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Spelling

January 13, 2023

For other uses, see Spelling (disambiguation).
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form.[1] In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element.

Spellings originated as transcriptions of the sounds of spoken language according to the alphabetic principle. They remain largely reflective of the sounds, although fully phonemic spelling is an ideal that most languages' orthographies only approximate, some more closely than others. This is true for various reasons, including that pronunciation changes over time in all languages, yet spellings as visual norms may resist change. In addition, words from other languages may be adopted without being adapted to the spelling system, and different meanings of a word or homophones may be deliberately spelled in different ways to differentiate them visually.

Spelling standards and conventions

Standardization of spelling is connected with the development of writing and the establishment of modern standard dialects.[2][3] Languages with established orthography are those languages that enjoy an official status and a degree of institutional support in a country. Therefore, normative spelling is a relatively recent development linked to the compiling of dictionaries (in many languages, special spelling dictionaries, also called orthographic dictionaries, are compiled, showing prescribed spelling of words but not their meanings), the founding of national academies and other institutions of language maintenance, including widespread education and literacy, and often does not apply to minority and regional languages.

In countries or regions where there is an authoritative language academy, such as France, the Netherlands, and the German-speaking areas, reforms are regularly made so that spelling better matches the changing pronunciation.

Examples include:

English-language spelling reform proposals have been regularly made since the 16th century, but have made little impact apart from a few spellings preferred by Noah Webster having contributed to American and British English spelling differences.

Methodology

Learning

Learning proper spelling by rote is a traditional element of elementary education and divergence from standard spelling is often perceived as an indicator of low intelligence, illiteracy, or lower class standing.[4]

Spelling tests are commonly used to assess a student's mastery over the words in the spelling lessons the student has received so far. They can also be an effective practice method. Spelling bees are competitions to determine the best speller of a group. Prominent spelling bees are even televised, such as the National Spelling Bee in the United States.

Alteration

Main article: Sensational spelling

Divergent spelling is a popular advertising technique, used to attract attention or to render a trademark "suggestive" rather than "merely descriptive". The pastry chains Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme, for example, employ non-standard spellings.

Misspellings

Main article: Commonly misspelled words
 
A misspelling of purchased on a service station sign.

While some words admit multiple spellings, some spellings are not considered standard. These are commonly called "misspellings". A misspelled word can be a series of letters that represents no correctly spelled word of the same language at all (such as "leik" for "like") or a correct spelling of another word (such as writing "here" when one means "hear", or "no" when one means "know"). Misspellings of the latter type is called "atomic typo" and it can easily make their way into printed material because they are not caught by simple computerized spell checkers.

Misspellings may be due to typing errors (e.g. the transposition error teh for the), lack of knowledge of the normative spelling, or lack of concern over spelling rules at all. Whether or not a word is misspelled may depend on context and the orthographic conventions adopted, as is the case with American / British English distinctions. Misspelling can also be a matter of opinion when variant spellings are accepted by some and not by others. For example, "miniscule" (for "minuscule") is a misspelling to many,[5] and yet it is listed as an acceptable variant in some dictionaries.[6][7]

A well-known Internet scam involves the registration of domain names that are deliberate misspellings of well-known corporate names to mislead or defraud. The practice is commonly known as "typosquatting".[8]

Notable English misspellings in history

  • Arab, Alabama – This town in north Alabama was named Arad, after its founder, Arad Thompson, but the name was misspelled on a US Post Office map as "Arab", and the misspelled name stuck.
  • Cleveland, Ohio – the leader of the crew that surveyed the town's territory was General Moses Cleaveland, and the region was named in his honor; reportedly the town's first newspaper, the Cleveland Advertiser, could not fit the town's name in its masthead without removing the first "a" from the name.[9]
  • Google – accidental misspelling of googol.[10] According to Google's vice president, as quoted on a BBC The Money Programme documentary, January 2006, the founders – noted for their poor spelling – registered Google as a trademark and web address before someone pointed out that it was not correct.
  • Ovaltine, a popular bedtime drink in the UK and Australia, came about because someone misspelled the original name Ovomaltine on the trademark documentation.[citation needed]
  • Referer – common misspelling of the word referrer. It is so common that it made it into the official specification of HTTP – the communication protocol of the World Wide Web – and has, therefore, become the standard industry spelling when discussing HTTP referers.[11]
  • Sequim, Washington – "In 1879 the first post office was built and named 'Seguin' for the surrounding area. [...] In 1907, due to a Postal Official's error in reading an official report, the post office was titled 'Seguim' for approximately a month. With the next report, the Official read the letter 'g' as a 'q', and the post office here became known as 'Sequim.' The name change did not worry the residents enough to protest. It has been known as Sequim ever since."[12]
  • According to some, the name of Quartzsite, a mining town in Arizona, was spelled wrongly. It should be Quartzite, after the mineral quartzite.[13]
  • Zenith – Arabic zamt was misread; in Latin letters, at the time, the letter i was never dotted, so "m" looked like "ni".[14]

