No to simplified spelling

Today on the BBC website I came across an interesting debate on whether English spelling should be simplified - I personally agree with Vivian Cook who argues against simplification.

In addition to Vivian's points I'd like to say that when I taught English as a foreign language, my students struggled much more with English grammar (especially tenses), and with phrasal verbs, than they did with spelling. I hope that's not a reflection on my teaching...

Also, spellings often indicate a word's etymology - and by simplifying spellings, we would lose a lot of visual clues to the origin and history of words.

A third point I believe is not raised in the debate is that related words are often pronounced differently but spelled similarly, for example 'maniac' and 'maniacal'. If the spellings of these words were 'simplified', the connection between these words would no longer be so obvious in the spelling - which might actually hinder language learning.

Masha Bell, arguing in favour of simplification, says that irregular spellings penalise language learners with poor memories. Perhaps, but could it be that our idiosyncratic spelling actually helps all of us to develop our memories?

Finally, pronunciation of words changes over time, so if we moved to a more phonetic spelling system, would it be necessary to update certain spellings periodically? Who would be in charge of deciding when this happened and to what words? The Simplified Spelling Society, perhaps. But I like the fact that the spelling of the English language, or even of British English, isn't prescribed by any one body or organisation.

Any more thoughts?

ITA: Initial Teaching Alphabet

I wrote a little while back about my opposition to simplifying the spelling of English, but today one of my colleagues mentioned that he remembered a simplified spelling system that was brought in at his school for a year or so. This must have been back in the late 60s.

The Initial Teaching Alphabet, or ITA, relied on more than 40 characters (our alphabet plus a number of other characters to represent different vowel combinations and sounds such as the 'ng' of 'ring') to spell words in a more consistent, phonetic way. My colleague recalls entire books being written in ITA.

The idea was that children would initially learn to read in ITA, then move over to conventional English spelling. A number of schools brought ITA in, but it was never considered a resounding success. Many people who used ITA seem to blame it for their poor spelling in later life.

Incidentally, all ITA text was written in lower case, so I suppose it should really be called ita.

My colleague later found a BBC article about ITA that is of interest if you want to find out more. Or you can also see the full ITA alphabet online.

I'd be interested to hear from any Engine Room readers that have memories of ITA. Bonus points for anyone who writes in using the ITA alphabet!

Schpelling: accommodation, judgement

As JD would confirm, spelling isn't my strongest suit; hence the well thumbed OED on my desk.

But while everyone makes spelling mistakes, some are less excusable than others.

Last night, for example, I caught a TV documentary about a hotel during which, with great fanfare, a new, and no doubt expensive, sign was erected announcing that the hotel offered 'executive accommadation'.

In a former job as a writer I had cause to write about accommodation on almost a daily basis. The sub editor who sat opposite me finally lost patience; every time I misspelt the word she reached for her 18-inch steel ems rule and whacked me on the wrist. I learned fast.

And this morning a national magazine reported that a court had reserved its judgement. Nothing wrong with the spelling of judgement, except that in English usage it drops the first 'e' when used in a judicial context.

Both these errors, trivial in themselves, are noteworthy for their context. A hotelier should be able to spell accommodation (and a signwriter should have a dictionary); a court reporter should know the difference between judgement and judgment.

Have fun with homonyms!

BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting a history of variety and last night’s instalment featured the 1938 launch of the long-running show Bandwagon, including Arthur Askey’s ‘chestnut corner’ routine. During this he and his partner ‘Stinker’ Murdoch rattled off a succession of hoary old schoolboy jokes designed to make the audience groan. But I’d somehow missed one of them during my schooldays so it made me smile, while doffing my cap at dear old Arthur for incorporating two homonyms in a one-line gag:

Stinker: “What do your people do?” Arthur: “They’re in the iron and steel business – my mother irons and my father steals!”

I have a weakness for homonyms and, thanks to a chat on the subject with JD when we shared an engine room, I knew there was more than one variety of the breed. But being woolly on the details I looked them up. The OED duly confirmed that a homonym is a “word of the same form as another but different sense; homograph or homophone...” Little the wiser I turned to Wikipedia, which warns that there are many contradictory views on this subject; I found whole sites devoted to each variant.

However, www.editingandwritingservices.com offers the following which I found illuminating, with good potential for wordmanship.

Homonym One of two or more words having the same sound and often the same spelling but different meanings. Examples: quail (cower), and quail (bird); fair (appearance), fair (county fair), and fair (reasonable).

