Spelling
Standardized spelling is a convenience
for reminding readers of the words they
know. The chief reason for conventional
spelling is the fact that the majority
of people consider it a sign of literacy
and even social respectability! People
take for granted that the spelling of
educated people will be conventional;
even people who are careless about their
own spelling are quick to detect and
condemn misspelled words in the writing
of others.
If you're one of those whose spelling is unconventional,
now is a good time to analyze your common erros and
working to eradicate them. A spell checker helps but
it isn't infallable. You have to have a sense to how
a word is spelled to make sure the spell checker has
inferred the word you intend.
What makes spelling in English difficult is the fact
that we have only 26 letters to represent ~80 sounds.
Therefore the same letter or letter combination may
represent a variety of sounds
a as in aha, fare, hat, many, lay, far,
was, idea...
ou as in though, bough, enough, cough,
rough, through...
The converse is also true—one sound may be represented
in a variety of ways:
bee, believe, precede, sea, receive...
In addition, a number of words are written with letters
that are not pronounced, and others (homophones) sound
alike but are spelled differently because they have
different meanings.
These inconsistencies are the result of how English
has evolved—but that doesn't make them easier to remember.
Absolute correctness in spelling is impossible to achieve—the
goal is to develop a sense of what are the probabilities
that a given word is spelled a particular way.
Online Resources
There are lots of resources to help you with spelling.
Click here for some
you can find online.
|
