It’s often easier to enjoy learning how to spell when there’s an element of fun involved. Look for word- or spelling-based games on line or as part of the spelling software you purchase. If you’re buying spelling software make sure that it supports different user levels so that all members of your family can benefit from it, no matter their ages. You can also play the games found in many daily newspapers that involve words. By doing the crossword puzzle, you’ll find that your eye learns the patterns in words by filling in the blanks. You’ll also be exposed to new words, which will give you a better understanding of English vocabulary as well as English spelling rules. If there’s a “word jumble” game where you need to rearrange letters to form words, this is another great way to learn patterns of letters in English words. Even a word search game, while not requiring you to know how to spell, is useful – again, it gives you a list of words you might not know, and they’ll be correctly spelled.

Take every opportunity in work and play to focus on spelling, and you’ll love the results.

One simple rule that you may have learned as a child is a way to identify “long” and “short” vowels. The “long” vowel sound is when the vowel “says its name” in the pronunciation of the word:

a is pronounced AY (as in lame)
e is pronounced EE (as in cede)
i is pronounced EYE (as in bite)
o is pronounced OH (as in vote)
u is pronounced YOU (as in fuse)

If you look at these words, you’ll notice that the target vowel in each case is between two consonants, and there’s an e at the end of the word. This final “e” is what changes the sound of the vowel from short to long.

bit (an IH sound) v. bite (an EYE sound)

For the most part, when a vowel is alone between two consonants, it will have the “short” vowel sound, unless there’s an “e” at the end of the word.

Consonants also change pronunciation depending on where they are in the word, and what letters surround them. The letter g is one that changes frequently, and causes a lot of confusion. It can be pronounced with either a “soft” sound (J, as in the word magic) or a “hard” sound (G, as in the word given), and can even have the sound ZH (as in the word prestige). Here are some examples:

guitar (G)
religion (J)
language (the first is G, the second J)
genuine (J)
hunger (G)
manager (J)
energy (J)
garage (the first is G, the second ZH [British English would be J])
guardian (G)
courageous (J)

Note that the -ger at the end of manager is the same as in hunger, but the pronunciation is different.

Because there are so many combinations of letters and consonants, it’s hard sometimes to summarize every English spelling rule easily, and even the established “rules” always have exceptions. However, if you take the time to review words and note both their pronunciation and their spelling, you’ll build up a mental database of English spelling conventions that will help you with any new words you learn.

Changing nouns to verbs. Certain nouns are changed to verbs by adding the suffix -fy or -ify. Notice that in most cases the existing vowel towards the end of the word is replaced by the letter i.

terror / terrify
satisfaction / satisfy
unity / unify
mystery / mystify
significance / signify
justice / justify
certificate / certify

Another common noun-to-verb change is accomplished with the suffix -ize. In this case, there are usually fewer or no changes to the original word’s spelling.

critic / criticize
fiction / fictionalize
terror / terrorize

The adjective random becomes the verb randomize using this same rule.

Changing adjectives to nouns. A spelling change occurs to the original word when you add the suffix -nce, -ence, or -ance to an adjective to make it a noun.

absent / absence
different / difference
violent / violence
important / importance
patient / patience

The verb deliver becomes the noun deliverance by this rule as well.

Another common way to change an adjective to a noun is by adding -ness to the end of the word. If the original adjective ends in a y, you need to change the y to an i.

happy / happiness
slow / slowness
late / lateness
careless / carelessness
pretty / prettiness

These are only some of the examples of spelling changes with word derivations, and we’ll have more examples in future posts.

One such person was Christopher Upward, a lecturer at Aston University, Birmingham, and a proponent of “simplified spelling,” which tries to eliminate some of the confusing aspects of English spelling by getting rid of doubled letters, silent letters, and any other letter combinations that don’t help with pronunciation. The total number of letters in words is generally reduced by about ten percent with this method. For example, the word easy would be spelled “esy” using simplified spelling, because the “a” is silent (that is, easy is not pronounced E-A-zee, but rather E-zee). Simplified spelling (also called “cut spelling”) has not been adopted yet, but who knows? Perhaps over the next few centuries of English language evolution the words we see today will look as strangely-spelled to our descendants as those of Chaucer to our modern eyes.

If you’re interested in learning more about English spelling past and present, we recommend one of the books written by Christopher Upward (along with George Davidson), titled The History of English Spelling. Once you understand the many reasons why words are spelled the way they are, you’ll find that you have less difficulty spelling them, and that will definitely help you in the future.

As we mentioned in this post, English is vastly more complicated than many other languages because of the sheer number of different ways that letters can be combined to form sounds (the term for these letter/sound combinations is graphemes). As an example, look at all of these different ways the sound “A” can be spelled:

vein
table
player
ballet
weight
straighten
greater

This causes serious confusion among non-English speakers, and some studies show that it adds an additional two to three years to the process of learning English, something that has a major impact on a child’s educational development.

