The Spelling Society

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PV13. TYPES AND MAGNITUDE OF ENGLISH SPELLING PROBLEMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR REFORM by Masha Bell, part 3.

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH RESULTS.


ENGLISH SOUNDS AND THEIR COMMON SPELLINGS obtained from 6856 words			Min. no. of words with those spellings		Other spelling patterns for the same sound in the same position	Min. of irregular spellings to memorise

	VOWELS

The following 5 vowel patterns require the memorising of more than 100 exceptions:

	EE	sleep	125		dream, here, receive, believe, police, be, people	301	+125*
	end -er	better	340		visitor 75, grammar 33, harbour 18, centre 7, odds 3	136
					future 42, algebra 47	89
	end -en	hasten	73		abandon(68), urban(35), cabin(22), certain(7)	132	+73*
	ER	her	70		(64 ur, 36 ir, 11 ear, 8 wor, 3 our, 1 or, 1 ere)	124	+70*
	A-e	cake	338		main, break, eight, straight	107
*When the dominant pattern occurs in less than 50% of words, all spellings with that sound have to be learnt by heart

1.	A	cat	466		salmon, meringue, plait	3
2.	E	pet	300		head 49, said, friend	62
3.	I	bit	421		system 45, pretty, women	52
4.	O	pot	375		want, what 30, gone, cough	35
5.	U	but	308		some 50, country 14, blood	69
6.	EE*	daddy	602		monkey, coffee, holey	41
7.	A-e	play	35		they 7, duvet 7, weigh 3, café, matinee, satai	20
8.	I-e	bite	278		bright(18), cycle (26), kind (10), other 21 + n/either	76
		fly, sky	17		die 5, bye, buy, high 4	14
		reply, 50 -fy	60		Reading problem
9.	O-e	bone	170		coal(37), bold(24), blown(11), roll(9), mould, most	98
		go	106		blow, toe, though (42 -ow, 15 others)	58
10.	OU	out	74		brown	24
		now	11	RP	bough, plough, slough, thou (bow, row)	4
11.	U-e	duty	137		beauty, feud 6, jewel 6, nuclear, nuisance	21
		due	20		few, view	22
12.	OO long	spoon	72		rule 18, lunar 13, soup 13, move, fruit, shrewd	57
		too	18		flew 12, blue 8, do, two, through, coup, shoe, lasso	34
		to	1
13.	OO short	wood	15		put 15, would, woman, courier	21
14.	AU/AW	author, fault	44		awe, dawn 17, all 14, shawl 8, salt 10, nought 2	51
		saw	13
		water, quarter	23
		always	9
15.	OI	boil, oil	29		oyster	1
		toy 7, royal 5	12		buoy	1
16.	AR	car	138		banana, aunt, calm, fast, bath - heart, hearth, sergeant	3	88 UK
17.	AIR	care	31		air 15, aerial, there, their, bear,	27
18.	ER	unsrt. In word	70
		blizzard	22
		ordinary	37		battery 25, history 12, carpentry 12, luxury 6	55
19.	OR	for	188		more 22, your, door, oar 12, board, source 15	49	UK12-aw
20.	Unstressed	believable	33		credible	17
	vowels	pertinent	137		dominant	38
	in suffixes	evidence	39		acceptance	20
	and pref.	critical adj/nouns	195		fuel (28), anvil (15), pistol (9)	52
		amble vbs/2Cs	93
		decide	57		divide	29
		induce	73		enquire	30

