Spelling

Overview

Vocabulary and idiom

Grammar

Pronunciation

Spelling

Main points

Lecture 1

ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD

Ingeneral, written English, especially in its most formal versions, does notvary radically. Among the five countries (the UK, the USA. Canada, Now Zealand and Australia) spelling practices and grammatical usage arc relatively uniform, and there is a large common vocabulary. Spoken English does show more variability, both in pronunciation itself and in the kind of vocabulary and idiom that is more likely to be used in speech [Бродович 1988, Strevens 1992].

In its written form, English is a remarkably uniform language. This v\ms not always so. The notion that there is one correct way to spell English words is a consequence of various developments over the past 500 years, іncluding the invention of printing, the publication of dictionaries such as Mi Samuel Johnson's of 1755, the institution of universal compulsory education and the gradual development of a strong public commitment to і In¹ importance of having a standardized written form of language.

In the 18^th century, when Dr. Johnson published his dictionary, it was Mill possible to write 'fabrick' rather than 'fabric'; 'recal' rather than 'recall'; 'authour' rather than 'author'; and 'croud' rather than 'crowd'. A quick glance at these alternative spellings is enough to show that there is no і (impelling reason to accept one rather than the other. After all, if we can now write 'appal' and 'enrol' with a single /, why not also 'recal"? If we wrіte 'loud' and 'cloud', why not also 'croud"? And so on. But public acceptance of a standardized spelling is now such that these 18^th century alternatives would simply be judged incorrect.

There are still a few English words that do remain open to alternative spellings: you can write 'aging' or 'ageing', 'judgment' or 'judgement', 'queuing' or 'queueing', 'annex' or 'annexe', 'drier' ox 'dryer', 'instal' or 'install', 'gibe' or jibe', 'whir' or 'whirr'. Publishers and editors usually have their own preference for one or the other of these spellings and will regularize for consistency, but they are unlikely to claim that the alternative is incorrect. Needless to say, words such as these are a very small fraction of English vocabulary.

There are rather more instances of words which are usually written differently in Britain and the USA. Several kinds of words are involved.

There are about 30 words that end in '-our' in British spelling but '-or' in American. Examples in the American spelling are:

behavior	harbor	neighbor
color	honor	odor
favor	humor	rumor
flavor	labor	vapor
The British spellings of these words are:
behaviour	harbour	neighbour
colour	honour	odour
favour	humour	rumour
flavour	labour	vapour

But '-our' spellings can be found in American publications {'glamour' occurs, as well as 'glamor', for example) and there are also plenty of '-or' spellings in British usage ('author, error, squalor').

Some words ending in '-re' in British spelling have '-er' in American usage. Some American examples are:

center	liter	somber
fiber	scepter	theater,
British variants of these words are:
centre	litre	sombre
fibre	sceptre	theatre

Again, the distinction is not quite as straightforward as it may seem. American usage has many words ending in '-re' (for example 'genre, mediocre, ogre').

In American usage, the letter ' l ' is usually not doubled in words such as:

counselin gjeweler	labeled traveled	traveling woolen
But British usage normally does double the consonant:
counsellin gjeweller	labelled traveled	travelling woollen
The '- ize ' spelling	is normal in the USA, in words like:
apologize authorize	civilize organize	recognize specialize
The alternative spellings are:
apologise authorise	civilise organize	recognise specialise

This '- ize ' spelling is often claimed to be a feature of American writing, but in fact '-ize' is also common in Britain, and preferred by some British publishers in many words. A strong preference for '-ise' is probably more Characteristic of Australia and Canada than of Britain. But it should also be noted that there are words ending in '-ise' or '-ize' in which the ending is not a suffix. Some of these are always written with '-ise', throughout the English-speaking world (e.g. 'advise, surprise') and some always have '- ize' (e.g. 'prize, size, capsize'). There is no regional variation in the spelling of these words.

Where the two-letter combinations 'ae' and 'oe' occur in words based on Latin or Greek, they are often maintained in British usage but simplified to 'e' in American. Examples in the simplified spelling are:

esthetic hemorrhage gynecology anesthetist leukemia pediatrics diarrhea esophagus estrogen

Those who retain the 'ae' or 'oe' spell these words as:

aesthetic haemorrhage gynaecology anaesthetist leukaemia paediatrics diarrhoea oesophagus oestrogen

But again we have to be careful not to overgeneralize. Even in America, 'aerobic' retains an 'ae' and 'phoenix' an 'oe'; while spellings like 'encyclopedia' (for 'encyclopaedia') and 'medieval' (for 'mediaeval') are increasingly common, even outside the USA.

American usage generally has the shorter form of some words:
analog catalog program

ax dialog

whereas Britain tends to prefer the longer forms:
analogue catalogue programme
axe dialogue

American usage has the letter У in these words:

defense pretense vise

where British usage has the letter 'c':

defence pretence vice

(In America, the Vice Squad deals with vice, but the clamping device on a workbench is a vise.)

There are a few other variants, such as the following, with American variants on the left and British on the right:

disk disc

draft draught

gray grey

plow plough

skeptical skeptical

And in Britain, you 'check' up on something but cash a 'cheque', and you 'tire'of something but have 'tyres'on acar. American usage has 'check' and 'tire' without distinction.

Many of the spellings that are now considered American were once alternatives in Britain. The spellings 'disk' and 'program', for instance, are common in the context of computing (and note also the earlier remark about the international spread of the spellings like 'encyclopedia' and 'medieval').

Many of the American spellings can be traced to Noah Webster (1774-1843) who, as Samuel Johnson was in England, was influential in America as a lexicographer and man of letters. He proposed considerable reform of English spelling, including simplifying 'head' to 'hed', 'give' 'to 'giv', 'friend' to 'frend' 'mean' to 'meen', and 'grieve' to 'greev', among many others. Wbster's interests and enthusiasm were not peculiar to the USA. A movementto promote spelling simplification in Canada in the late nineteenth century produced a publication called the Fonetic Herald. Among famous advocates of spelling reform in Britain were Isaac Pitman (inventor of Pitman's shorthand) and the author George Bernard Shaw.

Obviously most of Webster's (and other reformers') proposals were not taken up, and English spelling is now highly conservative. English spelling does not correspond closely to pronunciation and that many details of spelling represent obsolete features of pronunciation such as the 'silent' initial consonant letters in words like 'gnaw, knife, write' and ' gh ' in words like 'bough, dough, through'. Even those who grow up with English as the first language often make spelling mistakes: it is not common to find even well-educated native speakers of English writing 'accommodate' with one ' m ' instead of two, or 'minuscule' with an ' i ' instead of the first ' u '

Australia (Aus) and New Zealand (NZ) have inherited the same conservative spelling system, with very little local innovation Where British and American practices diverge, Australia and New Zealand have tended to follow British practice in most respects. This is hardly surprising, given the extent of immigration from Britain and continuing political and cultural connections with the United Kingdom. But Australia has been relatively open to '- or ' spellings, which are normal in some newspapers and in some contexts such as the 'Australian Labor Party'. As mentioned earlier, current usage in Australia also strongly favours the '-ise' spelling of words like 'apologise, authorise, characterise, emphasise, organise, polarise, specialise'.

Canada also has a history of links to Britain, of course, but is geographically much closer to the USA than to any other English-speaking country, but the influence of American spellings through publications and films and television programmes is extremely strong.

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