Spelling is ruining the English language

[Kingswood]

[S]pelling is just a bunch of memorization. -- Evan O'Dorney, winner 2007 spelling bee

Most of us who can read and write English have had to endure a seemingly endless series of lessons consisting of little more than the rote memorization of the spellings of lists of words. Some of these words are so obscure that they are unlikely to be used more than a dozen times in the student's lifetime. Often the meaning of these obscure words isn't even taught to the students, as if the meaning wasn't important, but woe betide the unfortunate child who can't spell them!

Do we really need to subject our children to this monotony? No wonder so many students hate English classes.

The inability to memorize spelling is a source of humiliation for many. Some quite intelligent people cannot spell. It is hardly surprising when one day they learn that "rabbit" is spelt with two b's, and the next they must learn that "habit" is spelt with only one. The reason for the difference is never explained, the unfortunate child is simply expected to remember the spellings of individual words. With inconsistencies like these, is it no wonder that many cannot master spelling?

These otherwise intelligent people are denied many employment opportunities because they don't remember to spell "résumé" with accents on both e's, and spelling is used by lazy employers as a measure of educational standard and competence. To the lazy employer, it doesn't matter if the candidate has impressive qualifications and experience that the employer can check with a little effort; if there's a spelling mistake, the candidate is not considered. And some employers can't spell perfectly either, so the spelling mistake the disqualifies the candidate could well be the employer's.

The inability of some students to learn spelling is considered by many to be a problem, and we then waste huge amounts of money on solutions. We have phonics, whole-word memorization, and other efforts to teach our children to read and write. Yet we consistently ignore the elephant in the room: English spelling is badly in need of reform.

Many people would be appalled and shocked by that idea. "But you can't change the spelling!" they say. "It's the language of Milton, Shakespeare and Keats", they say. This isn't relevant, as modern editions of the works of Shakespeare and other authors are not published in the spellings that those authors themselves used.

Anyone who mentions the name of Shakespeare as a holy incantation against the cause of spelling reform is evidently unaware that on Shakespeare's grave his epitaph uses the spelling "frend" instead of "friend". If the spelling "frend" was good enough for Shakespeare to have it engraved on his tomb in stone, why is it not good enough for us?

Some people oppose the idea of spelling reform because they worry that they would have to learn spelling all over again. This is a more legitimate reason to be wary of spelling reform, but the concern is unfounded. Spelling reforms in other languages take place all the time, generally at intervals of fifty years or so. The old spellings are generally not considered wrong after reform, in that people can still use them if they wish, but they do become deprecated so they can fall out of use. It is usual for spelling reforms to introduce new spellings that are now considered correct. People are free to use whatever spellings they wish. The only material change is that students would be taught the new spellings instead of the old.

Other people do not see any problem with English spelling. Anyone who finds no problem with English spelling has no skills in critical thinking. Here is a short list that shows just a few of the problems of English spelling:

• Why are "habit", "lizard" and "salad" spelt with a single letter after the stressed vowel but "rabbit", "blizzard" and "ballad" spelt with a doubled letter after the stressed vowel?
• Why don't "bomb", "comb" and "tomb" rime?
• Why are the words "island", "doubt", "debt" and "ptarmigan" spelt with silent letters that are not justified by the etymology of those words?
• Why must English have words with multiple pronunciations like "estimate", "house", "lead", "mouth", "read", "use", "wind" and "wound"? Other languages that have regular spelling reforms have no words like these because the reforms systematically eliminate these, but English has accumulate the clutter of over 500 heterophonic homographs.
• Why does "receipt" have a silent "p"? It is related to the word "reception". However, why aren't the words "deceit" and "conceit" spelt with a silent "p" as well? After all, they are linked to "deception" and "conception". For that matter, why does "receipt" have a silent "p" to link it to "reception" when "reception" does not in turn have a silent "i" to link it to "receipt"?

I have asserted that spelling is ruining the English language. It's true. The time wasted in learning all these thousands of obscure spellings is time that is not spent teaching grammar and punctuation. Many kids leave school without knowing that sentences start with capital letters and end in full stops, and some students leave school without even a firm grasp on grammar. Some students leave school without ever studying English literature. English education seems not to care about those things so long as the students can spell.

Requiring students to learn spelling is a false god to which all other learning in English is sacrificed.

To make room for hundreds of hours of spelling classes, we must dumb down the teaching of grammar, punctuation and literature. Thus, spelling reform is not the dumbing down of spelling, as some incorrectly claim, but instead it would be an opportunity to smarten up grammar, punctuation and literature. If spelling could be mastered in three years instead of eight, a lot of additional time would be available in the classroom for the teaching of English Literature from Seuss to Shakespeare. A comprehensive reform of spelling in English could be the best thing for English Literature since the birth of Shakespeare.

Spelling reform of the English language would give students of the future a more balanced education in English that is demonstrably superior to the education we give our children today.