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Punctuation – how to use it correctly

September 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Punctuation – definition

Punctuation in English language is used in writing to show the stress, ryhthm, and tone of the spoken word.

It is also used to clarify the meaning of sentences.

Examples

There are four common marks of punctuation:

These represent pauses of increasing length in a sentence.

comma [ , ] semicolon [ ; ]

colon [ : ] full stop [ . ]

Use

The following paragraph uses all the four common marks of punctation.

Punctuation should always be used lightly, even sparingly, and as accurately as possible. You will discover through practice that there are three basic rules: the comma, semicolon, and colon mark increasingly long pauses; full stops are used to separate distinct sentences; and a new paragraph should always
be employed to begin a new topic or point of argument.

NB! ‘Punctuation’ in speech is produced by tone, rhythm, stress, and intonation.

The four most common marks of punctuation are dealt with in detail in their own sections:

commas – semicolons – colons – full stops

The other common marks of punctuation are described below:

brackets – exclamation mark

dash – oblique stroke

hyphen – question mark

Some miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

Brackets (these) are used to insert a remark (like this, for instance) or a qualification of some sort into a sentence.

Take care! If they are used too frequently they create a choppy, unsettling effect.

Full details in the section on brackets.

The dash (—) is used to indicate a sudden change of thought, an additional comment, or a dramatic qualification.

That was the end of the matter — or so we thought.

Dashes can also be used in pairs to insert a comment or a short list:

Everything — furniture, paintings, and books — survived the fire.

They should not be used as a substitute for brackets, or mixed with them.

The dash is not the same thing as the hyphen (which is shorter) but this distinction is rarely made in the UK.

The exclamation mark (!) indicates surprise, anger, or alarm.

What a mess!
Get out of this house at once!
The ship is sinking! Jump in the lifeboat!

Exclamation marks should be used with restraint. The more frequently they occur, the weaker becomes their effect.

The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked that using an exclamation mark was rather like laughing at your own jokes.

The question mark [?] is used to show that a question has been raised.

The question mark is always placed at the end of the sentence.

The following examples are questions:

What are you going to do?
How much is that doggy in the window?
Why is that woman staring at us?

Since the question mark is placed at the end of a sentence, no full stop is required. [If you look closely, you will see that the question mark (like the exclamation mark) contains its own full stop.]

The following are not questions.

He wondered what to do next.
She asked herself the same question.
What will happen to them is a mystery.

The hyphen [ – ] is a short dash used to connect (parts of) words.

These might be prefixes:

re-enter co-operate pre-enrol

They can be compound adjectives:

multi-storey car park extra-marital sex

They can be used when when forming compounds such as

son-in-law couldn’t-care-less

The oblique stroke [ / ] is sometimes used to separate items in a list:

oil/water mix Kent/Surrey boundary

italic/Roman type 1972/73

It should not be used as a substitute for words such as and, plus, and or.

Try to avoid the either/or construction and such lazy (and ugly) compounds as this:

‘it will help to create an entire social/sexual/ideological system’.

The oblique stroke might be useful when taking notes, but it should be avoided in formal writing for the sake of elegance.

Miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

Many aspects of punctuation are ultimately a matter of personal preference and literary style.

The general tendency in most public writing today is to minimise the amount of punctuation used.

There are also minor differences in practice between the UK and the USA.

The suggestions made above are based generally on conventions in the UK.

Double punctuation [“What’s the matter!?”] is rarely used, except in very informal writing such as personal letters or diaries.

The combination of colon-plus-dash [: — ] is never necessary. Some people use this [it’s called ‘the pointer’] to indicate that a list will follow, but the colon alone should be sufficient.

The importance of punctuation can be illustrated by comparing the two following letters. In both cases, the text is the same. It’s the punctuation which makes all the difference!

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy — will you let me be yours?

Gloria

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours, Gloria

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Received pronunciation – what it means

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Received pronunciation – definition

Received Pronunciation [or RP] refers to the accent used by such people as the Royal Family, BBC newsreaders, and members of the upper class.

