Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:11:48.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The range of English spelling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2013

J. B. Shipley
J. B. Shipley*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
*
burke.and.nicole@chezshipley.net
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There is nothing innately funny or humorous about English spelling, though its vagaries have lent themselves to efforts in that way:

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble but not you

On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard, and sounds like bird…

[from a letter by J. Bland published in the London Sunday Times, Jan. 3, 1965; cited by Chomsky (1970) and by Adams (1990)]

Type
Review Article
Information
English Today , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 60 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, M. J. 1990. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bland, J. 1965. ‘Heard – a rhyming word.’ Letter to The Sunday Times, 3 January 1965.Google Scholar
Chomsky, C. 1970. ‘Reading, writing, and phonology.’ Harvard Educational Review, 40(2), 287–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, B. 1768. ‘A scheme for a new alphabet and a reformed mode of spelling, with remarks and examples concerning the same and an enquiry into its uses.’ In Franklin, B (ed. Vaughan, B) Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces. London: Printed for J. Johnson., pp. 467–78Google Scholar
Franklin, B. & Vaughan, B. (ed. Vaughan, B.) 1779. Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces […] now First Collected with Explanatory Plates, Notes and an Index to the Whole. London: Printed for J. Johnson.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. 1755. A Dictionary of the English Language. London: Printed by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knapton.Google Scholar
The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Edition 1989. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Webster, N. 1789. Dissertations on the English Language. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Co.Google Scholar
Webster, N. 1806. A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. Hartford, Conn: Sidney's Press for Hudson and Goodwin.Google Scholar
Webster, N. 1828. An American Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Hezekiah Howe.Google Scholar