Homophone One of two or more words pronounced the same but different in meaning, origin, and sometimes spelling. Examples: cite, sight, and site; sea and see; your and you're; bow and bough.

Homograph One of two or more words spelled alike but different in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation. Examples: bow of a ship, a bow and arrow, and a bow (deference/manners).

Heteronym One of two or more words that are spelled the same but that differ in pronunciation and meaning. Examples: bass (voice) and bass (fish); polish (shine) and Polish (from Poland); tear (rip) and tear (from eye).

So iron/iron and steel/steal are both homonyms, but steel/steal is also a homophone and iron/iron isn’t (though the “sometimes” in these definitions remind us that they are open to argument). Iron/iron aren't homographs as they share a root; neither are steal/steel as they are spelled differently. Neither pair are hetronyms as they are pronounced the same.

Wikipedia sums it up thusly:

“The words bow and bough are interesting because there are two meanings associated with a single pronunciation and spelling (the weapon and the knot); there are two meanings with two different pronunciations (the knot and the act of bending at the waist), and there are two distinct meanings sharing the same sound but different spellings: (bow, the act of bending at the waist, and bough, the branch of a tree). In addition, it has several related but distinct meanings - a bent line is sometimes called a 'bowed' line, reflecting its similarity to the weapon. Thus, even according to the most restrictive definitions, various pairs of sounds and meanings of bow and bough are homonyms, homographs, homophones, heterophones, heterographs, and are polysemous.”

But if you want to research polysemes and capitonyms, you’re on your own.

Photo special: America's favo(u)rite mustard

I took this snap in a South London supermarket.

French's has missed a trick here. If it really is 'America's Favourite Mustard', why not emphasise that by calling it 'America's Favorite Mustard'? I'm sure British shoppers would be able to cope.



Looks like French's has trademarked the phrase, too. I wonder if that's only for the British English spelling?

Typo of the week: trading on toes

I'm fairly relaxed about people making spelling mistakes in everyday life – mainly because I do it too – but I have less tolerance for people littering their CV (or résumé, if you prefer) with errors.

After all, you never know whether the person reading it and considering you for a job is a stickler for correct spelling. One prominent typo could cost you that dream position.

And if it is important to ensure an error-free CV, surely that holds especially true for subs (or copy editors, if you prefer).

So imagine my amusement when the production desk here received a CV from a freelance sub that contained the following in its opening sentence:

I don't want to be trading on writers' toes

A brilliant mental image, if nothing else...

Sending in corrs by text file

'Knol'... that's another neologism that's passed me by (along with the bloggish use of twitter) JD, but a smashing list, to which you might like to add this portmanteau word, culled from a late-night re-run of that seminal Stateside TV cop show Hill Street Blues:

cremains – the ashes that are collected after human remains have been cremated.

Now then, felicitations to all you hard-working subs and copy editors toiling in engine rooms around the planet, and a suggestion for you. I've just finished proofreading the pdf of a 36-page prospectus for which which the client has told me to send corrs and revises via a text file (she who pays the piper...).

Fortunately the copy was pretty clean, but I soon stopped making any but the most essential typographical and spelling changes.

Here's an example:
PG 16
Intro para 3 line 2 delete apostrophe to read presents its medieval
Course title line 2 replace long dash with hyphen and delete spaces to read 1066-1290
Course title line 3 delete spaces either side of hyphen to read 4 May-18 June
Course description line 8 replace phenomenum with phenomenon
Opening times
Line 3 amend to read Fri 10.00am-4.00pm

The document I'm about to email back to the client, I'm horrified to discover, runs to 3,604 words. Pity the poor secretary who will have to tap in the corrs. Next time, I predict, they'll listen to sage advice (mine) and come up with a less cumbersome method of working. But I find myself harking back to those pre-historic days when I subbed copy with a pen and sent the result to typesetters via a messenger, waiting at least 24 hours for every galley proof to return for checking.

My questions, colleagues, are these: do subs/copy editors make more changes to copy simply because it's so easy to get stuck in with modern technology? Can writers get away with sloppy copy because their employers no longer have to pay typesetters for every amendment?

As an almost retired sub I'd be interested to see what you think.

Enough wordsmithing for now; my next task is to sew some elastic into the back of my hat to cope with the Channel gales that are rocking our caravan.

