(Some of) The Irregularities of English Spelling

 

It has often been said that English spelling is chaotic and difficult for non-native (and even native) speakers to learn. It is true that you can look and quite a few sounds and see that they can be spelled in various ways--with little if any way to predict, from the aural sound, what the spelling should be. Here is an example, for the vowel sound in the word ear, represented by the phonetic symbol \ɚ\.

One common spelling of \iɚ\	Another, approximately as common	Rarer spelling of this sound
fear	beer	weir
tear	cheer	mere
clear	leer
hear	deer
near	peer
rear	steer
year	veer
sear
smear

There have been many calls for the reform of English spelling. There are as many reasons why no significant spelling reform has taken place. (The probably only notable exception is the reforms of Noah Webster--those which have made American spelling different from English spelling; e.g. color rather than colour, center rather than centre.)

I have often thought that there are small, isolated areas that could be made more regularized; but then I realize that a piecemeal effort at spelling reform is a bad idea.

 

 

A Couple Interesting English Word Origins (More to Come)

Nostril

The first syllable descends from the word for 'nose' (not too surprisingly), and then the second syllable comes from Old English þril (the þ character, which came ultimately from the Norse runic alphabet, had a th sound), meaning 'hole'. Hence, 'nose hole'. Eminently sensible!

Wilderness

This comes from wild (then just as now) plus deor, meaning 'animal' (cognate with the German Thier, for anyone who knows German). Hence 'wild-animal-place'.

The word deor originally meant 'animal' and then became specialized to mean only one kind of animal. We see this "specialization" also with some other words like the word for meat, which originally meant 'food' (think of the phrase "meat and drink").

 Neighbor

This is from Old English words nehe meaning 'near' and burg or burgh meaning something like 'house', 'castle', 'fortress' (if  you know German, think of the hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God). Thus, your neighbor is the near house (or castle).