It refers entirely to accent and not to content.

RP is a speech style which is based on social class and not on geographical region.

Examples

Some characteristic features of pronunciation in RP are as follows:

The long vowel in words such as ‘bath’, ‘path’, ‘ask’

Diphthongs in words such as ‘so’, ‘go’, ‘no’, ‘flow’

Use

Less than six per cent of the population of the UK speaks RP.

Although this speech style still carries notions of prestige, regional varieties of English are acquiring status equal to RP.

NB! Remember, RP is not the same thing as Standard English.

Received pronunciation (RP) is an accent of English which is based on social class rather than on region. Its origins are rooted in notions of prestige and status and impulses of exclusivity.

However, RP was itself once a regional variety of English. It originated in the East Midlands among the merchants who migrated towards London and the source of trade and wealth.

RP is therefore not the native London accent (as many people imagine). It is one which acquired strong connotations of prestige, because of its close connections with wealth and power.

The Cockney accent is the indigenous speech style of the London area. The two styles have existed alongside each other for hundreds of years.

Because many RP speakers happen to work in the capital city, the accent is falsely perceived as being regional and as belonging to London. On the contrary, RP speakers are scattered throughout the country and throughout the world. For instance, it is quite common for upper class people in Scotland to speak RP – without any trace of a Scottish accent.

The expansion of the mass broadcast media (radio and television) has meant that a huge variety of speech styles are heard by listeners and viewers every day. It seems as though this is gradually eroding the idea that RP is somehow superior to all other English accents.

RP is an approximate description of speech style, rather than being an exact specification. This applies to the classification of other accents too. Because speech varies subtly between individuals and between groups and areas, a broad description is all that can be achieved.

RP itself has changed slightly even over the past fifty years or so. This can be observed by watching films made during the nineteen-thirties and forties. The most obvious development has been the vowel sound in words such as ‘Harry’ which has become much more open. This feature is now used in parodies of that period.

Even the Queen, as head of state, speaks with a different accent than she had fifty years ago. In 1952 she would have been heard referring to thet men in the bleck het. Now it would be that man in the black hat. Similarly, she would have spoken of hame rather than home. In the 1950s she would have been lorst, but by the 1970s lost.

Many regional speakers feel embarrassed by their accents. It seems that much social pressure is felt generally because of the long-standing prestige given to RP. Certainly to linguists, RP is only one of many accents, although its special identity as a class accent is interesting.

Attitudes to RP. The new National Curriculum requires school students to be competent in using Standard English. Many teachers (and parents) wrongly take this to refer to accent. What it actually requires pupils to understand is the use of standard grammatical constructions, together with a comprehensive standard vocabulary.

There are a number of possible options available regarding one’s own attitude to speech-style:

be comfortable with a regional accent
be uncomfortable with a regional accent
change a regional accent in favour of RP
adapt speech-style to the social context

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Secret Language

March 8, 2010 by Roy Johnson

Codes, Tricks, Spies, Thieves, and Symbols

Language is itself a code. In its written form it’s an abstract set of signs to represent speech, and in its spoken form an extremely complex set of rules for making intelligent communication using sounds. But if that isn’t complex enough, human beings seem to have a natural tendency to make things even more complicated by inventing all sorts of games, variations, and tricks with language. It’s amazing how far the examples in Barry Blake’s Secret Language go back – certainly to the earliest days of written languages, which have themselves now become a sort of secret code which must be deciphered.

Rather surprisingly, many of the early examples of word squares and double acrostics he discusses come from curse tablets which people believed were effective for anything from defeating fellow athletes in competition, to curing the bite of a rabid dog.

Anagrams, palindromes, acrostics, and riddles all come together in his discussion of the cryptic crossword. These are a surprisingly modern invention, appearing first in 1913, and immediately becoming popular world-wide. There is an entire section devoted to explaining how linguistic tricks inform the setting of clues. He reveals how to interpret them (‘French frock to take off’ = undress) and he throws in some fun examples of word puzzles to solve.

