Spell it out the curious, enthralling and extraordinary story of English spelling
Presents a history of English spelling through chapters that cover such topics as the introduction of the Roman alphabet, each letter's origins, and the development of long and short vowels.
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
St. Martin's Press,
2013.
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| Edition: | First U.S. edition. |
| Subjects: | |
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Table of Contents:
- The nature of the problem: Pooh and his friends on spelling
- The beginning
- The size of the problem
- Building the alphabet: letter origins
- The basic weaknesses: hope for us all
- Keeping things long: more than letters
- Keeping things short: spelling as tragedy
- The first exceptions
- Seeing the link: forensic spelling
- Know your Latin and French: spelling as reputation
- New letters for old
- Old letters in new words: Tarzan learns to read
- Old sounds in new positions: spelling as stratagem
- New sounds in old places
- More exceptions: avoiding the vulgar
- Showing the difference: Charles Dickens and his characters reflect upon spelling
- Noting the similarity: silent letters
- New sounds in old letters
- A printer's practice: Mark Twain on spelling
- The urge to reform: George Bernard Shaw on spelling
- Remembering Latin
- More etymologies: a word I always mispell
- Famous spellings
- Spelling 'rules': Mrs Malaprop on reading and spelling
- The role of personalities
- Another personality
- Printers and publishers: spelling wars
- Changing practices: Roger McGough on spelling
- The internet: lower case only
- Showing identity
- Unpredictability: Ogden Nash on names
- Exotic vowels: disenvowelling
- Exotic consonants: the spread of education
- Spelling noises: unspellable noises
- Abbreviating
- Learning the system: George Crabbe on learning
- The future of English spelling. A teaching appendix: Avoiding isolation ; Towards a linguistics of spelling.
