Psychologists and educators: ‘English spelling compromises.’
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(Dr Uta Frith, psychologist)
‘Unlike the orthographies of other major languages, modern English spelling preserves clear evidence of nearly 1,300 years of sound change, scribal tampering, partial reforms and foreign intrusion. There is an underlying pattern to this orthography . . . but there is also a substantial marginal mess which can only in part be organised into subpatterns.’ (D W Massaro, psycholinguist)
‘It is unplanned, phonographically highly inconsistent, and historically, pragmatically and geographically fluid.’ (Christopher Upward, linguist)
‘I cannot accept the view that English has a good spelling no matter how close it comes to the latest fashion of analysis proposed by any particular school of linguistics.’ (Edgar Gregersen, linguistic anthropologist)
The Working Paper of the Committee for Linguistics in Education (Stubbs 1986) described the English spelling system as organized ‘in sometimes non-obvious ways’.
Personalise your spelling Anyone can personalise their spelling, because your name is your own. You can spell your daughter’s name Leissa. Then, when she is 21 she can be sure the personalised number plates on her birthday car will not be LISA385, although the practical costs of a remarkable spelling are often overlooked until you try to explain your 99