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Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling And Extraordinary Story Of English Spelling (2013)

by David Crystal(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1250003474 (ISBN13: 9781250003478)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

St. Martin's Press

review 1: Crystal is pretty much THE guy when it comes to studies of the English language, and writing for a popular audience, and he's quite prolific. I wanted to read this particular book because the evolution of certain aspects of English spelling was the topic of my undergrad senior project. So I recognized some of the early (1500s-1600s) spelling books and orthographical treatises he referenced (even saw a couple of the originals at Beinecke Library back in the day), which was kind of fun. This book was much like Crystal's others that I've read -- readable, conversational, generally interesting. I did feel like he glossed over some of the explanations: he'd say that something was because of something else but I wouldn't follow the logical leap and wanted him to lay out the reas... moreoning of how he got from a to b, but he'd already moved on. Overall an interesting read on a topic I love geeking out on.
review 2: I found this history of English spelling interesting enough to skim to the end but not really interesting enough to read every page. English has irregular spelling for a number of reasons. The original Anglo-Saxon language did not correspond to the sounds of the Latin alphabet that was used to write it; there were a number of sounds for which there were no letters. Different scribes wrote words in different ways, and a variety of conventions developed for writing ch, sh, 2 kinds of th, hard and soft consonants, long and short vowels, some sounds that are generally no longer used in English, etc. Various conventions were employed to indicate which syllable of a word is emphasized, and sometimes different spellings were used on purpose to distinguish homonyms from each other. When prefixes and suffixes changed the pronunciation of certain vowels or consonants, choices had to be made whether or not to change the spelling to account for that. Some conventions didn't become "rules" of English spelling but still survived in certain words. One reason English has so many irregular spellings is that for some reason everyone (except the New Yorker magazine) agrees that English words should not have any diacritics (accents).Many words are spelled a certain way because of their etymology, and elites who knew Latin often gave English words Latin spellings even if the English word was pronounced differently from the Latin. When the first printing presses were developed, silent letters were often added to words just for the purpose of right justifying the text (I guess they thought extra silent letters looked better than extra spaces). Then, Johnson's dictionary in England and Webster's dictionary in America codified the "correct" spellings of most words. Even today, a huge number of words can be spelled in more than one way. In the future, electronic communication is likely to change the way words are commonly spelled in English.I liked the explanation in the first dictionary of how to find the words. The author had to explain in the preface the concept of alphabetical order, since that was a new concept that the readers would not be familiar with.I thought this book showed how English is a language that has always been fully open to incorporating words from other languages, which is a big reason why English has so many irregular spellings. This means that the spelling of the word also gives meaning to the word. For example, when a hard g is spelled gh as in ghost or spaghetti, the word seems like it is describing something foreign. I would like to think that this is indicative of a culture that is open to foreign ideas and people.Overall, this book made me appreciate how incredibly quirky the English language is, and left me with the impression that English is an ideal language for writing about Hobbits and Knights of the Round Table. English would be easier to learn but a poorer tool for conveying culture if all of the spelling followed predictable rules. less

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