Take a look at the following English words: butcher, squirrel, mortgage, and choir. Does something seem off about them? At one point in time, the words move and love rhymed. So did blood, good, and ...

Elementary school children may be harmed by overuse of tech tools for spelling. Literacy experts are calling for change and ...

If you're a kid learning how to write, or an adult speaker of a language with sensible spelling, English spelling can seem like a cruel prank. And even if you're a completely literate adult native ...

English, whatever its merits as a language, is a bitch to spell. There are so many rules, and so many exceptions, and yet in the end you have to learn a lot of words on a case-by-case basis. If future ...

“But here’s the thing,” wrote David Shariatmadari in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago. “English orthography makes no sense.” No sense? I know it is exaggeration for the sake of humor (no quibble ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. English, we have pointed out repeatedly, is not a logical language. That hasn’t prevented attempts to impose logic on it, from ...

For many Americans, spelling bees are a part of growing up in the United States. The challenge is obvious. From the moment kids begin to learn to read, there are clear differences between how words ...

My 11-year-old student sighs. How can the same letters make so many different sounds? We are looking at the letter combination “ough”, which can be read in seven different ways: “through”, “thorough”, ...