There’s quite a lot on riddles, which are often combined with poetry to create enduring gems such as the Exeter Riddles, and he explains the classic forms of secret codes used by spies and government agents for making messages secure. These are of two types: steganography (which is hiding one text inside another) and cryptography (using a substitution of letters).

Another surprising form of language use he explains is ‘respect language’:

Respect forms of language are often referred.to as ‘mother-in-law languages’, since they are mostly used when a mother-in-law is within earshot. They have the same phonology, morphology, and syntax as the everyday language, but a separate lexicon.

Some people believe that sacred texts contain hidden messages – so when these forms of secret language are used as analytic tools for interpretation of the bible (the Kabbalah) the field is ripe for speculation – though it should be noted that encryption may be suspected more frequently owing to the fact that no vowels were used in classical Hebrew.

Such is belief in the power of words that at its most extreme it takes the form of eating words witten on paper or food – an anthropological form known as ‘contagious magic’. This is still in regular practice of course in the ritual of transubstantiation in the host in Christian churches, where words are transferred (orally) onto wafers for human consumption.

The part of the book I found most entertaining was that on forms of popular secret language – which include rhyming slang, Pig Latin, Polari, back-slang, Tic-Tac, and even L33t – the computer jargon which combines extreme compression, omission, letter substitution, and deliberate mis-spellings.

He concludes with examples of language which are not exactly secret, but in which the communication is not direct – as in the use of irony, euphemism, and deliberate obscurity. These are what he quite rightly puts in the category of ‘everyday oblique’.

And he finishes, logically enough, with instances where language says one thing but references another – as in the use of allusion, quotation, and cultural echoing in which an author or speaker signals a reference to a well known source.

This is a fascinating excursion into an aspect of language studies which includes everything from fun and games to the deadliest forms of subterfuge and political deception.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Barry J. Blake, Secret Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp.328, ISBN: 0199579288

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Semantics – how to understand it

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Semantics – definition

Semantics is a part of language studies which focuses on the meaning of what is spoken or written.

It can encompass whole items such as a lecture or an annual report, or the smallest unit of meaning.

Linguists do not regard the word as the smallest unit, but the components of a word which carry separate items of meaning.

The smallest unit of meaning in a language is called a morpheme.

Examples

Here are some examples of linguistic study which would fall under the title of semantics:

Stylistic analysis of the imagery used in a poem.
Analysis of point of view in a novel or short story.
A study of tragic themes in Shakespeare’s plays.
The study of approaches to translation.
Tracing the development of English nouns from the Anglo-Saxon period.

Use

The semantic level of a statement, whether it be spoken or written, can be seen as the reason for its existence.

Meaning develops and shifts constantly in any language, and semantic study is often an attempt to chart these changes, using the structure of the language as a yardstick.

The smallest unit of meaning is known as a morpheme. Words can be broken down according to their morphological make up.

For instance the word horse is a morpheme, because no smaller part of it can stand alone with any significant meaning.

The same would be true for words such as big, talk, and giraffe.

However the word horses is made up of two morphemes:

horse [the animal] + s [which expresses a plural].

So, even though it is only one letter, s can be a morpheme.

The following sequence shows how a word of one morpheme can become part of a word with two, then three, then four morphemes or separate units of meaning.

attract 1 morpheme

attract/ive 2 morphemes

un/attract/ive 3 morphemes

un/attract/ive/ly 4 morphemes

However, where the semantic additions to the words are prefixes [un] and suffixes [ive] and [ly], they are called bound, rather than free morphemes.

In other words, the semantic additions could not stand alone as units of meaning in the same way as the free morpheme [attract] can.

We can find words made up of one or more free morphemes — such as mantel/piece.

Alternatively, they might be made up of one or more free morphemes and one or more bound morphemes — such as ir/regular or dough/nut/ting.