In English

English orthography has a broad degree of standardization. However, there are several ways to spell almost every sound and most letters have several variants of pronunciation depending on their position in the word and context. Therefore, some spelling mistakes are common even among native speakers.[15] This is mainly due to large number of words that were borrowed from other languages with no successful attempts of complete spelling reform.[16] Most spelling rules usually do not reflect phonetic changes that have taken place since the end of the 15th century (for example, Great Vowel Shift).[17]

Other languages

Portuguese spelling is not strictly phonematic. It is associated with an extension of the Portuguese language and the emergence of numerous regional and dialect variants. In 2009 the global reform of the Portuguese language was initiated to eliminate 98% of inconsistencies in spelling between various countries.[18]

Orthography of the Icelandic language is based on etymological principle, thus the Icelanders themselves experience difficulties in writing.[19][20] Modern Icelandic alphabet is based on the standard introduced by the Danish philologist Rasmus Rask.

The fundamental principles of the Spanish orthography are phonological and etymological, that is why there are several letters with identical phonemes.[21] Beginning from the 17th century, various options for orthographic reforms were suggested that would create a one-to-one correspondence between grapheme and phoneme, but all of them were rejected. Most modern proposals to reform spelling are limited to the removal of homophone letters that are preserved for etymological reasons.[22]

See also

English spelling
Other languages

References

  1. ^ Coulmas, F. (1996), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Oxford:Blackwells
  2. ^ Ulrich Ammon (2004), "Standard variety", Sociolinguistics, vol. 1, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 273–283, ISBN 978-3-11-014189-4
  3. ^ František Trávníček (1940), Nástroj myšlení a dorozumělní: hrst úvah o spisovné češtině (in Czech), F. Borový, p. 206
  4. ^ 1992: Gaffe with an 'e' at the end, by Paul Mickle / The Trentonian
  5. ^ "minuscule", Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary; states that this spelling is "widely regarded as an error"
  6. ^ "minuscule", The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
  7. ^ "minuscule", Cambridge Dictionary of American English
  8. ^ "Typosquatters Act May Apply to Misspelling Domain Names to Mislead Surfers", Shari Claire Lewis, New York Law Journal, September 15, 2004,
  9. ^ Ohio, p. 138, Victoria Sherrow, Marshall Cavendish, 2008
  10. ^ , telegraph.co.uk
  11. ^ referer – Definitions from Dictionary.com
  12. ^ Robinson, J. (2005). "Sequim History" (PDF). City of Sequim, Washington. Retrieved July 24, 2008.
  13. ^ Town of Quartzsite 2003 General Plan
  14. ^ Norbury, J. K. W. Word Formation in the Noun and Adjective.
  15. ^ "Second Grade Spelling Words". primarylearning.org. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  16. ^ "The Relationship between Spelling and Pronunciation in English Language" (PDF). languageinindia.com. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  17. ^ "English language". britannica.com. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  18. ^ "THEN AND NOW: THE BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE SPELLING REFORM". unitedlanguagegroup.com. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  19. ^ "Baráttan gegn málvillum" (PDF). skemman.is. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  20. ^ "Skólamálfræði Hver er hún og hver ætti hún að vera?" (PDF). opinvisindi.is. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  21. ^ "SPANISH ALPHABET". donquijote.org. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  22. ^ "Spanish Homophones and Homographs". thoughtco.com. Retrieved June 14, 2021.

Further reading

  • Henry ML, Beeson PM, Stark AJ, Rapcsak SZ (January 2007). "The role of left perisylvian cortical regions in spelling". Brain Lang. 100 (1): 44–52. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.011. PMC 2362101. PMID 16890279.
  • Beeson PM (2004). "Remediation of written language". Top Stroke Rehabil. 11 (1): 37–48. doi:10.1310/D4AM-XY9Y-QDFT-YUR0. PMID 14872398. S2CID 7128937.

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Spelling.
 
Look up spelling in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Ford, O.T. . The Stewardship Project. (Concept of spelling)
  • "Pronunciation guide with multilingual talking dictionary". .howtopronounce.com.