There was an interesting on-line conversation recently at The Guardian between someone who advocates a complete revision of spelling rules for simplicity and consistency, saying, “It is our language and we can spell it how we want.” In response, another reader cautions against wholesale simplification, partly due to the fact that so many words use the same sounds and can only be distinguished by their spelling. For example, would you be able to immediately understand this sentence, or would you have to think twice about what it meant?

The cheesemaker needs to way the way and then set it aside out of the way.

If you realized that the cheesemaker needs to weigh the whey and set it out of the way, then you’ve got an excellent ability to get meaning from context. Unfortunately, many people would just be confused.

What’s your opinion? Should we keep English spelling as it is, and take pride in its sometimes baroque construction? Or should there be an effort to make English spelling a little simpler and easier to learn? If you’re of the second opinion, you might be interested in learning about The English Spelling Society here.

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

For the full text of the poem, click here.

pelerine (peh-luh-REEN)
A 19th-century short cape worn by women.

capoeira (kah-POO-ay-ruh)
A Brazilian form of martial arts that incorporates dance and music.

bourride (boo-REED)
A garlicky French fish stew.

urushiye (oo-roo-SHEE-yay)
A Japanese print using lacquer instead of paint for some of the colors.

sangsue (SAHN-soo)
A leech (from the French; literally “blood-suck”).

komatik (KOH-mah-tik)
A dogsled used in northeastern Canada.

cebell (suh-BELL)
An English dance popular in the 17th century.

lekane (LEH-kuh-nee)
An ancient Greek pottery vessel shaped like a large bowl.

panguingue (pan-GEE-nee)
A Philippine card and gambling game.

galoubet (gah-loo-BAY)
A small Renaissance-era pipe similar to a recorder, but with only three holes.

naumkeag (NOM-keg)
A factory machine for smoothing down shoe soles.

hooroosh (huh-ROOSH)
A state of confusion or excitement.

orgeat (OR-zhah)
A syrup made from almonds and sugar.

periscii (PUH-rih-see-ee)
People who live above the Arctic Circle (or below the Antarctic Circle).

cymotrichous (sigh-MAH-trik-us)
Having wavy hair.

Did these words inspire you or your children to participate in a spelling bee? You can go to the Scripps National Spelling Bee site for information on how to organize a spelling bee at your local schools, get resources on spelling improvement, and find out how to study for and enter the competition. Find out more here.

One mistake some business web developers make is to assume that the “text speak” and abbreviations used on Twitter and Facebook are also suitable for a virtual storefront. However, since there are so many spam and phishing scams trying to separate people from their money – and because one of the quickest ways to identify a spam message is the presence of multiple spelling errors – if a website for a business doesn’t look professional, the customers won’t trust it.

As a business owner, you need to make sure that you check every aspect of your website and your marketing materials before they become public. Make sure the people you hire to create your site have the spelling skills you want as well as the web design skills you need.

Phonics is a way of teaching reading that also teaches children how to correctly pronounce and spell words, by showing children from the beginning that letters and letter groups can have different pronunciations. Rather than just giving children simple words to learn and skipping over any questions about why two words that use the same letters are pronounced differently, or why two words using different letters are pronounced the same, a phonics instructor will isolate each phoneme (the sound made) as well as the letters associated with them. The phoneme generally represented by the letter F is written as /f/ phonically, but the letter F can also sound like a V, as in the word of (/^v/), and the word enough has an F-sound in the cluster OUGH (/^f/) – something that even adults find confusing! However, by breaking down words into their phonemes, or sounds, it’s actually easier for children to learn and understand how words should be pronounced, and this leads to quicker improvement in spelling, because it helps break a child’s instinctive habit of spelling words “just the way they sound.”

Phonics also leads to better reading skills, and the more children read, the better spellers they become. If you have young children in school, you might want to see if phonics is used in their English and reading classes, and encourage teachers to use this method.

Adults have been finding out about how much fun this type of competition can be as well. Many local community centers sponsor spelling bees, and some bars alternate “pub quiz” night with “spelling bee night.” In fact, the bar Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg, New York, has been running a year-round ongoing spelling bee since 2004, with preliminary rounds leading up to the end-of-the-year spelling championship. Contestants cheer each other on, drink beer, spell words like “chaffinch” or “lepidopterologist,” and drink more beer, until finally a champion emerges. You can read about the bee at its own bee-related blog, and if you live in the New York City area, you might want to sign up soon. Registration is limited and the 2012 competitions start on January 2nd.

Always “bee” ready to take advantage of any opportunity you find to practice your spelling skills!