A word can only be split up into separate morphemes when at least one of the semantic units can stand alone.

Compare the two following examples:

preposterous 1 free morpheme

un/grateful 1 bound + 1 free morpheme

The meaning of words is not absolutely fixed. New meanings can be attributed to words if enough people use them. Alternatively, meanings can be ‘lost’. This phenomenon is known as ‘semantic shift’.

The word ‘gay’ for example, has changed its meaning radically during the past twenty years. The word itself remains, but it has undergone a semantic shift. It’s like using the same box for a changed content.

Sometimes words can ‘disappear’ from use [even though they might remain in a dictionary]. Most people know and use the word unequal, but very few would know that English once had the term inequal for the same purpose. It is now merely a historical curiosity.

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Semicolons – how to use them

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Semicolons – definition

The semicolon [ ; ] marks a long pause in a sentence.

It is half way between a comma and a colon.

Examples

Neither of us spoke; we merely waited to see what would happen.

He usually took great care; even so he made a few errors.

Four objects lay on the desk: a large book; a spiral-bound notepad; a glass vase containing flowers; and a silver propelling pencil.

Use

Semicolons are used between clauses which could stand alone, but which are closely related.

They are also used to punctuate lists in continuous prose writing.

NB! If you’re in any doubt about the semicolon – don’t use it.

The semicolon marks a pause which is longer than a comma, but not as long as a colon. This is a subtle distinction.

It is most commonly used between clauses which could be expressed as separate sentences, but which have some logical connection.

For instance, in the following example there could be a full stop after ‘England’:

Rutland was formerly the smallest county in England; no other area in the land was famous for so little.

The semicolon is used to avoid ambiguity in sentences composed of phrases of different length and a mixed content:

The Chairman welcomed the President, Dr Garvey; the Vice-President Mr Barncroft and his wife; several delegates from the United States; and members of the public who had been invited to attend.

Because the semicolon may be used instead of a full stop, some people use it without discrimination. They connect clause after clause with semicolons where no real link exists between them. This creates grammatical confusion and very poor style.

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Sentences – how to use them correctly

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Sentences – definition

A sentence is a group of words which is usually a grammatically complete statement.

It is often the expression of a thought.

In writing, sentences should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

Examples

Command Keep left.

Question Is James joining us for breakfast?

Statement Smoking can damage your health.

A normal sentence in English usually contains at least three elements: a subject, a verb, and an object.

Subject Verb Object

The cat ate the goldfish

My friend wants your address

Some sheep have black fleece

Subject	Verb	Object
The cat	ate	the goldfish
My friend	wants	your address
Some sheep	have	black fleece

Use

The sentence is a unit of meaning in both speech and writing.

We speak in sentences automatically from the time we first acquire language.

A sentence is defined as a grammatically complete unit, but it might need other sentences around it to make its meaning clear.

Constructing written sentences may be difficult. This is a skill which has to be learned.

Written sentences may be very short [‘Jesus wept’] or very long, but their underlying structure must follow grammatical conventions.

NB! Short sentences help to create clear expression. Keep them short. Keep them simple.

There are various kinds of sentences – simple, complex, and compound.

A simple sentence is one which contains phrases rather than clauses. A simple sentence contains one subject and one object or predicate. For example:

Subject Verb Predicate

I am the head of this department.

We won last Saturday’s match.

Jean is in the house.

Subject	Verb	Predicate
I	am	the head of this department.
We	won	last Saturday’s match.
Jean	is	in the house.

In all the examples above, when the subject is removed we are left with a phrase – an utterance which has no finite verb.

The expressions ‘in the house’, ‘last Saturday’s match’, and ‘the head of this department’, are all phrases not clauses.

A complex sentence contains one or more subordinate clauses. In the examples which follow, the subordinate clause is emphasised.

The suspect denied that he had been in the neighbourhood.

You won’t persuade me to stay no matter how hard you try.

