ERIC EJ1096304: The Challenge of Spelling in English

2008·0.2 MB·English

by  ERIC

Eran Williams
The Challenge of
Spelling in English
T
he American spelling bee does sional or genteel, is a genuine Ameri-
not sting, though it makes can folk tradition. The popularity
many children cry, does not of bees has waxed and waned, but
produce honey, though it holds other the spelling contest has remained a
sweet rewards, and does not swarm, feature of American life—perhaps to
though millions of Americans crowd the regret of generations of school-
around it every year like worker bees children—since the Puritans landed
around their queen bee. This bee is on Plymouth Rock.” Maguire offers
not an insect at all; it is a contest of examples of spelling lore from nearly
orthography. The contest is simple: a every decade in American history,
word is spoken and the contestant has including a fictional poem about a
to spell it. The contest is hard: the spelling bee held in a gold mining
word is from the English language. camp that ends with only one com-
Spelling bees (or competitions, petitor left alive to tell about it.
matches, championships, and other These days local newspapers spon-
terms for head-to-head contests sor spelling bees in every corner of
between individual spellers) have been the United States and beyond. If you
a part of American culture for hun- live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the
dreds of years. Audiences have gath- Intelligencer Journal invites you to its
ered to watch spellers under the open spelling bee. If you win the spelling
air at state fairs, in one-room school bee in Denver, the Rocky Mountain
houses, hotels, places of worship, and News will sponsor your subsequent
wherever Americans gather. Primarily competitions. In Miami, the Miami
the participants have been children Herald newspaper hosts an annual
studying spelling at school, especially spelling bee. The winners of these
elementary and middle school. In his local contests then move on to the
book American Bee, James Maguire state competition, and state winners
(2006, 54) writes: “The spelling bee, go to the national finals in Washing-
whether fierce or flirtatious, congres- ton, DC, held every May. Around
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250 kids have participated in the finals in The most active part of the contest is often
recent years, and by one count, nearly 10,000 when the speller repeats the word in question
participate in the local spelling bees every to make sure she or he has heard it correctly.
year. The maximum amount of time the speller can
To take part in the Scripps National Spell- spend at the microphone is a minute and a
ing Bee, participants must be younger than half; during that time the contestant is mostly
14, in eighth grade or lower, and have won silent, using a personal method of recall to
a local spelling bee representing a school that summon up what is almost always, at the final
is registered with Scripps. Spellers need not stages, an educated guess. Everyone seems to
be U.S. citizens and need not be from public have his or her own spelling gesture. Many
schools. In fact, the educational background spellers write with their fingers on the backs
of participants shows America’s educational of the numbered placards they wear for iden-
diversity. On its website (see Appendix 1), the tification. Some close their eyes and squeeze
Scripps National Spelling Bee lists the schools their lips as though waiting for an unwanted
of the 2007 finalists: “192 were public- kiss. One winner had the habit of turning her
schooled, 38 were private-schooled, 36 were head to the left and blowing into her hands
home-schooled, 18 were parochial-schooled, before pronouncing each letter. Why is all of
five were charter-schooled, and one was vir- this so gripping?
tual-schooled.” Roughly equal numbers of The unexpected excitement around kids
boys and girls made it to the finals. spelling is in itself somehow fascinating. What
The popularity of the spelling bee has other academic competition for middle-school
never been greater in the United States than kids can claim to have inspired a hit Broad-
in recent years. In 2006, for the first time ever, way musical, an Academy Award nominated
the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee documentary, a “best of” series on DVD, and
were broadcast live during primetime viewing two major Hollywood films (one based on a
hours on one of the three largest television bestselling novel), staring the likes of Richard
networks in the United States. In 2007 nine Gere and Laurence Fishburne? All of this for
million viewers watched the spelling finals on a phenomena that is not new and that seems
network television. The semifinals leading up particularly out of touch with cutting edge
to the finals are broadcast on ESPN, a televi- trends, technological or other. There is no
sion sports network—this in spite of the fact musical sound track. During the televised
that the spelling bee includes no running, no spelling bee, a bell is used to indicate the
jumping, and no hitting of baseballs. It is very misspelling of a word, a simple little clapper
unsport-like. bell rung with the index finger. There is no
The action of the event entails a short walk red digital clock counting off the seconds,
to a microphone by a speller, the uttering of a no computer to pronounce lexical items. The
word by the official pronouncer, and the sub- most flashy part of the spelling bee is the yel-
sequent spelling or (more likely) misspelling low number placards the spellers wear. The
of that word. The rules listed on the official most modern gadget is the dictionary.
