A look at English spelling!

Jul 7, 2015

3 min read

How stupid is that – a look at English spelling

Some of my pupils and myself are building up a list of the top ten most stupid words in English spelling. There are so many candidates for this accolade that it’s hard to know where to begin. This is, therefore, a list in progress. Please do nominate your favorites. This is our list as it stands at the moment.

At 10 – “saw” and “sore”.

Okay English is famous for its homonyms, but why just 2 spelling for three meanings? I saw you. I saw the wood. I have a sore finger. And why is neither of them spelt the most obvious way of “sor”?

At 9 – “sure”.

Okay need I say anything? Its starts with as “sh” sound and ends with an “or” sound. Surely it should be “shor”?

At 8 – “work” and “walk”.

Sounded out properly “work” should read as “werk”, but no is reads as “walk”. And as for how “walk” is spelt – why?

At 7 – “know’.

They wanted this spelt differently from the same sounding word of “no”, and the solution was to put a silent “k” on the front and a silent “w” at the end!

At 6 – “night” and “knight”.

So what’s this all about? Try sounding these out? Surely “night” should be spelt as “nite”? and then they added a silent “k” at the beginning to make “knight” different from “night”. And there is some logic to this?

At 5 – “a”.

Now you think that even English could get a one letter work correct, but no – surely it should be as it’s pronounced, “u”?

At 4 – “once”

Surely this should be spelt “wuns”? So only one letter in the word actually carries with it the correct sound. That is the “n” but it’s in the wrong place! The “n” sound comes third, after the “w” and the “u”.

At 3 – “who” and “how”.

Every dyslexics’ nightmare words. “How” could be said to be correctly sounded out but what about “who”? Just about every dyslexic I have ever worked with has written “who” as “how” at some time.

At 2 – “though”, “through” and “thought”.

Why does English spelling insist on all these silent “g”s and “h”s? Also these words are particularly stupid because the “ough” is sounded in three completely different ways in these words.1 in “though” it is sounded as an “O”. 2 in “through” it is sounded as “oo”3 and in “thought” it is sounded as “or”

At 1 - A group of words that prove just how really, really stupid this all is!

bow bO - as in a ribbon tied

bow bO - as in a flexible piece of wood

bow bou - as in the forepart of a ship

bow bou - as in to bend the neck or body

bough bou - as in the branch of a tree

Beau bO - as in a name

beau bO - as in a sweetheart

(taken from my Fun Phonics Spelling and Reading Program!)

So if you still think English spelling is sensible try reading and comprehending the following.

My beau, Beau did a bow with a bough when he lost the bow with the bow on it

from the bow!