Despite the fact that I had ordered the meal, I left the restaurant when I saw him arrive.

I went out shopping, although it was raining, and bought a basket of fruit.

In all these examples, the removal of the main clause leaves another clause (an utterance with a finite verb) and not a phrase.

A compound sentence is one in which contains two or more co-ordinating parts.

It’s starting to rain // and I have left my deck-chair outside.

The film we saw last night // was interesting and enjoyable.

We have no red towels // but we have plenty of green ones.

The following terms can be used to classify types of sentences by their function.

A statement – grammatically defined by the position of the subject immediately before the verb:

The pen is mightier than the sword.

A question – grammatically defined by the initial element being ‘how’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, or ‘why’:

How many spoons are in that box?

A command – grammatically defined by the initial positioning of the verb:

Go to the bus stop and wait for your father.

An exclamation – grammatically defined by an initial ‘what’, ‘how’, and the rest of the utterance being in statement form:

What a pity it’s raining for our picnic!

It is possible to have meaningful sentences which do not have all three normal elements:

[Subject – Verb – Object]

In such cases, any missing part is usually implied –

‘[I] thankyou’.

Many people lose grammatical control of their sentences because they use:

features from speech
conversational style
badly linked phrases
vague punctuation
faulty syntax

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Similes – how to understand them

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Similes – definition

A simile is a figure of speech in which one thing is directly compared with another.

The comparison is usually signalled by the use of the terms ‘as’ or ‘like’ or ‘such as’.

Examples

He was as strong as a lion

It shot out like a bullet

“Music is such sweet thunder”

Use

Similes are part of everyday speech. They may be used consciously or unconsciously.

They are often used in imaginative writing such as fiction and poetry to clarify and enhance an image.

NB! To say that a girl looks like Marilyn Monroe is not a simile. That’s because two similar things are being directly equated to each other.

But to say that ‘My heart is like a singing bird’ is a simile. That’s because the two things being likened to each other are quite different – and so an imaginative comparison is being made.

A simile requires less of an imaginative leap than does a metaphor. A simile states that A is like B, whereas a metaphor suggests that A actually is B.

The simile is one common component of imagery. This is the process of evoking ideas, people, places, feelings and various other connections in a vivid and effective way.

Imagery is used in both written and spoken communication in many varieties of form, from advertising to poetry and from chatting to speech-making.

Simile, metaphor, and symbol are the main types of image making. The result is that communication acquires a creative and vital quality which somehow springs from the essential act of comparison.

So, a raindrop can become a crystal, fear can become an abyss, and jealousy a monster.

By employing imagery, we interpret the material world and use language to transmit our vision.

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Slang – how to understand it

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Slang – definition

Slang is sometimes described as ‘the language of sub-cultures’ or ‘the language of the streets’.

It is a term for words or expressions used by small groups of people.

It tends to be vivid and colourful, and holds a delicate position between the colloquial and the vulgar.

Examples

MONEY	dough, lolly, spondulicks
FOOD	grub, nosh, scoff
DRINK	sloshed, smashed, plastered
SEX	nookey, the other, crumpet

Use

Slang is used in everyday informal speech amongst members of the same group.

It can often act as a ‘code’ which excludes outsiders.

Linguistically, it can be usefully seen as a sub-dialect.

It is hardly used at all in writing — except for stylistic effect.

Today’s slang can be tomorrow’s Standard English.

NB! Slang may also date very quickly, like fashion in clothes. Yesterday’s slang can become today’s cliché.

Eric Partridge [an authority on the subject] identifies a number of reasons for the creation and use of slang:

to be different, startling, or original
to display one’s membership of a group or club
to be secretive or to exclude others
to enrich the stock of language
to establish a friendly rapport with others
to be irreverant or humorous

Cockney rhyming slang is well known throughout the English speaking population. It is a very stylised form of slang which consists of two main elements:

the item being referred to — ‘tea’ for instance
a pair of words of which the latter rhymes with the referent — ‘Rosie Lee’

Thus ‘tea’ becomes ‘Rosie Lee’ [names are often used].