website demand “an effort to face the judges Of course, the wonder felt at the spelling
and pronounce the word for the judges before bee is not just for the contestants but for the
spelling it and after spelling it. The speller while English language itself. The words these kids
facing the judges makes an effort to utter each spell are goliaths. They are multi-syllabic
letter distinctly and with sufficient volume to monsters of unknown meaning and origin—
be understood by the judges. The speller may at least until the etymology is requested—and
ask the pronouncer to say the word again, very few of the words in the spelling finals
define it, use it in a sentence, provide the part have ever been uttered by anyone watch-
of speech, provide the language(s) of origin, ing. And there seems to be no end to the
and/or provide an alternate pronunciation or bizarre words the English language houses.
pronunciations. The speller may also ask root You can almost hear the audience gasp as each
word questions…” In short, the action that new word is pronounced. Champion spellers
captivates us is a boy or girl uttering a series of dedicate their days to familiarizing themselves
letters that hopefully is a word. with the dictionary but still know they will
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likely be asked to spell words they have never words appear to the young heroine as flowers
met before. To these they will apply all the blooming around her or as letters flashing
rules and historical linguistics they know; in the auditorium. At one point in the film,
still they will often have to make, at best, an the excited father (played by Richard Gere),
educated guess. The drama that drives the explains to his family how “words hold all the
spelling bee phenomenon is the drama of an secrets of the universe.” Taking an apple from
individual standing alone against the English his kitchen table, he tells how the word apple
language. It is the ultimate opportunity for (then aepli) was carried by the Vikings to Eng-
catharsis—for what user of English has not land and how the pronunciation shifted from
fallen? Who among us has not misspelled? the Old English (apfel) to the Middle English
And who among us could spell the kinds (appel) to what we use today. “Its spelling
of words that litter the steep slope of the final contains all of that. It holds its history inside
competition? In the list of the winning words it,” he says.
since 1925 (on the Scripps website), there are These films are interesting not only in
those that seem friendly. Monosyllabic com- their focus on what could be considered a
moners such as knack (1932) and luge (1984) rather dull topic for a movie but also because
might arise naturally in a conversation on the of how they interpret the feat of spelling;
street. The sixties and seventies, with words whether community, spirituality, or genius, it
like chihuahua, abalone, and croissant are invit- takes more than the average human mind to
ing, but of late the vocabulary seems to have spell in English, they suggest.
taken a turn for the longer and more obscure. It is easy to be swept up in the obvious
Try using in a sentence any of the winning triumph of those who spell. They are cham-
words from this century: demarche, succeda- pions. But isn’t their field of honor a bit odd?
neum, prospicience, pococurante, autochthonous, What have spelling champions done? They
appoggiatura, Ursprache, and serrefine. For that have used the language correctly. Are we in
matter, try finding these words in your home such awe of good spelling that we cannot
dictionary. If words had usage meters, these attribute it to the human mind alone?
would surely register in the single digits. Isn’t language supposed to be innate for
The two recent films with spelling bees humans, natural, acquired through the soft
at their core—Akeelah and the Bee and Bee hug of our culture? Is English so hard that sim-
Season—confirm the perception that spelling ply using it correctly is cause for national cel-
in English is an almost superhuman act. In ebration? One could object to these questions
Akeelah and the Bee, a young girl enlists the in the context of the spelling bee by pointing
support of her entire community to make out that the types of words encountered at the
it to the national competition. Her coach National Spelling Bee are Herculean in their
(played by Laurence Fishburne) gives her difficulty, outliers of the language and not
thousands of word flashcards, and throughout firm ground upon which to speculate about
the days leading up to the finals, her neigh- language. For example, how often does one
bors, friends, and family quiz her while she encounter appoggiatura (from the Italian for
jumps rope, shops, is at school or just walking an ornamental note)? Still, consider the words
down the street. Her success is likewise shared included in the first round of the National
by all as they watch her compete on TV. The Spelling Bee, a multiple choice round used to
message is that it takes a village to spell. No narrow down the field of competitors prior to
one can do it alone. Another interesting aspect the oral competition. Boys and girls compet-
of the film is that spelling is treated as a balm, ing in this round have already proven them-
more than just an act of writing. Akeelah tells selves as excellent spellers by each placing very
her spelling coach at one point that she uses high at both a local and a state competition.
