Spelling Pet Peeves

[Guest SerenityNow]

Spelling Rules, why have em'?!?

 

On the contrary of what is said about this subject, I find that most often spelling rules are broken. Lol, during our grammar session my children were changing verbs into it's past tense form by adding "ed" or "d". My daughter did the "ed" words, then it was my sons turns and his word was promise. He spelled p-r-o-m-i-s-E-d to which my 7 yo old chimes in "uh-ah! Promise ends with an "s" because it has the short "i" sound. I explained to her that sometimes rules are broken only to see several other ones in our same lesson. live; short "i", love, etc. Too funny, oh the American Language, how grand. Both of them are good spellers but I try and teach by rules and by sight but still here are a few, that just are meant to cause confusion in spelling and sounds:

 

love, shove, - move - stove should be luv/moove/stove

 

food - good should sound the same one way or the other

 

live - live should be liv/live

 

knot? what the hell is the "k" for, just to distinguish it from not?

 

gnat? why the "g" and not a "k" While I'm at it why is the same not done for read/read... coudn't we have stuck a "k" or "g" in the front to distinguish the to vocabulary differences.

 

Anyway, this is meant for fun, so if you have english language pet peeves, post away.

[Ouroboros]

Isn't most of the spelling kind of leftovers from all the borrowed words in English? I heard that 70% of the words actually are from French.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I read a little in some old English writings, and it was funny how words were spelled different. "Only" 300 years ago. Words you recognized but not spelled the same.

 

Love probably was lueve or something like that.

[Ouroboros]

I kant remember but ther iz a bible translaytion that spellz wordz out just like i am right now.  It is a vary old translaytion, probably befor any tipe of spelling and gramar rulz were established.

 

Anyone need help translating the above?

Thatz de true Englisch!!!

[Vixentrox]

Language always changes. However...my typing remains a constant state of crappy

[Ex-COG]

I hated spelling in school. English is such a conglomerate (I had to check dictionary.com for that word) of languages, no wonder it's one of the hardest languages to learn. Is "ough" cough or dough; ph or f; is c an s sound or a k sound; etc, etc. Why can't we have spelling reform and just spell phonetically?

[I Broke Free]

I recall reading once that the spelling of English words were standardized at Cambridge University sometime I believe in the 17th Century. The pronunciation of words in that area was quite different from that of London, but the spelling did correlate to how they pronounced the words. The pronunciation of English was of course was standardized on the London dialect. This is why our spelling does not match how we pronounce our words.

 

I gave up on leaning how spell in 5th grade. I always got D’s on my assignments and I really was trying very hard. When I took my SAT’s in high school, I got college level marks on everything but spelling. I was shocked to learn that I spelled at the 6th grade level. If I were to guess, it would be even worse today.

[Japedo]

The point of silent E's is...........?

 

Also, don'tcha just hate when you run your post thru a spell check and it say's you have the right spelling but you don't, as the word ment something completely different then what you originally thought. Well that happens to me anyways... LOL

[Ex-COG]

I think Benjamin Franklin was in favor of spelling reform. I also thought that spelling in early North America was pretty much left up to the writer. There were dictionaries, but Smith's dictionary would be different from Jones's dictionary. Didn't Noah Webster finally come out with the officially approved dictionary?

[Amethyst]

I can't stand reading online fiction where it looks like the author didn't even attempt to run spellcheck. Come on, people, it isn't that hard! And you can always get a beta reader to find where you used it's instead of its, there instead of their, etc.

[Ro-bear]

"-ough" can call for a variety of sounds, both vowel and consonant:

 

uff: rough, tough, enough, slough

 

ew: through

 

off: trough, cough

 

oh: thorough, dough

 

ow: bough

 

Spelling was all over the place until the advent of the printing press acted to freeze it. London English became the accepted standard. Unfortunately, this was before the Great Vowel Shift, so spelling in English is often not phonetic. Further complicating matters is the huge number of loanwords from other languages.

 

Scholars as diverse as Noah Webster and Bernard Shaw have called for spelling reform with very limited success. Webster's dictionary is reponsible for most of the spelling and pronunciation differences between British and American English. Only a few of his suggested changes caught on, however. He suggested "tung" for tongue. Can't win 'em all, Noah!

 

English was quite phonetic back in the days when it was closer to its Germanic roots. The word "knight" used to be pronounced like it is spelled, something like "kuh neekt" all run together.

 

Shakespeare himself had no fewer than three spellings for his name.

 

Now your assignment is to...oops! Sorry- I drifted into classroom mode there.

[Cerise]

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende...

 

Now people...this is English.

[Ouroboros]

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende...

 

Now people...this is English. 

 

That was beautiful!

[Ro-bear]

The Lord's Prayer in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English:

 

 

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum si þin nama gehalgod tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

 

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;

þi reume or kyngdom come to be.

Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene.

yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.

And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in us.

And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

 

Our father which art in heauen,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen.

Giue us this day our daily bread.

And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliuer us from euill.

Amen.