Friday roundup: cow poison and The Proclaimers

My adventures with photo-sharing website Flickr are continuing – I've now joined GrammarBlog's Grammar Bloopers group and even added a couple of my pictures to it. If you like "photos of spelling errors, apostrophe abuse, dangling modifiers and malapropisms", I recommend you check out the group.

To be honest, signs with misplaced or missing apostrophes are 10 a penny where I live in south London, so photos of these don't float my boat, but I do like snaps like this:


A bottle of cleaning liquid that's "useful for" poisoning cows and pigs. Brilliant.

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I'm also really enjoying the GraphJam website, "song chart memes and pop culture explained in graph form". It must appeal to my stat-crazy brain. Here, for any Proclaimers fans, is the sort of thing it offers:

More graph humour and song chart memes

Friday roundup 4: AmE, writing blogs, low pay...

Another Friday roundup:

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The first of this week's additions to the blogroll is Separated by a Common Language, "observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK". So it addresses some of the issues I look at in The Engine Room, albeit from a different perspective. And the linguist in question is Lynneguist, who you may have noticed commenting here from time to time. I wrote earlier this week about a misunderstanding I had regarding the spelling of the word 'cemetary', and Lynneguist picked up on this for her own blog, so I am glad to see my foolish error making its way round the internet.

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If you have an interest in linguistics, you may be familiar with my second addition – Language Log. It's got a crisp new template and sorted out its own blogroll so I thought I would give it a mention. It's quite an academic blog, although not without a sense of humour. I find the lack of a comment facility a little frustrating, though – especially when the bloggers there write something I disagree with. Which happens fairly often.

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Something else I stumbled upon this week is a list of 40 writing blogs, especially useful if you are an aspiring freelance writer. I can't promise that all the blogs on this list are good, though.

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Finally, I found this on BigLorryBlog – it seems that the credit crunch is having more of an impact than we might have realised:

Talk about minimum wage...

Beware the escalator of death

Having spent the past week in Spain I could pass on examples of silly solecisms but I won't because it's hardly fair to sneer at our multi-lingual Continental cousins when so few Brits are prepared to learn foreign languages (my droog JD is an exception to that rule).

In any case this sign, which confronts travellers arriving at Gatwick airport by train, puts Spanish menu typos in the shade. In case you can't read it through the lens of my £25 Tesco camera, it warns: "Keep safe. Use the lifts. A lift is located further along the platform."

The spelling's OK, so maybe this is outside The Engine Room's self-imposed remit, but it's such a fine example of 21st century health and safety that I wanted to share it with you. I wonder if the escalator manufacturer could claim damages from the airport operator for malicious falsehood?

Green shoots of recovery

Here's a rather apposite typo or spelling mistake from recent raw copy:

However, those looking for green shoots of recovery should be weary

Of course, that final word should be 'wary' – probably.

Friday roundup: typos, typos, typos

This week's Friday roundup is all about typos.

• Copy editor Tim Stewart has been commenting on this blog recently, and his own blog, Typos in Print, might be one to watch – although it's too soon to say. Anyway, it's good to see another sub blogging.
  
  
• One of our regulars, Garik, emailed in to point out this post on Language Log. Not quite the Log's usual bag, but there are some interesting comments about if and when it is acceptable to "make fun of people who make spelling mistakes".
  
  
• Oh, and if you want to play 'spot the typo', check out the Priden Engineering website – but you'll have to be quick.
  

Pet Sematary. I mean cemetery. Or do I?

A small admission. For many years, until quite recently, I thought that 'sematary' was just the American English spelling of 'cemetery'.


My elder brother's copy of the Stephen King novel Pet Sematary (pictured) was to blame.

As I understand, in the novel the sign for the pet cemetery is incorrectly spelt, having been written by children (the sign, that is, not the novel). The title of the novel refers to that incorrectly spelt sign. But how was I supposed to know that?

Especially as I would be more inclined to say 'graveyard' anyway...

'Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe'

I meant to blog about this news story when I first saw it, a couple of weeks back:

Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe

It begins:

A Swedish couple in search of the isle of Capri drove to Carpi, an industrial town in northern Italy, because they misspelt the name in their car's GPS.

And I especially like this:

"Capri is an island. They did not even wonder why they didn't cross any bridge or take any boat," said a bemused tourism official in Carpi.

Does the story illustrate the importance of correct spelling or the importance of common sense? Probably more the latter...