spelling to get over her problems. She spells at The words from the 2007 multiple choice test
night in bed when she is afraid. included bizarre, icicle, demur, colossus, and
In Bee Season, the young girl, much more ciao. These are not words that would startle
isolated than Akeelah, wins spelling bees a Scrabble board. Isn’t it odd that success in
through no less than divine intervention. spelling fairly common English words is con-
The film uses special effects to show how sidered an extraordinary feat? When you spell
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a word, you are not creating language, you Blame the Dutch typesetters, who were
are repeating an agreed upon usage, follow- paid by the line and so stuck additional letters
ing convention. Should any aspect of using into words. Blame the printing press. Accord-
language correctly be this hard? ing to Peters (1968, 274), “The discrepancies
between the way we currently pronounce
Why is spelling so hard? and spell words may be attributed, in large
Blame the alphabet. You can never tell measure, to the fact that our spelling, mostly
what sound a letter is going to make. Some- inherited from Late Middle English, has
times a letter doesn’t make any sound at all, is remained more or less fixed since c. 1650,
silent—and then you’ll find a letter (like the unlike the pronunciation of those Late Mid-
“x” in box) that makes more than one sound dle English words.” Peters uses as an example
in one appearance. As Bryson (1990, 120) of this pronunciation slippage the word knight
points out: “We have some forty sounds in which, in the Middle English period was pro-
English, but more than 200 ways of spelling nounced the way it looks.
them. We can render the sound ‘sh’ in up to Blame it on the history of the English,
fourteen ways (shoe, sugar, passion, ambition, those British Isles invaded many times by
ocean, champagne, etc.)… If you count proper many different languages and then invading
nouns, the word in English with the most other isles and continents with other lan-
varied spellings is air with a remarkable thirty- guages with which to mix. Colonies were like
eight: Aire, Ayr, heir, e’er, ere, and so on.” a linguistic semipermeable membrane. Take a
Essentially, the Latin alphabet with its typical English sentence and you have a smor-
phonological significations was used to sig- gasbord of international snacks. For example
nify Old English. Of course, the inventories in that last sentence, smorgasbord is from the
of phonemes were not identical for the two Old Norse words for bread, butter and table;
languages. Stevick (1968, 276) writes: “The the word international is from the Latin for
least satisfactory fit of the alphabet to English to be born, nasci; and snack from the Middle
was a carryover from Latin—the limitation to English meaning pretty much what it means
five vocalic graphemes for a language that had today in English.
many more than five vowels.” That is why “y” To be an effective English speller, an
is sometimes called into action as a vowel and understanding of all these linguistic origins is
why so often in English words it takes two let- helpful. That’s why, in spelling bees, the first
ters to represent one vowel sound. As Stevick question from a contestant faced with a dif-
goes on to say, “The subsequent history of ficult word is often about its derivation. For
English spelling reflects at all points the inad- there are laws guiding the alphabetic represen-
equate set of vocalic symbols” (276). tation of sounds, but the laws differ from lan-
Blame the dictionary. Before the diction- guage to language. Sometimes when words are
ary, there was no way to establish correct brought into English, their original spellings
spelling, and spelling varied widely. The dic- are maintained, and sometimes they are given
tionary became a snapshot of the language, new, English spellings. Sometimes words that
and words, once they were collected and fixed, did not come from Latin were given Latinate
didn’t change as rapidly. Sounds, though, were aspects (just because we like Latin so much)—
not captured and so continued to change even thus the “b” in debt, the “p” in receipt, the “s”
while words stayed put in the dictionary. The in island, and the “c” in indict.
