Spelt

“ We sat round the table and laid our hands upon it, and I (or anyone who might be selected for the purpose) spelled over the alphabet, and raps or tilts occurred when the desired letter was reached. This in reality is not so tedious a process as it may appear, and once used to it, one may get through a vast amount of conversation in an hour by this means. A medium is soon able to guess the word intended to be spelt, for there are not so many after all in use in general conversation. ”

“ Whistler always spelt art, and we believe still spells it, with a capital ‘I.’ However, he was never dull. ”

“ Now we see why there could not be a more ingenious way of making bad spellers than 'dictation' as it is commonly taught. Every misspelt word is in image in the child's brain not to be obliterated by the right spelling. It becomes, therefore, the teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed. ”

“ Of course it would be a good thing if our English spelling could be more uniform, but at present the best way for your friend and yourself, and for a Postmistress too, is to spell according to the standard dictionaries. The English language is derived from many sources, and there is danger that in spelling words by their sound we may lose some of their sense, as we find it, by tracing the word back to its root. ”

“ Object of Teaching Spelling Ever since the school of early days spelling has accompanied “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic” as a part of the curriculum. The day when reading was taught by the “spelling method,” so called, is not far back in the past. “How can one learn to read if one does not know his letters, that he may be able to spell out the words that he meets in his reading?” Not until recently has the question been asked, “Why do we study spelling at all?” Do we need it in our reading? Modern methods have shown us that we do not. We need to know how to spell only when we wish to write. ”

“ So much attention is given to spelling that children obtain false ideas of its importance. The spelling, or representation, becomes to them the word, while the real word is called the pronunciation, and is thought of as an appendage. They learn to despise the poor speller, a prejudice which is never outgrown, and above all they become so absorbed in the manipulation of words that they have little chance to grasp the ideas which the words stand for. ”

“ In the study of English, a knowledge of derivation is quite as important as correctness of spelling. Surely the one should not be wholly sacrificed to the other. Are we to lose the essence of the word for the mere sake of its outward appearance? It would certainly be a great gain to simplify our forms of spelling; but if, in so doing, we destroyed the etymology of the language, would our gain or our loss be the greater? The present forms of spelling are, in many cases, a key to the derivation of the word. ”

“ On the other hand, the child who has difficulty in learning to spell may be expected to develop strong logical faculties. He is constantly trying to spell according to some principle, and, of course, constantly coming to grief. Thus a boy who had long been at the foot of his spelling-class was one day given the word ghost, and, making a desperate attempt at the sort of spelling he had oftenest heard succeed, he spelled it g-h-o-g-h-j-s-t. ”

“ English spelling, under the guidance of the printers, has become a mere system of marks and symbols, arranged upon no principle, selected with no rational purpose, each of which by a separate effort of the memory is associated with some sound or word. ”

“ Some spelling-reformers, I am told, in the poorer parts of London do spell his name phonetically, very phonetically. They call him a "pleeceman." Thus the whole romance of the ancient city disappears from the word, and the policeman's reverent courtesy of demeanour deserts him quite suddenly. This does seem to me the case against any extreme revolution in spelling. If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong. ”

“ Not until the days of Noah Webster and his famous Spelling Book and Dictionary was there any decided uniformity of spelling. Professor Earle [137] says the process of compelling a uniform spelling is a strife against nature. Certainly it took a long struggle against nature to make spelling uniform in America. In the same letter, men of high education would spell the same word several different ways. ”

“ Spelling and the reform of spelling are problems which concern every student of the science of language. It does not matter whether the language be English, German, or Dutch. In every written language the problem of reforming its antiquated spelling must sooner or later arise; and we must form some clear notion whether any thing can be done to remove or alleviate a complaint inherent in the very life of language. ”

“ The truth is, in those good old days men paid but little attention either to pronunciation or to spelling. It is a fact not so widely known as it deserves to be, that English orthography two centuries ago was just emerging from a state of confusion and chaos; and law and order were then for the first time beginning to appear. The result is the conventional spelling which only since the eighteenth century has been stereotyped in the form now so familiar to all educated people. And not even yet, as we know, has English orthography had its perfect work. ”

“ Transfer of habits previously acquired is occasionally the cause of misspelling. Children who have learned to read and spell a phonetic language, like German, or a language that proceeds from right to left in spelling, are prone to difficulty with English spelling. ”

“ Such high art of spelling as is thus hinted at is an art that has still to gather confidence and brave the light of publicity. A few, indeed, practise it secretly for love—in letters and on spare bits of paper. But, for the most part, people do not know that there is so much as an art of spelling possible; the tyranny of orthography lies so heavily on the land. Your common editors and their printers are a mere orthodox spelling police, and at the least they rigorously blot out all the delightful frolics of your artist in spelling before his writings reach the public eye. ”

“ As every error creates a tendency, and if repeated quickly establishes a habit, it is important that the correct spelling of words be taught before children have occasion to write them. Every worth-while test and investigation shows the most common and most useful words in our language to be the words used early by children. It is likewise certain that very many of the misspelled words are one-syllable words in very common use. ”