To make matters more complex, the rhyming word is often omitted. Thus the Cockney slang utterance is abbreviated, so that the listener may hear ‘Make us a cup of Rosie.’

This practice of omitting the rhyming word creates more interest in the usage, making it into a kind of conundrum or a word game.

Here are some examples of well-known rhyming slang.

‘Time to go up the apples to bed.’
[Apples and pears = stairs]

‘How do you like my new whistle?’
[Whistle and flute = suit]

‘Let’s have a butcher’s.’
[Butcher’s hook = look]

It was once thought that rhyming slang was dying out, but the recent fashion for using celebrity names has proved this not to be true – as in Garry Glitter = ‘pint of bitter’, abbreviated to a Garry of course. The alternative might be to order a couple of Britneys (Spears).

Some forms of slang change very rapidly, for various reasons.

Teenage slang changes rapidly because people are teenagers for a short period of time. For example, in the early 1990s the term used to express enthusiastic approval was ‘Ace’. Now this would be considered rather dated. It has been replaced by ‘Sound’ — which itself will soon be supplanted by whatever the current teenage culture decides is appropriate.

‘Smashing!’ and ‘Super!’ the teenage slang of Enid Blyton stories of the 1930s and 1940s is now used to parody the period and the attitudes from which they sprang. Intrinsically however, it is no different from today’s terms.

One important function of teenage slang is to create an identity which is distinct from the general adult world. Teenagers for this reason do not generally approve of parents or teachers using their slang terms. This defeats the object of what is essentially a group ‘code’.

Thus new terms are generated every couple of years. It is interesting that the main slang items are adjectives for extreme approval or extreme disapproval.

The criminal culture has even more reason to refer in slang terms to the key elements of its activities. This is why there are so many terms for illegal substances. ‘Weed’, ‘draw’, and ‘whacky backy’ are just some of the slang terms for marijuana.

‘Exstasy’ is a slang term which has now been adopted into Standard English. This is probably because the chemical term is too complex or difficult to pronounce.

This process can also occur in reverse. For instance the term ‘muck’ is now slang, but it used to be a Standard English word meaning mud or outdoor dirt.

The most important lesson regarding the concept of slang is that like all other parts of the language, it is in process. Cockney rhyming slang has stayed with us probably because of its creative and almost poetic element. Also, because of its formulaic nature, Cockney slang can continue to be generated according to the formula, suiting a variety of linguistic purposes.

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Speech – how it differs from writing

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Speech – definition

Speech is the universal means of oral communication.

It distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Speech (not writing) is considered by linguists as the primary material for study.

Examples

German, Italian, French, Spanish, are all varieties of European languages.

Legal, religious, medical, and technical language are all varieties of spoken occupational jargon.

There are many varieties of spoken language, many of which are used even on an individual basis.

Use

Speech is innately acquired — unlike writing, which is a skill which has to be learned.

Speech is used constantly by everyone for a variety of functions, from the passing of information to the sharing of emotions.

There are no designated human speech organs, but respiratory and digestive organs are adapted to produce speech.

The pharynx is purely the sound box, shared by other animal species, primarily designed to produce mating, warning, and herding calls.

Speech and writing are two separate systems and an individual’s linguistic competence depends on the ability to make a clear distinction between the two.

NB! In linguistic study, speech is primary.

Speech normally contains hesitations, repetitions, and grammatical ‘errors’. It contains lots of ‘ums’ and ers’, and all sorts of sounds which have no connection with writing as a means of communication.

Speech is normally accompanied by many other non-verbal features which affect communication — such as intonation and stress, facial expressions, physical gestures, and even bodily posture.

In the study of language, speech is considered primary and as a system which is entirely separate from writing.

Children who are learning to write often confuse the two. They produce a written form of speech.

Maturity is demonstrated by the ability to use a literary style which is completely discrete and separate from speech.