gentlemen who made dictionaries—notably Each word in English seems to have its
Samuel Johnson with his Dictionary of the own compass, some pointing to phonology,
English Language published in 1755 and Noah some to morphology, some to history, and
Webster with his American Dictionary of the some pointing one direction in one syllable
English Language published in 1828—were and another in the next. Someone who can
collectors more than prescriptive linguists. spell in English either understands the polar
Though Webster was a powerful voice for north of entire fleets of words or, more likely,
reform, especially in making English more has memorized the individual words they
American, his dictionary successfully revised need to know. Either way, spellers of English,
the spelling of only a handful of words. though they may not realize it, are constantly
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navigating the challenging waters of intercul- learners. Even among those of our children
tural communication. And it is a sea full of and adults who do not become nonreaders,
wrecks. the traumas of an irrational alphabet often
continue as hidden or unconscious antipa-
Why not fix spelling? thies for, and roadblocks to, effective reading
Spelling reform is a sound idea that has habits, and even more effective roadblocks to
occurred to every school kid who ever had writing” (vii). Wood goes on to suggest that
to spell English and has been championed our orthography has a hand in national delin-
by some of the brightest, most powerful quency, violence, and even demagoguery.
people in American history. Ambitious sim- While blaming the difficulty of spell-
plifiers of the orthography include the ever ing in English for the incarceration rate in
sensible Benjamin Franklin, dictionary writer the United States might be far-fetched, it is
Noah Webster, President Theodore Roosevelt, certainly true that learning to read is much
steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and essential more challenging when you can’t just learn
American writer Mark Twain. the sounds of an alphabet and apply them
They all failed. to all the words you encounter. Those learn-
Menken (1992) calls Noah Webster the ing to read English, whether it be their first
father of the simplified spelling movement language or a new language, must learn to
but notes that those most influenced by him do more than sound out the letters of words.
urged the immediate adoption of the revised The simplified spelling movement in
spellings ar, catalog, definit, gard, giv, hav, America, while not exactly thriving, is still
infinit, liv, tho, thru, and wisht. That was around. The Spelling Society maintains a web-
in 1876. This was from the group who had site (www.spellingsociety.org) with pamphlets,
control of the dictionary. (One out of eleven news releases, and examples of their proposed
isn’t bad.) spelling. One of the most photogenic of the
In 1906 Andrew Carnegie, one of the Spelling Society’s activities is their yearly
wealthiest men in the United States, funded picket of the National Spelling Bee Finals in
the Simplified Spelling Board, and President Washington, DC. A few orthographically out-
Theodore Roosevelt, following the board’s raged individuals march in front of the build-
recommendations, ordered the adoption of ing where young spellers compete and wave
300 new spellings by certain government protest signs with slogans such as “spelling
agencies. They resisted. shuud bee lojical,” “enuf is enuf,” and “spell
Menken (1992) gives much credit to the different difrent.” Predictably, the impact of
spelling bee for the resistance to spelling this campaign seems to be minimal.
reform in America, saying the tradition gen- Fowler (1944) dismisses reformers thusly:
erates an “interest in and respect for spelling “English had better be treated in the English
prowess” (493). It is certainly true that a way, & its spelling not be revolutionized but
revised spelling system would be the death of amended in detail, here a little & there a
the bee. Watching people spell a reasonable little as absurdities become intolerable, till a
language would be as uninteresting as watch- result is attained that shall neither overbur-
ing kids count objects. The spelling bee relies den schoolboys nor stultify intelligence nor
upon linguistic complexity. outrage the scholar” (554). I can’t help but
Reasons to reform American spelling have raise my hand and suggest that we are a little
ranged from conserving ink and paper, to behind in amending our absurdities. To use
making it easier to promote English as a world English is to be very tolerant of them.
language, to eliminating illiteracy in America, Of course, another possible mode of reform
to, well, reason. Strong proponents of spelling would be to leave the alphabet alone and focus
reform see the lack of transparency in English on the interpretation of the dictionary. While
spelling as the root of many of society’s evils. all the famous American spelling reform-
Wood (1971) writes passionately about the ers sought to simplify the spelling system,
damage caused by our non-transparent sys- couldn’t we leave the alphabet as is but stop
tem. “Our orthography … puts an intolerable enforcing it? Couldn’t we just go back to the
and too often traumatic burden on beginning way things were in the great days of freedom
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in English when Chaucer and then Shake- little trial contains too many factors to iden-
speare ruled? I’m talking about the legalization tify any truth about the import of spelling.
