and spellings for the ee-sound, on the other hand, are unpredictable in hundreds of words (shoddy body, very merry, mellow melon ... meet, mean, me, machine, fiend...).

Some irregularities are more problematic for fairly proficient spellers than beginners. Unpredictably doubled consonants and the irregular suffixes -ent/-ant (dependent/defiant), for example, have little impact on beginners’ literacy progress because they are less prevalent in young children’s vocabulary or the texts with which they learn to read and write, but adults keep being tripped up by them.

Beginning readers are most handicapped by irregularities in the most often used English words, such as ‘you, said, one, do, are’. Letters with changing pronunciations, such as ‘you/young, said/paid, one/gone, do/go, are/dare), make even learning to read English much harder than other languages. They impede their progress most of all. Proficient adult readers are so used to them that they can generally no longer even see that their spellings are irregular. They are likely to find suggestions for changing them the most off-putting.

The irregular spellings of the most frequently used words are, however, most responsible for making initial English literacy teaching exceptionally slow. Bringing more order to them would therefore reduce teaching and learning time most of all. It would also help to loosen many of the constraints on initial English literacy teaching which make it much more contrived and tedious than in other languages.

Nearly all schools start the teaching of reading and writing with regularly spelt words, such as ‘a cat sat’ or ‘stop on hot spot’, to give children a basic understanding of letter usage, without letting them become too confused by irregularities from the beginning. Because more than half of the most used words contain irregularities, they are kept out of English beginners’ reading programmes, making the texts with which young children learn to read rather dull and repetitive.

Young children’s writing is even more impeded by spelling irregularities in the most used high frequency (HF) words. They want to use such words as soon as they start to write their own stories, instead of the contrived ones they first learn to read with. They try to apply their newly acquired grasp of English sound-to-letter rules to all words. But because many HF words have irregular spellings (love, brother, many, pretty, two), they keep misspelling them (luv, bruther, menny, pritty, too).

With fewer irregularly spelt HF words, young children would commit far fewer spelling ‘errors’ when they first start learning to write. There would be much less need for teachers to keep correcting their perfectly logical ‘misspellings’, because the basic rules would apply to more words. In many children, this would help to prevent loss of interest in all learning soon after starting school. So while amending irregularities in HF words might seem least palatable to currently proficient readers, improving them would undoubtedly help young children most of all.

Vested interests against spelling reform

2010-05-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Because English literacy acquisition is very slow and difficult, it has enabled many people to build careers on it: from devising and publishing materials, to assessment of special needs, academic research into literacy problems, teacher training and professional development and working for organisations dedicated to assisting children and adults with literacy difficulties. Their roles would change or be made redundant if learning to read and write English was made easier.

Many people from these groups are therefore likely to oppose reform. Someone who has spent years designing a new phonics scheme, and invested heavily into promoting it, is not going to be pleased about their efforts and expertise suddenly becoming less useful, or even obsolete.

I was initially surprised that advocates of phonics were not immediately in favour of making English spelling more regular, because reducing the number of exceptional spellings would mean that more words became phonic and teachable by this method. I had naively assumed that phonics was the teaching of regular letter-to- sound links, as it is in other languages. In English, the term used to mean this too, until recently.

The latest version of English phonics, ‘synthetic phonics’ or SP, however, includes much more than that. It covers not only the teaching of regular English letter and sound correspondences, but also all the main alternative pronunciations for identical letters, as well as different spellings for identical sounds. It is simply the teaching of all English reading and writing. It deals more with the irregularities than regular patterns.

Large parts of current teaching schemes are necessitated by words spelt with wrong or redundant letters, as in ‘head, said, friend’. Sensible spellings for them (hed, sed, frend) would reduce learning difficulties, and the need for exercises and materials which are designed to help children learn to read and write them.

Young children’s early attempts at writing, such as my 5-year-old granddaughter’s ‘bruther, sed, hunny’, show us that they have no trouble grasping and applying the basic English sound-to-letter rules. Only their alphabetic anomalies cause difficulties and incur much extra effort. Training children to spell large numbers of English words illogically, instead of permitting them to be spelt logically, gives teachers work which would not need to be done if they were removed.

Just as reducing smoking reduced the incidence of lung cancer and the need for lung cancer specialists, along with jobs in the tobacco industry, easier spelling systems reduce demand for many of the specialism that inconsistent ones create. And although most educationalists care about children’s learning, they also care about their careers, status and comfort, and will fight to protect them. They will do so mainly by trying to find faults with reform proposals.

Easier spelling systems don’t merely reduce difficulties with learning to read and write. They give easier access to nearly all other learning too. Improving English spelling would therefore reduce the number of children with special educational needs. It would leave fewer pupils needing assessment and assistance, and fewer people specialising in those areas. Getting teachers and many others employed in education to embrace spelling reform is therefore likely to meet with more resistance than might at first be expected.

The majority of people working in education do, however, care deeply about children’s learning. They took jobs in it for that reason. I hope that when they are helped to understand that improving English spelling is a fail-safe way of improving children’s learning, they will support it, even if they have to make some personal readjustments.