“ Children place their books face down on their desks, while the teacher dictates the words. Children spell orally. If a word is missed, do not pass it to another child. The one who missed turns over his book and studies the correct spelling while the teacher continues to dictate words to the other pupils. After all the children have spelled, those who missed have a chance to spell their words correctly. From the beginning every child must feel a responsibility for every word dictated to him. He must spell it correctly before the lesson is ended for him. ”

“ The fact is that a little learning is quite as dangerous a thing now as it was in Pope’s day. Those who are volubly denouncing “American spelling” in the columns of British journals are not students of the history of English speech; they are not scholars in English; in so far as they know anything of the language, they are but amateur philologists. As a well-known writer on spelling reform once neatly remarked, “The men who get their etymology by inspiration are like the poor in that we have them always with us.” ”

“ Our wrong spelling is the result not of rule but of want of rule, and among its most curious cases are those where the grammarians have managed to put both sound and etymology wrong at once, writing island, rhyme, scythe, where their forefathers rationally wrote iland, rime, sithe. It is reckoned that on an average, a year of an English child’s education is wasted in overcoming the defects of the present mode of spelling. ”

“ If writing well shews the gentleman, much more so does spelling well. It is so essentially necessary for a gentleman, or a man of letters, that one false spelling may fix a ridicule on him for the remainder of his life. Words in books are generally well spelled, according to the orthography of the age; reading, therefore, with attention, will teach every one to spell right. It sometimes happens, that words shall be spelled differently by different authors; but, if you spell them upon the authority of one in estimation of the public, you will escape ridicule. ”

“ No doubt there is a reason for the particular mode of spelling each particular word in the language—but that reason is hidden in the past history of the word and in facts connected with its origin and derivation from some barbarous or dead language, and is as utterly beyond the reach of each generation of spellers as if there were no such reasons in existence. ”

“ CHAPTER IV.—OF SPELLING. Spelling is the art of expressing words by their proper letters. This important art is to be acquired rather by means of the spelling-book or dictionary, and by observation in reading, than by the study of written rules; because what is proper or improper, depends chiefly upon usage.
The orthography of our language is attended with much uncertainty and perplexity: many words are variously spelled by the best scholars, and many others are not usually written according to the analogy of similar words. ”

“ Written Spelling Ability to spell a word means the carrying out of certain habits which have already been formed. If these habits are right then the word is spelled correctly. If children have not formed the right set of habits, if their pronunciation is wrong, if their mental picture is distorted, if imperfect vision causes them to see the word indistinctly, if their hearing is not normal, or if the coördination of the muscles is poor, any or all of these things will lead to the misspelling of a word. ”

“ And yet there is a narrower margin of variation in our accepted orthography than there is in our received pronunciation.
The movement for the reform of English spelling is beginning to engage the attention of the public. The Simplified Spelling Board has already entered upon a campaign which holds out some hope of success. It remains to be seen what practical results will be accomplished. Scholars of acknowledged eminence are lending the influence of their authority to the movement. ”

“ But however irrational may be the spelling of many English words, every student must master spelling. Nor is this a difficult task if attacked with persistence and determination. The chief obstacles are carelessness and lack of courage. Of the 450,000 words in the largest dictionaries, probably not more than one thousand are commonly misspelled by any one person—even the worst speller alive. Completely mastering a few words each day for one year, therefore, will enable any one to become a good speller. ”

“ But the comments and communications which appear in the course of any controversy on spelling reform, especially those intended to be satirical, furnish the most striking illustrations of this all-prevailing, all-pervading ignorance. There is rarely furnished a more edifying spectacle than the attempt made, in some cases by men of very genuine ability, to write what they call phonetically. In every discussion there are sure to come up with unfailing regularity certain examples that indicate the density of the darkness in which the minds of men are enveloped. ”

“ Our British cousins assume an exasperating air of superiority when they mention the matter of our spelling and, as self-appointed conservators of the language, point out what they are pleased to style the offensive eccentricities of American spelling. The British journals ever and anon draw attention to our manner of writing such words as favor, honor, center, program, almanac, tire, curb, check and criticize and the like, which they spell favour, honour, centre, programme, almanack, tyre, kerb, cheque and criticise. ”

“ Go with it to the vast body of educated men, excluding those whose pursuits require of them more or less the study of phonetics. These being excepted, ask any single person belonging to the most highly cultivated class—opponents of spelling reform to be preferred—how many are the sounds which the letters of the alphabet and their combinations are called upon to represent. Ask him how many are the sounds which he is in the habit of employing himself in his own utterance. The chances are fifty to one that he will be utterly at a loss what to reply. ”

“ A high percentage is not enough, as in the case of some other studies. Any pupil who misses a single word in any exercise should be marked zero.
But even if one can spell correctly every word in this story, he may still not be a good speller, for there are thousands of other words to be spelled, many of which are not and never will be found in any spelling-book. The chief object of a course of study in spelling is to acquire two habits, the habit of observing articulate sounds, and the habit of observing word-forms in reading. ”

“ The spelling problem is not to learn how to spell nine tenths of our words correctly. Nearly all of us can and do accomplish that. The good speller must spell nine hundred and ninety-nine one thousandths of his word correctly, which is quite another matter. Some of us go even one figure higher. ”