of misspelling. Tolerance of diversity. But that The context and limited lexical set—read and
would lead to chaos, right? If we did not all write and vowel are used many times—eased
agree upon standard spelling conventions, the lack of correct orthographic input. But
how would people read? If I started spelling context is a necessary factor in reading. Also,
jus any wich way, haw wode we comunekate? context is the only thing that makes wood a
At the end of his chapter on simpli- misspelling when the modal auxiliary is called
fied spelling, Menken (1992, 493) writes: for. Knowing the “neighborhood” of words is
“Everyone can understand a policeman when an essential component in effective reading.
he turns in the report of a larsensy or an You could also argue that I warned the reader
applicant for a job when he alleges that he about what change to mentally compensate
is a licensed chuffer, shoffer or even shofar. for. And this casual reading experiment is
‘Correct’ spelling, indeed, is one of the arts sampling the reactions of fluent readers who
that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams have made it through thousands of words of a
than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat sophisticated article in a magazine for teach-
and agony of the world.” ers of English. We have shown nothing of the
effect of poor spelling on beginning readers or
Is spelling necessary? L2 learners. However, if you could make out
Let’s try a little experiment. What happens the mangled sentences in the above paragraph,
if we damage the words in a sentence? Can you then correct spelling is not essential to read-
still read them? See f you cna read ths sentence ing—it is just one of many keys.
whre I wlil change ne aspect o every ohter The Orthographic Depth Hypothesis pro-
word. That was a sentence with eight spelling poses that in transparent or “shallow” orthog-
mistakes, most of them more severe than your raphies such as Turkish or Serbo-Croatian,
average spelling mistake, which can be counted where letters can be relied upon to make
on to strive for phonetic consistency. Now consistent sounds, “phonological informa-
what if we damage every single word in a sen- tion is assembled primarily through letter-by-
tence? I thi sentenc I’l remov th fina lette o ever letter, symbol-to-sound, translation” (Koda
wor t se i yo ca understan i. Did you get that? 2005, 36). But in languages like English
Did it take you significantly longer to read with “deep,” non-transparent orthographies,
than this sentence, which is pretty much the “phonological information has been obtained
same length? What if we replace all the vowels after a word has been identified, based on the
with one vowel, say “e”? Cen yee reed wreteng stored knowledge of that word” (Koda 2005,
thet hes enle ene vewel er es et tee cenfeseng? 36). Thus in English we see words more than
If vowels can be interchanged without any seri- we sound out words. That’s one explanation
ous reading ramifications, one wonders what why misspelling isn’t a big impediment to
the big deal about spelling is. What happens reading. We don’t need the word to be perfect;
if we take out the vowels altogether? Wtht th we just need to be able to recognize it.
vwls w stll cn rd wrttn txts bcs thr r s mny thr But I am oversimplifying a complex activ-
fctrs nvlvd n rdng. Now that sentence repaired: ity to highlight one fact: correct spelling is not
“Without the vowels we still can read written necessary for reading, and conversely, reading
texts because there are so many other factors does not lead to “good” spelling. How is it
involved in reading.” It takes a lot of damage possible that one could read all of Moby Dick
to the mechanics of writing to disable the com- but still not be able to spell whale? Because we
municative aspect of the written language. The do not spend a lot of time with each individu-
three examples given here go beyond misspell- al letter in the word whale in order to read it.
ing, which generally occurs only occasionally Depending on the context, (if it comes after
in a sentence and usually involves one incorrect the word white, say) we may not have to see
letter. Reading is not significantly impaired the word at all but only its length. Successful
when it encounters misspelling. reading involves the use of many skills.