January 13, 2023
spelling, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, contains, phonetic, transcriptions, international, phonetic, alphabet, introductory, guide, symbols, help, distinction, between, brackets, transcription, delimiters, conventions, that, regulate, using, grap. For other uses see Spelling disambiguation This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes writing system to represent a language in its written form 1 In other words spelling is the rendering of speech sound phoneme into writing grapheme Spelling is one of the elements of orthography and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element Spellings originated as transcriptions of the sounds of spoken language according to the alphabetic principle They remain largely reflective of the sounds although fully phonemic spelling is an ideal that most languages orthographies only approximate some more closely than others This is true for various reasons including that pronunciation changes over time in all languages yet spellings as visual norms may resist change In addition words from other languages may be adopted without being adapted to the spelling system and different meanings of a word or homophones may be deliberately spelled in different ways to differentiate them visually Contents 1 Spelling standards and conventions 2 Methodology 2 1 Learning 2 2 Alteration 2 3 Misspellings 2 4 Notable English misspellings in history 2 5 In English 2 6 Other languages 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksSpelling standards and conventions EditStandardization of spelling is connected with the development of writing and the establishment of modern standard dialects 2 3 Languages with established orthography are those languages that enjoy an official status and a degree of institutional support in a country Therefore normative spelling is a relatively recent development linked to the compiling of dictionaries in many languages special spelling dictionaries also called orthographic dictionaries are compiled showing prescribed spelling of words but not their meanings the founding of national academies and other institutions of language maintenance including widespread education and literacy and often does not apply to minority and regional languages In countries or regions where there is an authoritative language academy such as France the Netherlands and the German speaking areas reforms are regularly made so that spelling better matches the changing pronunciation Examples include German orthography reform of 1996 Portuguese spelling reform French rectifications orthographiques of 1990 English language spelling reform proposals have been regularly made since the 16th century but have made little impact apart from a few spellings preferred by Noah Webster having contributed to American and British English spelling differences Methodology EditLearning Edit Learning proper spelling by rote is a traditional element of elementary education and divergence from standard spelling is often perceived as an indicator of low intelligence illiteracy or lower class standing 4 Spelling tests are commonly used to assess a student s mastery over the words in the spelling lessons the student has received so far They can also be an effective practice method Spelling bees are competitions to determine the best speller of a group Prominent spelling bees are even televised such as the National Spelling Bee in the United States Alteration Edit Main article Sensational spelling Divergent spelling is a popular advertising technique used to attract attention or to render a trademark suggestive rather than merely descriptive The pastry chains Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme for example employ non standard spellings Misspellings Edit Main article Commonly misspelled words A misspelling of purchased on a service station sign While some words admit multiple spellings some spellings are not considered standard These are commonly called misspellings A misspelled word can be a series of letters that represents no correctly spelled word of the same language at all such as leik for like or a correct spelling of another word such as writing here when one means hear or no when one means know Misspellings of the latter type is called atomic typo and it can easily make their way into printed material because they are not caught by simple computerized spell checkers Misspellings may be due to typing errors e g the transposition error teh for the lack of knowledge of the normative spelling or lack of concern over spelling rules at all Whether or not a word is misspelled may depend on context and the orthographic conventions adopted as is the case with American British English distinctions Misspelling can also be a matter of opinion when variant spellings are accepted by some and not by others For example miniscule for minuscule is a misspelling to many 5 and yet it is listed as an acceptable variant in some dictionaries 6 7 A well known Internet scam involves the registration of domain names that are deliberate misspellings of well known corporate names to mislead or defraud The practice is commonly known as typosquatting 8 Notable English misspellings in history Edit Arab Alabama This town in north Alabama was named Arad after its founder Arad Thompson but the name was misspelled on a US Post Office map as Arab and the misspelled name stuck Cleveland Ohio the leader of the crew that surveyed the town s territory was General Moses Cleaveland and the region was named in his honor reportedly the town s first newspaper the Cleveland Advertiser could not fit the town s name in its masthead without removing the first a from the name 9 Google accidental misspelling of googol 10 According to Google s vice president as quoted on a BBC The Money Programme documentary January 2006 the founders noted for their poor spelling registered Google as a trademark and web address before someone pointed out that it was not correct Ovaltine