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<h2>Order and Chaos in English Spelling</h2><p><br></p><p>“But here’s the thing,” wrote David Shariatmadari in <i>The Guardian</i>
a couple of weeks ago. “English orthography makes no sense.” No sense? I
know it is exaggeration for the sake of humor (no quibble there), but
I’ve decided to use it as an excuse to come to the defense of English
spelling. It’s a hard case to make, no doubt (note the wonderfully
silent <i>b</i>), but here goes. …</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/26/donald-trump-twitter-spelling?CMP=share_btn_link" target="_blank">article</a> was a response to Donald Trump’s misspelling of the word <i>honor</i> in this tweet from February 26:</p>
<blockquote><p>Wow, every poll said I won the debate last night. Great honer!</p></blockquote>
<p>Shariatmadari’s playful defense of Trump’s misspelling points out the
“unbridgeable gulf” between Brits and Americans over the spelling of
this word (<i>honour</i> vs. <i>honor</i>), so why not add <i>honer</i> to the mix? And, he notes, we might as well get rid of that initial <i>h</i>- while we’re at it, given that it isn’t pronounced. <i>Oner</i> it is.</p>
<p>The article accurately explains three reasons why English spelling is
such a “basketcase”: (a) pronunciations have changed over time, while
standardized spelling has remained more conservative (hence the <i>k</i>- and –<i>gh</i>- in <i>knight</i>); (b) spelling reformers in the Renaissance meddled with some spellings to show Latin etymologies (e.g., they put the –<i>b</i>- “back into” <i>debt</i>); and (c) Noah Webster successfully reformed American spelling to distinguish it from British spelling (which leaves us with <i>honor</i> vs. <i>honour</i>, <i>theater</i> vs. <i>theatre</i>). All very true, and we could add a few more (e.g., French scribal practices, borrowing from dozens of other languages).</p>
<p>My point here, though, is that English spelling is more regular than
many people realize. Some linguists argue that English spelling is 80
percent to 90 percent predictable. But the irregularities in English
spelling — that 10 percent to 20 percent — can be spectacularly
irregular. The linguist Mario Pei didn’t call it “the world’s most
awesome mess” for nothing.</p>
<p>The regularities tend to be unremarkable. For example, we can expect
that all these words will rhyme given that they share the same spelling –<i>at</i>: <i>at, bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, spat, splat, vat</i>. But then, of course, we have <i>what</i>. (I didn’t say anyone was arguing it is 100 percent predictable.)</p>
<p>It is true that we have multiple ways to spell the same sound. For example, the sound /k/ can be spelled with a <i>c</i> (<i>cat</i>), <i>k</i> (<i>kid</i>), <i>ck</i> (<i>back</i>), <i>q</i> (<i>quack</i>), and <i>qu</i> (<i>quiche</i>).
That’s a lot of possibilities, but there are patterns within that. If a
word starts with the sound /k/, it would never be spelled with <i>ck</i> (*<i>ckid</i>); and if a word ends with /k/, it would never end with <i>qu</i> (*<i>breaqu</i>) (and almost never with <i>q</i> either, except for <i>Iraq</i>).</p>
<p>These patterns allow us to have intuitions about which spellings of
made-up words are possible and not possible in English. For instance: <i>phing</i> and <i>bight</i> are OK, but <i>ngiph</i> and <i>ghtib</i> are not OK.</p>
<p>We know that the spelling <i>gh</i> can be pronounced /f/ as in <i>laugh</i>, but we also know the /f/ pronunciation would not happen in <i>ght</i> (<i>night</i>, <i>light</i>) or at the beginning of a word (<i>ghost</i>).</p>
<p>Our knowledge of these patterns is why the well-known, jokingly proposed spelling of <i>fish</i> as <i>ghoti</i> (<i>gh</i> as in <i>laugh</i>, <i>o</i> as in <i>women</i>, and <i>ti</i> as in <i>nation</i>) actually isn’t a possible way to spell <i>fish</i>
in English. (An aside here: If you want to give George Bernard Shaw
credit for this clever play on the quirkiness of English spelling,
you’re going to need to rethink <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=81" target="_blank">that</a> …)</p>
<p>Of course, all of these examples of regularities contain examples of irregularities (e.g., <i>laugh</i>, <i>night</i>) — and not even the kookiest of the irregularities. <i>Colonel</i> is pronounced with an /r/? <i>Victual</i> sounds like “vittle”? <i>Threw</i> and <i>through</i> sound exactly the same? <i>Corps</i> has a silent <i>p</i> and a silent <i>s</i>, but <i>corpse</i> just has a silent <i>e</i>?</p>
<p>So in the end, here is all I’m going to assert: English orthography makes some sense, some of the time.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking you would like English spelling to make more sense
more of the time, my challenge to you: Which irregular spellings are
you willing to part with? For all our joking and playful complaining
about the chaotic mess of English spelling, we are often quite attached
to the quirky spellings we’ve come to recognize on the page.</p><p><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/03/10/order-and-chaos-in-english-spelling/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=cf1e4187f9644bbebfd1f1ca1a716c05&elq=fba597110888446ebd25adb7df80251c&elqaid=8209&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2640" target="_blank">http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/03/10/order-and-chaos-in-english-spelling/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=cf1e4187f9644bbebfd1f1ca1a716c05&elq=fba597110888446ebd25adb7df80251c&elqaid=8209&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2640</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: <a href="tel:%28215%29%20898-7475" value="+12158987475" target="_blank">(215) 898-7475</a><br>Fax: <a href="tel:%28215%29%20573-2138" value="+12155732138" target="_blank">(215) 573-2138</a> <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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