There will still remain much scope for assisting children’s learning and understanding, just with less need to spend time on utterly pointless tasks. There is no sense in making learning to read and write exceptionally difficult and time-consuming, by spelling many words with wrong or surplus letters, by keeping children busy building nothing.

Arguments against reform – 3

2010-05-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Below are seven commonly raised objections to reform and my replies to them.

1. Leave our language alone. It has a long and distinguished history and represents a rich cultural heritage.
... This fails to distinguish between language and spelling. Many people who can use the English language well have difficulty spelling it. Even quite young children don’t have much trouble using the word ‘thought’, but its spelling defeats many for a long time. Only English spelling needs improving. Language change is beyond the control of any individual or group; but improving the spelling, and making learning to read and write easier, would help to give more people better command of the English language too.

2. If spelling were such a problem, it would have evolved into something easier naturally over the years.
... Many worthwhile changes (abolition of slavery, voting reforms, ending apartheid) have only come about because people kept campaigning for them, often against severe opposition.

3. Some English spellings may be irregular, but they tell you where the words come from, or how words are related (e.g. reign, interregnum; sign, signature). If more people learned French and Latin, fewer people would have spelling problems.
... People with reading and writing difficulties have trouble enough learning English. Getting them to learn other languages, to enable them to cope better with English, is unrealistic and also unreliable. My grammar-school-educated, Latin-trained husband has always been a poorer speller than I am, having no Latin.
... Anyone with a passionate interest in the origin of words can ascertain this from any good dictionary. Or they can learn German and French, the two languages from which most English words originate.
... It is just as easy to trace the origins of sensibly spelt English words (mustard, beef, milk, butter) as of ones which continue to be spelt according to foreign rules (court, group), ancient German patterns (daughter, laughter) or scribal aberrations (mother, brother).

4. English spelling is more regular than it may superficially seem.
... This is the claim which led me to investigate exactly how irregular English spelling was. By meticulously analysing the 6800 most used English words, I found out that at least 3695 (or 4 out of 7) had some unpredictably spelt letters, with 2039 of them having letters with variable sounds which pose reading difficulties too. The English writing system is much less regular than is generally realised, and far more inconsistent than any other European orthography.

5. Reading and writing standards have deteriorated because of modern teaching methods introduced in the 1960’s and 70’s.
... Literacy standards were just as bad earlier. In the 1960’s and 70’s teachers were encouraged to try new approaches only because too many children had regularly been found to leave primary school without the literacy skills needed for secondary education. Recently, they have been advised to return to the earlier methods, but this has not led to any significant improvements either, despite much additional expenditure.

6. Spelling reform would incur huge costs. All books would need to be reprinted.
... Compared to the costs which the inconsistencies of English spelling incur each year, a one-off modernisation would cost very little.
... There would be no need to reprint all books. Most of what we read is less than 10 years old. The bulk of books could remain as they are until new editions were needed. Only school books would need to be reprinted, in a rolling programme, starting with the youngest children. Textbooks wear out and need regular replacing or updating anyway.

7. You will never get world-wide agreement on how to reform English spelling. It is spoken in too many different countries.
... If either the UK or the US decided to reform their spelling, the benefits to learners would quickly become obvious, and the rest would follow. That’s why Portugal recently decided to adopt the spelling changes which only Brazil introduced at first. If the UK, the home of modern English, modernised its spelling, all others would soon do the same. The German-speaking countries have managed to adopt identical reforms several times.
Given the will, it is usually possible to find a way. The biggest obstacle to a reform of English spelling remains lack of awareness of the problems, and the costs, which its irregularities cause.

Arguments against reform – 2

2010-05-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

The ability to cope with change is something which understandably worries some people about spelling reform, especially the more elderly. At about age 50 most of us begin to resist rather than welcome change. I have become increasingly reluctant to buy a new computer or new car for that reason. With advancing age, we become more change-resistant.

For this reason, reforms in other countries have usually allowed unreformed and reformed spellings to co-exist for a decade or two, with many older people continuing to spell the way they first learned for the rest of their lives. This happened when Germany changed from Gothic to Roman script after the 2nd world war.

Quite a few English words have more than one spelling now (adviser/advisor, pastie/pasty). Back in the 16th century, people used many different spellings for identical words.

Getting used to reading other ways of spelling English is not difficult, as most texters know, or as anyone who has read original texts from earlier centuries can testify. After a couple of hours, one stops noticing that many words in Tyndale’s first English New Testament, in Shakespeare’s folio editions or in the King James bible have different spellings - differing not only from our spellings, but often from each other, and on the same page too.

When spelling reform does not change the system itself, when it merely brings exceptions into line with established patterns, as I will recommend (e.g. def frend sed), it causes no serious reading difficulties for anyone. Currently proficient readers of English would be initially shocked by the new look of the improved words, and their reading would become temporarily a fraction slower, but they would soon get used to them and read as fast as before. Is such a brief, passing inconvenience not a very small price to pay for enabling millions of children to learn to read and write much more easily thereafter?

