Humorous English Spelling
Our English alphabet has only 26 letters to represent 45 different sounds. And some of our letters (like C, Q, H, and X) aren’t very useful. English has five vowel letters to represent thirteen different vowel sounds. And we use them all for our short vowels, as in pat, pet, pit, pot, and put. So we don’t have any letters left for our long vowels, and the result is chaos. This is how we spell our long vowels A, E, I, O, and U:
A: He ate the freight. It was his fate. How do you spell 8/eight?
E: The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine. Or Did he believe that Caesar could see the people?
I: I write eye-rhyme, like “She cited the sight of the site.”
O: Our chauffeur, although he stubbed his toe, yeomanly towed four more boards through the open door of the depot.
U: blue, blew, gnu, Hugh, new, Pooh, Sioux, through, two.
Don and Alleen Nilsen “Humor Across the Academic Disciplines” PowerPoints:
https://www.public.asu.edu/~dnilsen/
To teach about the chaotic English spelling system, I prefer to use the following techniques: Phonetic Awareness: Highlight the disparity between letters and sounds, showing how 26 letters represent 45 different sounds, and focusing on tricky letters like C, Q, H, and X. Vowel Variability: Demonstrate how five vowel letters cover thirteen sounds by using examples of short and long vowel sounds, as in pat, pet, pit, pot, and put. Humorous Examples: Use humorous and memorable sentences to illustrate the complexities, like “He ate the freight” or “The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine”. Pattern Recognition: Encourage students to recognize patterns and exceptions in English spelling, which helps in understanding common spelling rules and anomalies. Interactive Activities: Use games and puzzles that involve spelling challenges to make learning engaging and fun.
- Numerous approaches that accommodate diverse learning styles can be used while teaching about the chaotic English spelling system. Here are a few successful tactics: -Sight Words, -Phonetic Spelling, -Rhyming, -Word Shapes, -Patterns,
-Etymology, -Physical Approach.
Don't let your pupils think English spelling is "chaotic". All the apparent anomalies have explanations. So-called "silent letters", as in WRONG, KNOW, HALF etc., in many cases (not quite all) were formerly pronounced, and the spelling simply failed to keep up with the changed pronunciation. Many words in English are of foreign origin and show in their pronunciation the influence of their original language: e.g. MACHINE doesn't rhyme with SHINE because the I is pronounced as in French. Look at the history of each word, and the reason for the correspondence, or apparent lack of it, between spelling and pronunciation will usually become clear. (And students, in my experience, find those history-based explanations very interesting.)
Derrick: You're absolutely right. Our English spelling system is not so chaotic when we consider the history of the words, and the borrowings from other languages. "Knight" is a good example for talking about the history of words, and "bouquet" is a good example for talking about borrowings from other languages. When Alleen and I were in Afghanistan, we took pictures of all of the businesses with "misspelled" English words, and then we talked with our students about how these "misspellings" almost all made perfect sense. One business had the sign "Flower and Bucket Maker." The business sold flowers, so we finally figured out that it should have read "Flower and Bouquet Maker." Thanks, Derrick, for bringing these issues into our discussion. I've recommended your answer to other scholars.
I have taught English to foreign students when I ran colleges and stepped in for genuine teachers of the subject. I was terrible.
Living now in the Iberian countries I was astonished to discover that they pronounce their vowels differently. I never, stupidly of me, thought that was possible.
Stanley: The English language is amazing. Thanks for your comment.
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