Myth 5: English is spelling "kattastroffik"

1. Language Myths
Instructor: Trương Thị Như Thủy
Group : 6
Students: 1/ Triệu Thị Thảo
2/ Trần Thị Thanh Yên
3/ Tô Thị Thanh
4/ Dương Thị Nhung
5/ Trần Thị Hoa

2. Thảo
TOPIC & AUTHOR
Myth 5: English Spelling is “Kattastroffik”
catastrophic /,kætə'strɔfik/ adj :
a terrible event in which there is a lot of destruction, suffering,
or death.
Author : Edward Carney
 -at the University of Manchester.
 -Books : English Spelling and A Survey of English Spelling
 believes that it would be best to have one single letter for
each speech sound AND acknowledges that even in
English there would emerge many different dialects in
writing  the phonetic spelling would depend on the
speaker.
 He disagrees

3. III. THE CIVIL SERVICE
3. Correspondence /ˌkɔrɪˈspɔndəns / n
a relationship or connection between two or more ideas or facts
Thảo
KEY WORDS
1. phlegm : /flem/ n
the thick yellowish substance produced in your nose and throat,
especially when you have a cold
2. inconsistent /ˌɪnkənˈsɪstənt/ adj
two statements that are inconsistent cannot both be true
4. divergence [-dʒəns] n
the act of moving away in different direction from a common point
5. cope /kəup US koup/ v
to succeed in dealing with a difficult problem or situation

4. KEY WORDS
8. mismatch /ˈmɪsmætʃ/ n
a combination of things or people that do not work well together or are not
suitable for each other
9. muddy 1 /ˈmʌdi/ adj
confused and not clear
10. spelling ['spelɪŋ] n
forming words with letters according to the principles underlying accepted usage

5. OUTLINE
I. Introduction
II. Main contents
III. Conclusion
IV. Game

6. III. THE CIVIL SERVICE
Thảo
I. INTRODUCTION
Facts of spelling:
-History
-English words spelled the way they are
1350

7. III. THE CIVIL SERVICE
1. How the alphabet copes
2. Vowel markers
3. Keeping a spelling constant
4. Other markers
5. Look-alikes and sound-alikes
6. A muddy sort of vowel
7. Clever stuff
8. A system of subsystems
9. Different speakers, different problems
10. The price of history
11. Sources and further reading
Thảo
II. Main contents

8. III. THE CIVIL SERVICE
Thảo
1. How the alphabet copes

9. vowels
 5 vowels refers  vowel letters .
About 20 vowels  depending on accent .
Ex: Vowels : cake ; cow ; key ; flu ; find .
Try Collecting by:
• 1 word  changing the vowel sound 
new words  turns up  get different
words .
Ex: send  sand / sond /sind /sund / ( sand ;
son ; sin; sun )  bad  bed ; bod ; bid ;
….
consonants
 Most consonant may have a single-letter
‘ alphabetic .
 Ex : Play /plei/
 Often ‘divergence ‘
• One spelling = different speech-sounds
• One speech-sound = several different
spellings
 Six consonants do not have a single-letter
spelling & require =< 2 letters
• Ex: mother / /m^ðər/
• Sharp /ʃɑrp/
Thảo
1. How the alphabet copes

10. - 5 pairs of vowel can have single-letter
spellings:
• <a> <e> <i> <o> <u>
2. Vowel markers
Yên
- To get the long value of <a> in a single-syllable
word, add <-e>
E.g: scrape.
- Get the short value before a suffix beginning
with a vowel like <-ing> => double a final
consonant.
E.g: scrapping

11. 2. Vowel markers
- 4 consonants have unusual doubling:
- <k> , <ck>: stoking, stocking
- <ch>, <tch>: beach, batch
- <g(e)>,<dg(e)>: cage, cadge
- <vv>: navvy
Yên

12. 3. Keeping a spelling consonant
 Some words are made up of several recognizable building block.
E.g: reason is the single unit, while un+reason+able+ness consists of 4.
 Each of these building blocks a constant spelling.
E.g: verbal ending <-ed>
Yên
 Silent letters: are letters that you can't hear when you say the word,
but that are there when you write the word.
E.g: <g> in sign
<m> in malign, malignant

13. 4. Other markers
 The <-e> marks the vowel as long but marks the last
consonant as ‘ voiced’ rather than the ‘voiceless’.
Ex: + bathe /beið/, bath /bɑ:θ/
+ wreathe [ri:ð], wreath [ri:θ]
 The marker <-e> to prevent confusion with the plural
forms
Ex: + browse [brauz], brows [braus]
+ please [pli:z], pleas [pli:s]
Thanh

14. 4. Other markers
Thanh
 Two distinct consonants:
+before <a,o,e> we have /g/
Ex: gap /gæp/,got ,gum [gʌm]
+before < i, e> the consonant spelt /j/
Ex: gin /ʤin/,gem /ʤem/
 Many exceptions to this:
+ with /g/ before <i, e>
Ex: get /get/, girl [gə:l]
+some words have used the letter <u> as a marker for /g/
Ex: guess [ges], guide [gaid], guitar [gi'tɑ:]

15. 5. Look-alikes and sound-alike
Homographs
 Words: spelt the same + pronounced differently
I always read books /reed/
I read Sam’s letter yesterday. /read/
Thanh

16. Homophones
 Words : pronounced the same + spelt
differently
Ex: pail pale
a bucket lacking color
Please get me a pail of water
Lucky looks pale these days

17. Homonyms
Words: Sounding the same + looking the same
Bear a animal
to endure
I haven’t seen a real bear.
Tim said he can’t bear the situation he’s in anymore.