Of course, this is a highly unscientific Ehri (as cited in Koda 2005) identifies five
experiment. One could rightly object that our primary ways we read English: assembling
E n g l i s h T E a c h i n g F o r u m | Number 3 2008 7
letters into blends, pronouncing spelling pat- is treated as a cosmetic aspect in these situa-
terns, identifying sight words from memory, tions; misspelling is the equivalent of wearing
analogizing to words already known by sight, a tee-shirt to a business school interview or
and using context. She finds that children as chewing gum while answering questions. Not
well as adults must learn to use all five of these spelling well is impolite more than it is incor-
skills in order to be proficient readers. Good rect. It is often interpreted as demonstrating a
readers, she claims, are adept in all five, and lack of effort, and sloppiness. It is also treated
use them in different proportions depending as a barometer of one’s education, or even
on the type of reading task. In other words, intelligence.
good reading involves not just a mix of skills In the academic community, where more
but the correct mix of the skills for the partic- liberal descriptive linguistic views might be
ular task at hand. Each individual reader uses expected to hold sway, spelling is given a
these skills to a differing degree and each read- good deal of importance. The U.S. Depart-
ing task—whether it be reading the morning ment of Education’s annual Nation’s Report
paper over breakfast, reading email at work, Card (nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard) includes
or reading Make Way for Ducklings aloud spelling as an indicator in writing achievement
to children at bedtime—requires a different levels. The definition of basic achievement at
combination of reading strategies. In the grade 4, for example, states that students
United States today, early reading education performing at the basic level should be able
in all its variety can be said to respect many of to: “1. demonstrate appropriate response
the five ways of reading. While “phonics” are to the task in form, content, and language;
king currently, the teaching of sight words and 2. use some supporting details; 3. demon-
top down strategies are also prevalent. strate organization appropriate to the task;
So if spelling is not an essential factor and 4. demonstrate sufficient command of
in successful reading, why is it needed at all spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capital-
beyond the spelling bee? Is it one of those odd ization to communicate to the reader.”
skills, like juggling, that makes one popular at So basic writing success is defined as
parties but has few practical applications? Woe appropriate, detailed, and organized, and the
(and whoa) to those who think so. While not fourth category is a mix of items often referred
necessary for communication, spelling is very to as mechanics. Many questions could be
important. asked of this definition; for example, are all
Just ask Dan Quayle. Many people still the items in the fourth category of equal
remember a mistake he made at an elemen- weight? Is command of grammar more impor-
tary school spelling bee he was presiding over tant to communication than capitalization?
when he was the U.S. vice president. One of But for our purposes, it is interesting to note
the words in the competition was potato. The that spelling is included at all in the definition
boy given that word spelled it correctly, but and in connection to communication.
the vice president corrected him, insisting For the next level of success, the proficient
there was a final “e” on the word—“potatoe.” level, the abilities widen and deepen with
The boy who spelled potato better than the spelling still a component of success: “few
vice president became something of a national errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and
celebrity, was a guest on many talk shows, and capitalization that interfere with communica-
even led the Pledge of Allegiance at the 1992 tion.” At the advanced level, the criteria move
Democratic Convention. That Dan Quayle away from interference to the expectation
lost the 1992 election cannot be blamed on that student writers will “enhance meaning
his spelling ability, but the national attention through control of spelling, grammar, punc-
his spelling mistake attracted demonstrates tuation, and capitalization.” The assumption
how often spelling is used as a measure of at all three levels is that spelling is not only
intelligence. important to successful writing, it is impor-
If a job applicant’s resume contains even tant in communication. But how is meaning
one spelling error, it will seriously impede ever enhanced by spelling? Even though it is
his or her chances of getting the job, even if pretty clear that spelling has very little impact
spelling is not required for that job. Spelling on communication, it is still widely regarded
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an important indicator of success in academic go beyond grammar to manners. Spelling
assessment rubrics. reminds us that to learn English is to study
On graded essays at any level of educa- history and anthropology. All our students are
tion in the United States, how many spelling studying sociolinguistics. Pity them.