a popular bedtime drink in the UK and Australia came about because someone misspelled the original name Ovomaltine on the trademark documentation citation needed Referer common misspelling of the word referrer It is so common that it made it into the official specification of HTTP the communication protocol of the World Wide Web and has therefore become the standard industry spelling when discussing HTTP referers 11 Sequim Washington In 1879 the first post office was built and named Seguin for the surrounding area In 1907 due to a Postal Official s error in reading an official report the post office was titled Seguim for approximately a month With the next report the Official read the letter g as a q and the post office here became known as Sequim The name change did not worry the residents enough to protest It has been known as Sequim ever since 12 According to some the name of Quartzsite a mining town in Arizona was spelled wrongly It should be Quartzite after the mineral quartzite 13 Zenith Arabic zamt was misread in Latin letters at the time the letter i was never dotted so m looked like ni 14 In English Edit English orthography has a broad degree of standardization However there are several ways to spell almost every sound and most letters have several variants of pronunciation depending on their position in the word and context Therefore some spelling mistakes are common even among native speakers 15 This is mainly due to large number of words that were borrowed from other languages with no successful attempts of complete spelling reform 16 Most spelling rules usually do not reflect phonetic changes that have taken place since the end of the 15th century for example Great Vowel Shift 17 Other languages Edit Portuguese spelling is not strictly phonematic It is associated with an extension of the Portuguese language and the emergence of numerous regional and dialect variants In 2009 the global reform of the Portuguese language was initiated to eliminate 98 of inconsistencies in spelling between various countries 18 Orthography of the Icelandic language is based on etymological principle thus the Icelanders themselves experience difficulties in writing 19 20 Modern Icelandic alphabet is based on the standard introduced by the Danish philologist Rasmus Rask The fundamental principles of the Spanish orthography are phonological and etymological that is why there are several letters with identical phonemes 21 Beginning from the 17th century various options for orthographic reforms were suggested that would create a one to one correspondence between grapheme and phoneme but all of them were rejected Most modern proposals to reform spelling are limited to the removal of homophone letters that are preserved for etymological reasons 22 See also EditDyslexia Eye dialect Grapheme Official scriptOrthography Phonetic spelling Pronunciation spelling Register sociolinguistics Spell checkerSpelling bee Spelling pronunciation Spelling reform English spellingAmerican and British English spelling differences English orthography English terms with diacritical marksEnglish spelling reform Pronunciation respelling for EnglishCommonly misspelled English words Frequently misused words Other languagesList of language orthographies List of languages by writing system French orthographyGerman orthography Greek orthography Hangul orthography Italian orthographyLatin spelling and pronunciation Russian orthography Spanish orthographyReferences Edit Coulmas F 1996 The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems Oxford Blackwells Ulrich Ammon 2004 Standard variety Sociolinguistics vol 1 Walter de Gruyter pp 273 283 ISBN 978 3 11 014189 4 Frantisek Travnicek 1940 Nastroj mysleni a dorozumelni hrst uvah o spisovne cestine in Czech F Borovy p 206 1992 Gaffe with an e at the end by Paul Mickle The Trentonian minuscule Merriam Webster s Online Dictionary states that this spelling is widely regarded as an error minuscule The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language minuscule Cambridge Dictionary of American English Typosquatters Act May Apply to Misspelling Domain Names to Mislead Surfers Shari Claire Lewis New York Law Journal September 15 2004 Ohio p 138 Victoria Sherrow Marshall Cavendish 2008 QI Quite Interesting facts about 100 telegraph co uk referer Definitions from Dictionary com Robinson J 2005 Sequim History PDF City of Sequim Washington Retrieved July 24 2008 Town of Quartzsite 2003 General Plan Norbury J K W Word Formation in the Noun and Adjective Second Grade Spelling Words primarylearning org Retrieved June 14 2021 The Relationship between Spelling and Pronunciation in English Language PDF languageinindia com Retrieved June 14 2021 English language britannica com Retrieved June 14 2021 THEN AND NOW THE BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE SPELLING REFORM unitedlanguagegroup com Retrieved June 14 2021 Barattan gegn malvillum PDF skemman is Retrieved June 14 2021 Skolamalfraedi Hver er hun og hver aetti hun ad vera PDF opinvisindi is Retrieved June 14 2021 SPANISH ALPHABET donquijote org Retrieved June 14 2021 Spanish Homophones and Homographs thoughtco com Retrieved June 14 2021 Further reading EditHenry ML Beeson PM Stark AJ Rapcsak SZ January 2007 The role of left perisylvian cortical regions in spelling Brain Lang 100 1 44 52 doi 10 1016 j bandl 2006 06 011 PMC 2362101 PMID 16890279 Beeson PM 2004 Remediation of written language Top Stroke Rehabil 11 1 37 48 doi 10 1310 D4AM XY9Y QDFT YUR0 PMID 14872398 S2CID 7128937 External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Spelling Look up spelling in Wiktionary the free dictionary Ford O T BASIC LINGUISTICS OF ENGLISH The Stewardship Project Concept of spelling Pronunciation guide with multilingual talking dictionary howtopronounce com Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Spelling amp oldid 1117423146, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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