May 31, 2017

Geoff Nunberg: National Spelling Bee Relies on Quirkiness of English

From NBC4 Washington

'A Truculent Pride': National Spelling Bee Relies on Quirkiness of English

By Noreen O'Donnell

Noah Webster eliminated many inconsistencies in English spellings in his first dictionary and in blue-backed spelling books published for American classrooms. Fortunately for the survival of spelling bees, his reforms went only so far.

Otherwise English might have been scrubbed of the quirky letter combinations that have bedeviled generations of school children but that also gave rise to this quintessentially American pastime. Spelling bees depend on English's often devilishly different spelling for their appeal....

The United States has a long tradition of spelling bees dating to the 19th century, when both children and adults competed. They were in vogue in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century but for the most part, are a particularly American phenomenon, said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley....

“We take a truculent pride in the difficulty of our spelling system,” Nunberg said. “That’s why we don’t reform our spelling for one thing.”...

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Last updated:

June 29, 2017