I think we can all agree that English has some pretty weird spelling rules. In fact, when my students ask me, “Why?” when a word looks entirely different from how it's pronounced, I have to say, “Because someone was having a laugh many years ago, and now we’re stuck with it.”
I say this as a joke, but actually, it's not far from the truth.
In his book Spell it Out, David Crystal reveals some interesting facts about the origins of English words. Let’s look at the word “Ghost''. What is the "h" doing there? Why not gost, to rhyme with most or goast to rhyme with toast? Well, Crystal investigated and uncovered an unlikely reason. In the late 15th century, a Flemish compositor worked for an English printing press: it was his job to arrange the type for printing. The problem was that his English wasn’t great, and he also exercised quite an audacious amount of creativity in deciding to add the Flemish "h" (ghost in Flemish is gheest). Why not? And so, it stuck.
English hasn’t always been so infuriating. When the original monks started writing down Anglo-Saxon using the Latin alphabet, it was all pretty straightforward and phonetic- the "g" in gnome would have been pronounced, as would the "k" in know. But then, double vowel sounds and regional accents messed things up. The Latin alphabet was too limited for all the spoken sounds, so the monks used, for example, two "o"s for a long "oo" sound, as in "moon" and "food". Once upon a time, "flood" and "blood" were pronounced the same way, but the pronunciation in the South of England changed and then spread to other parts of the English-speaking world. Thus, as Crystal puts it, "these spelling represent the pronunciation of a thousand years ago".
Fashion and snobbery have also played a big part in shaping English spelling. Britain has always had a "love-hate" relationship with France. We criticise them, yet want to be like the French (and are, in fact, far more similar than either country would like to admit). After the Norman invasion, Anglo-Saxon spellings were replaced by French ones, for example, "servis" became "service" and "mys" became "mice". So you can blame the French for that, not the Brits! During the Renaissance, it was Latin that held the most prestige, so the English word det, "dett", "dette" or "deytt" of the 13th century (spelling was an anarchical free-for-all in those days) adopted a pesky silent b thanks to the Latin word "debitum". The b has never been pronounced, yet its inclusion in the word has persisted.
So if you struggle to get your head around the arbitrariness of English spelling and pronunciation, don’t worry, so do native speakers. Spelling tests were nerve-wracking when I was a child. Nothing made sense. But I had to persist and study and read, and eventually, it became less baffling and just normal.
Glossary
Uncover | discover; find |
Find out | learn; discover |
Exercise | use; apply |
It stuck | it remained like that; didn't change |
Infuriating | making somebody extremely angry or impatient |
Straightforward | uncomplicated; basic |
Write down | write something on paper |
Mess something up | manage a situation badly; ruin |
Once upon a time | a long time ago (used in fairy tales and fables) |
Thus | so; therefore |
Snob | a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and looks down on those regarded as socially inferior. |
Snobbery | the character or quality of being a snob |
Yet | but |
Blame | feel or declare that (someone or something) is responsible for a fault or wrong |
Pesky | causing trouble; annoying |
Get your head around something | understand; make sense of something |
Nerve-wracking | Something that makes you feel very tense and worried |
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