The word snoop - Ursula Dubosarsky 2009

American spelling
Why is english so strange?

By the time Dr. Johnson was writing his dictionary, people from Britain had begun to roam around the world in ships and make settlements in lots of different countries. This was the beginning of something known as the British Empire. And just as William the Conqueror brought the French language with him to England when he conquered it, so these English people brought along English to all the different places they went. They spoke it, taught it, and published newspapers and books in it.

That’s why English is spoken in so many different parts of the world—North America, Australia, Africa, and India, just to name a few. And in each place, naturally enough, a different kind of English developed, not just in accents or the way people pronounce words, but also in ways of making sentences and types of words—and yes, spelling.

Now, as you already know, not everybody likes English spelling, and there have been many calls to fix it up and get rid of things like silent letters. Probably the most successful act of spelling reform took place in the United States in the eighteenth century after the American Revolution, when America became independent from Britain. During this time, a man by the name of Noah Webster (remember him from Chapter 1?) decided to write a dictionary of American English. He saw it as a big chance for a new country to improve all that pesky British spelling. Webster was particularly eager to get rid of what he described as “silent letters; as a in bread. Thus bread, head, give, breast, built, meant, realm, friend, would be spelled, bred, hed, giv, brest, bilt, ment, relm, frend. Would this alteration produce any inconvenience, any embarrassment or expense? By no means.”

Well, he didn’t get everything he wanted (by no means!), but he did succeed in removing some silent letters from American spelling, like the u from colour (I mean, color), and the gue ending from words like dialogue (I mean, dialog). But American English still has plenty of silent letters left behind that nobody seems able to chase away.

Over the centuries, thousands of dedicated, clever, and passionate people throughout the English-speaking world have argued sensibly and intelligently for spelling reform but, apart from Noah Webster, nobody’s had much success. Although with e-mails and texting you can see there are some differences creeping in . . .

But I don’t know, maybe we’re all secretly fond of these silent letters. They’re a bit like stray cats that wander into the house. After a while you just get used to seeing them there, and you might miss them if they went away. They remind you of all the people who have been speaking English for hundreds and hundreds of years before you.

Spelling test

Geoffrey Chaucer was a wonderful, funny, imaginative poet who lived in England in the fourteenth century. Here’s a quote from one of his poems. If you were his teacher marking it today, how many spelling mistakes would you spot? Try not to be too hard on him—remember there was no such thing as a dictionary then, let alone spellcheck . . .

But every thyng which schyneth as the gold,

Nis nat gold, as that I have herd it told

And what about this one?

And gladly wolde he lerne

and gladly teche.

Oh well, at least he got and right!