Humans acquire speech due to their innate programming. Writing on the other hand is a skill which must be learnt in the same way as driving, sewing, or cooking.

There are still some societies in the world which have no written form of language, but which depend entirely on speech.

Sign language, among the profoundly hearing-impaired, is a system which can perform all that a spoken language can in terms of communication. In this case, the hands are adapted instead of respiratory and digestive organs in order to communicate.

As far as Linguistics is concerned, there is no such thing as a primitive language. All languages are equal in potential, to perform any communication task required by its users.

The organs used in speech are as follows:

lips teeth tongue palate glottis

uvula nose trachea lungs pharynx

All children develop their ability to use language at approximately the same rate, despite the variations in nationality or circumstances.

In the process of a child’s development, the acquisition of phonology, semantics and grammar progresses simultaneously.

This continues until linguistic maturity is reached around the age of seven. After this, an individual’s linguistic competence varies according to training, environment, and perceived necessity.

This development runs as follows:

Months Sounds

00—03 non-linguistic vocalisations

03—06 babbling

06—09 beginnings of recognisable speech sounds

09—12 one-word sentences such as ‘dada’

Months	Sounds
00—03	non-linguistic vocalisations
03—06	babbling
06—09	beginnings of recognisable speech sounds
09—12	one-word sentences such as ‘dada’

By the age of seven years all the phonological sounds of the language have been acquired.

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Spelling rules – how to understand them

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Spelling – definition

Spelling is a convention by which words are represented in writing by letters of the alphabet.

The spelling of most words is now largely fixed.

The relationship between spelling and pronunciation is not consistent.

Examples

The term connection can also be spelled connexion.

Judgement can also be spelled Judgment.

Even spelled can also be spelled spelt!

Use

Competence in spelling is desirable, but we cannot possibly know the definitive spelling of all the English lexicon.

Good spelling usually results from an awareness of those words which we need to check in a dictionary.

Computer spell-checkers are an enhancement to the writing process. They should be used with caution however, as some errors are those of wrong word rather than of spelling.

For instance, ‘They took there places’. The spell-checker would let that pass.

NB! Shakespeare used a variety of spellings for his own name.

Spelling was not generally fixed in English until the eighteenth century. [Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was a landmark in this respect.]

The following example is from a poem written in the seventeenth century, showing the original spelling of what we would now write as dearly, fain, and enemy:

Yet dearley I love you, and would be loved faine,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie

[JOHN DONNE]

Spelling mistakes in formal writing create a very bad impression.

Some words may have more than one acceptable spelling:

connection can be spelled connexion
judgement can be spelled judgment

Certain organisations such as newspapers and publishers issue rules on spelling for their authors. This is known as House Style.

Spelling in English does have rules — but there are many exceptions and irregularities. The plural of baby is babies but the plural of donkey is donkeys. We write about honour but the adjective is spelled honorary.

Even the verb ‘to spell’ itself may be spelled or spelt in the past tense.

The reason for this irregularity is that English vocabulary is made up of many other languages [Old English, Latin, Greek, and French]. Words from these languages have brought their own spelling characteristics.

There are minor differences in the spelling of English and American English. Colour is color in the USA, and centre is spelled [or spelt!] center.

There is no easy way to learn correct spelling. Rules exist, but there are many, many exceptions. You should simply take an interest in the words themselves.

On the question of possible spelling reform, the American writer Mark Twain has some typically humorous comments to make.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter ‘c’ would be dropped to be replased either by ‘k’ or ‘s’, and likewise ‘x’ would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which ‘c’ would be retained would be the ‘ch’ formation, which will be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform ‘w’ spelling, so that ‘which’ and ‘one’ would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish ‘y’ replasing it with ‘i’ and Iear 4 might fiks the ‘g/j’ anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez ‘c’, ‘y’ and ‘x’ — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais ‘ch’, ‘sh’, and ‘th’ rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

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