errors are marked? If the answer is somewhere English is a language without a govern-
around 25 percent of all teacher comments, it ing body, but it is often taught, both as an
may not just be a sign of incompetent spellers, L1 and an L2, as though it were governed
it may be because spelling is the easiest thing by a small group of people who passed their
to find that is wrong. Finding spelling errors laws directly to teachers. We teach English
is so easy a computer can do it for us, and do this way because we as teachers want to be
it well. Spelling is also easy to quantify. I had authorities ourselves, and it is impossibly,
a high school English teacher who proudly embarrassingly difficult to be an authority on
announced that she would give us an “F” if something that is too big to see all at once
she found more than three spelling mistakes and too dynamic to ever pin down. We also
in any of our essays. Yet she did not give a sometimes teach English as though language
similar strike for any other error, not of syntax had been tamed because we make erroneous
or even logic. I suspect she found it beyond assumptions about language. We assume, for
her abilities to mark anything but spelling. example, that dictionaries can be trusted. But
Spelling, easy to notice, easy to count, is even with all the dictionaries in print, there
also one of the easiest aspects of language to is still significant disagreement about many
identify. Is spelling important in successful English spellings. Hyphenation, for example,
written communication? No. But, of course, is in a high state of flux. Not one of the words
language communicates much more than just that Strunk (1918) identified in his Elements
the intended message. Language usage often of Style as being hyphenated—to-day, to-night,
indicates, for one thing, one’s place in soci- to-morrow—is hyphenated today.
ety. Correct English orthography is a sort of While you are passing down the law of
accent of the educated. spelling in class, your students might be using
According to Stubbs (1980, 69): “There is their cell phones to text (or SMS) one another
a powerful convention that words in English using “words” such as “ttyl” “w8” and “thx.”
should have one fixed spelling. But it is sim- Computers are another bit of technology that
ply a convention, which has developed over is changing the way we spell. If your students
the last two hundred years, but did not hold use spell checkers, teach them how to use
before that…Unless the errors are particularly them well, and help them identify the pitfalls
gross, there are rarely any problems of com- of spell checking, such as homophones. (See
munication… Spelling is clearly important, Appendix 2.)
because people attach so much importance Is teaching English spelling rules an act
to it.” of denial about their usefulness? The most
popular rule of English teachers is “i before
Conclusion e except after c.” That seems pretty good—a
What do spelling bees and the Ameri- rule with one exception. The student speller is
can culture of spelling tell us as teachers of ready to venture forth into the language, pen-
English? For one thing, they remind us that cil in hand. But wait, that student should also
learning a language and using it are not at all know that when there is a sound like “ay” as in
easy. Your average spelling bee contestant is a neighbor or weigh, the rule does not apply. Oh,
12-year-old who spends more than two hours wait, students should also know that there are
a day studying one aspect of the language. All some exceptions such as foreign, height, and
but one in this self-selecting crowd of thou- weird. If students need a pneumonic device
sands will make a mistake. for these exceptions, they might try “Foreign
Language is hard. Language is hard because and weird are the height of irregularity when
it is immense, the result of human history; it is trying to apply the ‘i before e’ spelling rule.”
smoothed over once in a while, perhaps, but Now let them go spell, but before they do,
it is still quite bumpy. It is complex because there is something they should know; remem-
it is a part of human society with rules that ber that rule, i before e except after c? Well,
E n g l i s h T E a c h i n g F o r u m | Number 3 2008 9
some words are exceptions to that “after c” producing them on occasion. I myself carry
exception—science, for example, and other a pocket spelling dictionary with me every-
words with that cien spelling, like ancient. where I go, and I know which of my friends
Now your students can start spelling with i and family I can rely on for sound spelling
and e, and let’s hope they don’t meet the third advice. As in Akeelah and the Bee, spelling can
person plural possessive pronoun. often be a community endeavor.
At some point, when the number of rules I like Winnie-the-Pooh’s social approach
begins to approach the number of words, the to spelling in The House on Pooh Corner.
fact that language is rule-governed is no lon- When he wants to give his friend, Eeyore, a
ger comforting. Be honest with your students. birthday present, he asks wise Owl to write
Tell them that a few rules are not going to the message, explaining “Because my spelling
be the key to learning to spell. Instead, just is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it wobbles,
as with reading, to learn English spelling, and the letters get in the wrong places. Would
students will need a variety of strategies. They you write ‘a happy birthday’ on it for me?”
will have to memorize a lot and should focus Owl cautiously asks Pooh if he can read and
on words most common to their specific needs then writes: “HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH
and most commonly misspelled by users of THUTHDA BTHUTHDY” while Pooh
English everywhere. Also, let students know looks on “admiringly.”
when spelling is important and when it is not.
