The section on homographs and homophones was familiar but fun to read, and I understood the author's criticism of some children's resources which try to 'teach' these in a very un-useful way, along with his later point about A is for…. This book goes beyond the basic rules to give background and explanations, which makes it much easier to remember things (and prevents the EFL teacher's default of because it's English and English is a silly language when asked why, for example, shop doubles its p for shopping, but sweat is quite happy sweating without an additional t). It was especially interesting for me to learn, however, that –ise currently beats –ize only at a ratio of 3:2 in British usage, and this is on track to swing the other way (and therefore I was correct to let my EFL students use either in the writing, because it really doesn't matter).
Crystal avoids saying what is right or wrong in these situations, other than language being an evolving entity with many influences. I have trouble accepting et as the past tense pronunciation of to eat, and still prefer to spell paediatrics as such, though I am partial to a nice z in organize, realize and recognize. There are some modern developments that do not sit well with me. Fee and bee may sound the same, but foot and boot don't, even though they have the same vowel combinations That bit is simple, but not everything is regular.
slope, and can use these rules to establish the pronunciations of words we may never have seen before (cf. If we are to have both long and short sounds, we need different combinations of letters to indicate each, hence we know hop vs. Starting with the alphabet, it examines the disparity between 26 letters (or 24 as once was) and the 40 plus phonemes of Received Pronunciation and the less snazzily termed General American. This book runs from Anglo Saxon days right up to the Twitter of 2012, seamlessly weaving in references to spelling from Oscar Wilde to Winnie the Pooh. (Even if I can still only spell disappointed with the help of my spellchecker) Oh, and a fun, entertaining read at the same time (this is Crystal, after all).
Summary: Extremely entertaining and really readable, this book is a must for any bookshelf, whether your a language novice or a linguistics scholarĪre you a speller? I must confess I'm not much of one myself, so the main thing I was after from this book was an insight into the peculiarities of English spelling, and some hints and tips for remembering the rules.
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