The changes I will be proposing will be certain to reduce the problems and costs which current English spelling irregularities produce: longer learning time, more remedial teaching, more literacy failure, expenditure on assisting the illiterate and dealing with the problems which are caused or aggravated by illiteracy – as I have explained in detail in earlier blogs. Making English spelling more regular would help to ameliorate all those disadvantages and to improve children’s educational attainment.

The amount of change needed to make English spelling much more learner-friendly is also not as great as many people estimate or fear. Not all the 3695 tricky-to-spell common words which I have identified need changing, and most of those that do contain only one irregular letter (friend, pretty).

One of the biggest English spelling memorisation burdens is caused by unpredictable consonant doubling in 756 words of more than one syllable (e.g. mellow melon). This is because only 372 of them use a doubled consonant to keep a stressed vowel short (e.g. common, shoddy, poppy), as they are supposed to according to the ‘hopped - hoped’ rule; but in 384 others the rule is ignored, (e.g. comic, body, copy). Only the latter need amending to resolve this spelling difficulty. The 372 words which already obey the doubling principle can stay as they are.

Deciding which spelling is best for a particular sound will sometimes be a little tricky. This is because some English sounds have ended up without any clearly dominant spelling pattern (e.g. speak, speech, shriek). Improvements to those will need discussion and compromise.

For most of the 3695 common words which contain some kind of spelling quirk, both their faults and solutions to them are obvious. Even quite young children can see which letters in ‘friend, said, dreamt’ do not follow the pattern of ‘send, bed, unkempt’, and that bringing the irregular spellings into line with the patterns which they disobey would make both learning to read and write easier.

Improving the spelling of the short oo sound (should, put, foot, wolf) will prove the most problematic. Unlike any other English sound, it has no unique spelling of its own. All of its spellings are more usual for other sounds (shout, cut, hoot, golf). But since the short oo sound occurs in just 36 common words, it can be left unchanged for a little longer, until bigger but easier-to-solve problems have been addressed.

Arguments against reform - 1

2010-05-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

Whenever I suggest that English spelling should be improved, some people immediately start voicing objections and stop paying attention to what I am proposing, or why. During my now 15-year-long campaign for improvements to English spelling, I have probably been presented with every argument against reform that has ever been thought of. To enable people to concentrate on my suggestions for making English spelling more learner-friendly, without being distracted by the urge to repeat objections which I am already well aware of, I will answer all the common arguments against reform, before making any proposals for change.

Most objections to spelling reform amount really just to different ways of saying,
“I am against any meddling with English spelling. I don’t really care about any good it might do. I simply don’t like the idea of changing it.”
There are a few legitimate concerns about the costs of change and coping with it, but most simply voice the desire to ‘leave English spelling as it is’.

The arguments are nearly all poorly thought through. Even a generally circumspect person like Bill Bryson is guilty of this. In his book ‘Mother Tongue’ he writes:
"What simplified spelling systems gain in terms of consistency they often throw away in terms of clarity. Eight ... helps to distinguish it from the past tense of eat. ...”
He fears that, if such spelling differentiations were lost, “Perplexity and ambiguity would reign (or rain or rein)”.

Bryson gives no examples of spelling reform having led to any loss of clarity, and he ignores the following three facts:
A) 'Rain/rein’, along with ‘there/their, its/it’s’ and ‘here/hear’, all sound identical in speech, without ever causing perplexity or ambiguity. There isn’t a shred of evidence to prove that a single spelling for them would cause problems in reading, other than the temporary shock of the new.
B) Over 2000 English words have just one spelling for two or more different meanings, such as ‘arm, bar, bill, mean, post’, without giving the slightest trouble to readers.
C) English even has just one spelling for 103 words with changeable meanings and pronunciations (e.g. lead, minute, tear), depending on context. So why are people who are supposedly concerned about clarity of meaning in writing not up in arms about those? – They are happy to put up with any amount of confusion, as long as things are left as they are. That’s why.

Bryson, like many others, also asks,
"And who would decide which pronunciations would be supreme? ... eether or eyther?
If we insisted on strictly phonetic renderings, girl would be gurl in most of America (though perhaps goil in New York), gel in London and Sydney, gull in Ireland, gill in South Africa,gairull in Scotland. Written communication between ... even parts of nations, would become practically impossible..."

This firstly shows the erroneous assumption that spelling reform must inevitably be ‘strictly phonetic’, when far less would already do considerable good. After hundreds of years of putting up with a very irregular system, there is no need to aim for instant perfection when we finally get round to making things better. Just a substantial reduction in English spelling irregularities, such as removing surplus letters from words such as ‘have young friend’, would already help to reduce learning difficulties and educational underachievement a great deal.

Current spelling irregularities impede learning in all accents, equally badly. The three main and three minor spellings which the er-sound has ended up with (her, turn, third; heard, journey, work) serve nobody well. The blend is pronounced slightly differently by different speakers of English, but the same way within each regional variation. Reducing those six spellings to one need not affect this. It would just make learning to spell that sound much easier.