Oh, and here's a photo of Capri (not Carpi):

Photo from Flickr

Spelling can be (pomer)grate

My local Sainsbury's supermarket is currently selling a type of fruit called, according to the printed labelling, a 'pomergrate'. I can only assume that it's like a pomegranate, only better.

Just a shame the pomergrates aren't pomergratis...

And no, they aren't part of the SO RAS range.

They're grate...

Georgia is a hoe!

I recently spotted a great piece of graffiti near my flat. It read:

Georgia is a hoe!

I was going to take a picture – by the time I went back, the final word had been erased. I'm presuming that Georgia herself did this, but whether it was because she is a stickler for spelling or because she took offence at being called a garden implement is beyond me...

And I did consider making a joke around the phrase 'calling a spade a spade' – but decided not.

A swath of swathing changes

From recent raw copy (emphasis is mine):

Taking legislation as a suitable solution, the puzzling bit for the likes of Allen is Defra’s Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS). Introduced to make swathing changes in English municipal waste policy, the introduction is set to help meet targets for reduction of landfill deposited biodegradable waste under Article 5(2) of the EC Landfill Directive.

Swathing changes? I've heard of sweeping changes, or even a swath(e) of changes (the noun having two commonly accepted spellings), but I've never heard of swathing changes.

The Concise OED does not give 'swathing', although it gives the noun 'swath(e)', "a row or line of grass, corn, etc. as it falls when mown or reaped" and the verb 'swathe', "wrap in several layers of fabric". I am assuming the 'swathing' of 'swathing changes' is related to the former rather than the latter. So why no verb 'swath(e)', meaning something along the lines of 'mow' or 'cut a swath(e)'?

"What are you doing, darling?"
"I'm swathing the back garden."

Interestingly, a quick Google search for "swathing changes" results in 58 hits, so it's an uncommon but not unknown little phrase. In comparison, "swathe of changes" gets 1,270 hits and "swath of changes" gets 12,000. "Cut a swathe" gets 28,900 hits and "cut a swath" gets 94,000. So it looks like 'swath' is the more popular spelling.

I like 'swathing changes', but I changed it anyway.

I can't shake off Embarrassing Illnesses

I mentioned on Friday that last week was the most popular in the blog's history for an 'embarrassing' reason. Here's why.

Back in January one of our regular contributors emailed us about an advert she had spotted on her work intranet regarding an upcoming Channel 4 TV show called 'Embarrassing Illnesses'. I then wrote about this on the blog – and as well as mocking the central premise of the show, I also pointed out that the intranet advert at one point spelt the word 'embarrassing' with one 'r'. As I wrote at the time, everyone makes spelling mistakes, but come on – the word 'embarrassing' was in the name of the show...

So far, so ordinary. But on Monday last week, Channel 4 aired the first episode in the series (now going by the title 'Embarrassing Bodies') and the blog started receiving hundreds of hits from people Googling 'embarassing illnesses channel 4'. Note the single 'r'.

How ironic – by blogging about misspellings I attract people to the blog who can't spell.

Typo of the week: sweet

A simple typo (or possibly spelling mistake) made the subs' desk chuckle today. One of our writers submitted a feature containing the rhetorical question:

Would all your customers dessert you?

Maybe this is what it means to put someone on ice...

PS There's no picture to accompany this post because my "organization's Internet use policy restricts access at this time" to my favourite free image library, www.morguefile.com. As we also sometimes use Morguefile to source images for our publications, I can only imagine that this situation will be rectified shortly...


Update: It's rectified. So here is a picture of a dessert:

Channel 4: Embarrassing Illnesses

One of our contributors has e-mailed in the following ad spotted on her work intranet:

Channel 4’s Embarrassing Illnesses are doing a series of shows including a programme focussing on men's health.

They are interested in hearing from men who find discussing issues with their doctors embarassing.

If selected, your condition will be treated by professionals and you will receive top quality surgery and treatment. Your involvement will raise awareness about your condition, helping other sufferers to seek the treatment they need.

Please contact [details withheld]

So... you are a man who has an embarrassing illness. You find discussing this issue – or perhaps all issues – with your doctor also embarrassing. So what do you do? Volunteer to take your illness on national television of course. That's much less embarrassing.

(I also like the way that 'embarrassing' is spelt wrongly in the second par. Everyone makes spelling mistakes, but the show is called 'Embarrassing Illnesses' for goodness' sake...)