18. 6. A muddy sort of vowel
Thanh
# A vowel be weakened  lack of stress
Ex: about [ə'baut], author ['ɔ:θə], together [tə'geðə]
# The spelling of < ə > varies widely, since it reflects what
the vowel would be in a stressed context
Ex: organ ['ɔ:gən], political [pə'litikl]
# The spelling is prompted by the stressed vowels
Ex: organic [ɔ:'gænik], politics ['pɔlitiks]
 Constant : The spelling of the basic units.

19. 7 . Clever Stuff
Words borrowed from French have sometimes been altered by
anxious academics looking beyond the French spelling to the
distant Latin original.
Nhung
French : dette -> debt
doute -> doubt
 The ‘silent’ <b> was inserted in 16th century to resemble the
original Latin.
Latin : debitum, dubitare
English: debit, dubitative.

20. 7. Clever stuff
In the eighteenth century grammarians trying to make English more “
legitimate” by appropriating Latin spelling.
Nhung
Such interference is often inconsistent
+ The <p> Receipt : receptacle, reception.
+ lacks a <p> Deceit : deception
+ French loan grocer is a regular English spelling : racer, slicer
A similar mismatch
+ French : <gn> align, alignment
+ English <line> French <ligne>
+ used as slang

21. 8. A system of subsystems
 Our language is a combination of Anglo- Saxon Old language word
Ex : life death, earth, heaven, sun, moon, day, night, black, white…
 Adopted cultural loanwords from French
Ex: chance, conquer, courage, language, money, place, pleasant, royal, strange,
sure….
 Technical terms for use in science are often derived from Latin or Greek.
<rrohea> in diarrhea => meaning ‘through flow’
 These various subsystems are often marked by their own peculiar spelling
correspondences.
+ <ch> : chief, cheap, cheese…
<ch> /k/ : character, chemist….
<ph> /f/ diaphragm, philosophy, symphony….
Nhung

22. 9. Different speakers, different problems
English spelling  cater for a wide range of English
accents  goodness of fit with present spelling conventions.
 1. In some words:Witch/which, weather/whether,
wine/whine
 Pronounce <w> and <wh> the same  have to learn
individual words have <wh->
 2. In some words: court, cores, floor, formerly, source
 Southern England pronounce without an /r/ same as
caught, cause, flaw, formally, sauce.
 most Scottish, Irish and American  kept /r/ in all
positions.
Hoa

23. III . CONCLUSION
 1/ If you know how an English word is pronounced and roughly what it
means, you ought to be able to write it down without much trouble. If you
find that you can’t do that, then the writing system may well seem to be at
fault.
 2/ There are several rules between the spelling and the pronunciation.
 3/ English spelling has to cater for a wide range of English accents, which
differ in their goodness of fit with present spelling conventions.
 4/ The spelling system has to cater as best it can for phonetic differences
between speakers. If people were encouraged to spell as they spoke, there
would emerge a number of different written dialects of English.
 5/ English spelling has preserved a continuous record of cultural activity by
borrowing foreign spelling conventions along with the borrowed words.
 6/ Sure, English Spelling is ‘Kattastroffik’, but there’s nothing we can do
about it.

24. 1. A Survey of English
Spelling (Psychology Press,
1994 – 535 pages )
2. English Spelling (Taylor &
Francis, 04-01-2002 – 112
pages )
Hoa
11. Sources and further reading

25. IV. GAMES
English Spelling Sounds
English Spelling Sounds
The spellings of English are difficult you know
Try these words : (1) , (2) and (3) ,
The spellings of English are difficult you know
(Try 4) these and words (5) : now , , (6) cow and and low,
(7) ,
moth and mother, broth and brother,
But what about both and bother?
But what about (8) and (9) ?
(10) and (11) , (12) and (13) .
There and here, pear and hear .
What about bear and dear?
Read and read, bead and dead .
Pay and paid, say and said .
What about (14) and (15) ?
(16) and (17) , (18) and (19) .
(20) and (21) , (22) and (23) .
Ah c’mon (24) , (25) , and (26) .
Is like (27) , (28) and (29) .
Ah c’mon meat, great and threat .
Is like suite, straight and debt.
Hose, rose, dose and lose.
Foe, shoes, goose and choose.
(30) , (31) , (32) and (33) .
(34) , (35) , (36) , and (37) .