	CONSONANTS

21.	B	bun	784			0
22.	CH	chip, speech	155		cello	1
23.	D	dog	1010		blonde	1
24.	F	film	580		photo 35, rough 8	43
25.	G	gap, bag	171		exact, exam, example, exaggerate	9
					10 surplus -ue (league), 5 h ghost	16
		15 get,12 gi, 1gy	28		guess, guilt (gu 13, gh 3)	16
26.	J	jet, jig	18		14 gem, 4 giant, 2 gym	20
		jab, job, jug	78
		cage, urge	115		spinach, sandwich	2
		agent, digest	71		majesty, subject (-ject x 8)	2
27.	H	hand	237		who, whom, whose, whole	4
28.	K	kid, kettle, bleek	271		chemistry 9, quay, mosque 11	22
		cat, cod, cup	1022		chaos 11, chlorine 8, karate 4, queue 4	28
		queen	78		acquaint, acquire, choir	4
		taxi	98		accent 6, except 5, exhaust, exhibit	13
29.	L	leg, feel, believe	1945		end -al, -le, -el listed under vowels and con. doublings
30.	M	man, sum	1128		bomb, limb 10, autumn 6	16
31.	N	net	2312		knee 17, gone, -ne 10, mnemonic, gnat 4	35
32.	Ng	ring	40		meringue	1
33.	P	pen, cup	1220		hiccough	1
34.	R	rat, free	1670		write 21, rhubarb 6, are, were and 22 vowel -ore	29
35.	S	send, sing	138		centre, city 36, science	47
		fence 88, force8	96		sense 12, course 13, lapse 8, 2lse	35
		agency	16		controversy, embassy, gypsy, courtesy	5
		ice, face, fleece	41		*base, geese, house 5**	25
		ancestor, decide	62		consider, counsel	29
36.	Sh	shop, rush, -ship9	162		chef; sure, moustache	12
	med.	mushroom	4		8 c, 7ch, 3 ss, 1 ti, 1 sci	17
		station	500		possible	0
		notion, caution	21		ocean	1
		action, Ction	58		coercion, diversion, extension	20
		ignition	21		mission, ad- com- trans- 7, fission	3
		ration, national	4		passion, fashion, fascism	3
		essential	20		commercial 14 controversial	15
		session	10		discretion	1
		discussion, per-	2		cushion	1
		vicious	20		pretentious 12, luscious 2, anxious	15
		musician	12		dietitian, gentian	2
37.	T	top, act, dusty	1398		debt, doubt, two, cassette	11
		separate 70 RPr	156		democrat, combat	2
38.	Th	thing,worth	142		the, them, this (+ 14 deriv.) Reading problem
39.	Th	bother	61		ethics (TH is a reading problem only)
40.	V	end ve	120		surplus 87 - Reading Problem
		never, ever, liver	55		jivvy, navvy, skivvy	3
41.	W	willow	216		when, whole	30
42.	Y	you 16, player 15	31
		unite 5
43.	Z	zip	14		xylophone	1
		wise, advise	31	US 11	prize, size, capsize	3	US 22
		amuse, arose	60		seize, froze	19
		absorb(med Z)	94		citizen, gazelle 16, possess	16
44.	Zh	vision, fusion	20		azure, fissure, bourgeois	3

I have the word lists for all the exceptional spellings enumerated in the tables on these pages. They run to 35 pages. In this PV I have provided word lists for those irregular spellings which I have come to regard as the most worthy candidates for reform, in the light of my research results.

Conclusions.

My research findings have led me to conclude that
the following 5 changes deserve the most serious consideration:

1)	Cutting surplus doubled consonants (p. 5) e.g. acomodation, acount, aply;	[160 words]
2)	Consistent spelling of EE (p. 7 / 8), excepting be, he, me she, we	[296 words]
3)	Consistent '-er' endings, excepting '-ure' and '-a' (p.8)	[133 words]
4)	Consistent stressed 'er' (p. 9)	[124 words]
5)	Consistent short E (p.9)	[ 62 words]
	[with consistent consonant doubling in respelled words, e.g. reddy]
	In total these 5 changes would amend	775
	They would also make the currently unpredictable 125 'ee' (e.g. feet) and 70 'er' (e.g. serve, term) predictable	195
	They would therefore eliminate doubt from a total of	970 words.

29% of the currently 3456 words with unpredictable spelling would be improved by those changes.

Example Texts.

If those 5 changes were adopted, the sample SSS texts would look as follows.

The Star.

It was on the ferst day of the new yeer that the anouncement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the Sun, had become very eratic. A retardation in its velocity had been suspected in December. Then a faint, remote speck of light was discovered in the reegion of the perterbed planet. At first this did not cause enny very great excitement. Scientific peeple, however, found the intelligence remarkable enough, eevn before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter, and that its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets. (9 / 115 words changed).

Britten when young.

We may nowadays be chary about using the word 'geenius', but we still have a good idea what is ment by it. For example, there are great numbers of very gifted musicians who are admired but not called geeniuses. But there are others, manifestly prodigious, performing often at extraordinerily erly ages, a variety of feets so complex that the musical layman could hardly imagine, eevn with the most desperate laber, acomplishing enny of them, while eevn musicians are astonished: and we then reech for the good, handy, vague Enlightenment werd and call them geeniuses. The list includes Mozart and Mendelsohn; and, despite all the limiting judgements, it includes Benjamin Britten. (14 / 110 words changed).

Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated eese.
(1 / 70 words changed)

The views expressed here are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the Society, or a majority of its members.

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