(If they are preparing to study at an American References
university, then it is extremely important.) Bryson, B. 1990. The mother tongue: English and
how it got that way. New York: Perennial.
In assessing written language, give students
Fowler, H. W. 1944. A dictionary of modern English
the opportunity to focus on non-surface
usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
issues, such as organization and content, by Koda, K. 2005. Insights into second language reading:
ignoring misspellings. That’s right, let them A cross linguistic approach. Cambridge: Cam-
go sometimes. In final drafts, you can identify bridge University Press.
Maguire, J. 2006. American bee: The national spell-
and count the number of spelling mistakes,
ing bee and the culture of word nerds. Rodale
but again, you might focus your attention on
Mencken, H. L. 1992. The American language. 4th
matters that computers find more difficult to ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
identify. Try an experiment in your assessment Milne, A. A. 1957. The world of Pooh. E. P. Dutton
technique: rather than marking the spelling and Co., Inc.
mistakes first, try marking them after you Peters, R. 1968. A linguistic history of English. Bos-
ton: Houghton Mifflin Company.
have made all content-related commentary.
Stevick, R. 1968. English and its history: The evolu-
You might find you are looking deeper into
tion of a language. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
the writing, past the cosmetic, to the level Inc.
where thought lives. Another approach that Stubbs, M. 1981. Language and literacy: The socio-
many writing teachers use is to give separate linguistics of reading and writing. London: Rout-
ledge and Kegan.
content and mechanics assessments.
Strunk, W. 1918. Elements of style. Ithaca, NY: Pri-
Fowler (1944) is most practical when it
vate Printing.
comes to spelling. He suggests that a list of Wood, B. 1971. Introd. to English spelling, road-
spelling words be made “by each person who block to reading, by G. Dewey. New York: Teach-
finds himself in need of it, out of his own ers College, Columbia University.
experience & to suit his own requirements”
(554). He goes on to give a list that might be
his own, adding that some words like disap-
point and unparalleled are doubly or triply
as dangerous as others since they offer many
opportunities for error and so are especially
deserving of a space on such a list. I’m sur-
prised that more users of English don’t pro-
duce their own lists. It seems to me such lists
Eran Williams lives in Pretoria, South
should be accessories as common as handker- Africa, where he serves as the Regional
chiefs or cell phones. We could laminate our English Language Officer for southern
spelling lists and carry them in our pockets, Africa.
10 2008 N umber 3 | E n g l i s h T E a c h i n g F o r u m
Interesting Websites on
Spelling Bees and Spelling
The Challenge of Spelling in English • Eran Williams
www.spellingbee.com/
The Scripps National Spelling Bee official website includes information for
participants, finalist profiles, and a study zone containing four free study resources
including a 794-page consolidated word list in PDF format. This word list is the
seminal resource for all those studying for the national spelling bee. Another use-
ful feature of the website is a complete 36-week study program, Carolyn’s Corner,
with spelling rules and even inspirational stories.
www.myspellit.com/
This study site jointly created by Scripps and Merriam-Webster contains lists of
frequently misspelled words and homonyms that include audio files so that users
can hear the word as well as see its definition and origins. The site offers spelling
study words categorized by language of origin with interesting activities for each
language. In addition, the site offers a free downloadable booklet, Spell it! Tricks
and Tips for Spelling Bee Success, which teachers have permission to reproduce for
classroom use.
www.spellingbeethemusical.com/
This site of the musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” offers
a game that simulates the spelling bee. You can even ask for the definition and for
the word to be used in a sentence. Fortunately, unlike a real spelling bee, you can
attempt to spell the same word many times.
www.spellingcity.com
A great free resource for teachers and students (especially young ones), this site
allows you to enter lists of spelling words and generate tests and games from them.
If you register, you can store word lists and keep track of progress. The program
“pronounces” words entered and uses them in sentences. The spelling games
offered include a version of hangman and a word search; games can be printed or
played online.
Continued on page 21
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