indicates an exception to the general guideline or pattern.1Now that you’ve discovered more about the consonants and vowels of English, it’s perhaps a good time to discuss English spelling conventions. The first thing we have to find out is why English orthography is so irregular and full of exceptions to its rules (although English spelling is not really quite as unpredictable as is sometimes suggested). The history of English orthography is long and complex. As is true of other western European languages, the Roman alphabet – designed to deal with the 15 consonants and five long and five short vowels of Latin – had to be adapted to fit the needs of Old English (p. 200). Several new letters were introduced, including ( and ð for the dental fricatives [θ, ð], but all of these innovations eventually became defunct.
From 1066 onwards, English was massively infiltrated by the language of the conquering Normans – indeed, it looked for a time as if French might even supplant English as the language of England. Many French spelling conventions were adopted, as you can see from the transcript of Chaucerian English (pp. 200–1). Further complications came with the influx of Latin and Greek vocabulary which were needed to deal with the needs of scientific and scholarly work. In Shakespeare’s time (pp. 201–2), there was much variation in orthography and considerable tolerance of individuals’ personal preferences. During the eighteenth century (p. 203), spelling became more standardised, and very similar to what we have today – a process hastened by the publication in 1755 of Samuel Johnson’s influential Dictionary of the English Language. It is notable, however, that no attempt was made at any official spelling reform, and consequently many discrepancies and irregularities remained. In America, the lexicographer Noah Webster’s modifications were minor; for instance he removed superfluous letters to produce spellings like color, encyclopedia, traveled (and similar past tense forms). Nevertheless, Webster’s reforms do largely account for the differences between British and American spelling today.
In the course of the last two centuries relatively few changes have been made to English spelling, even though a couple of British anomalies like shew and gaol have been superseded by show and jail. However, there have been many calls for spelling reform, and in 1908 the Simplified Spelling Society was set up in Britain (an American Simplified Spelling Board already existed). It gained the support of many well-known figures – notably the playwright Bernard Shaw, who attempted to leave all of his huge fortune to the cause of spelling reform (his will was subsequently bitterly contested in the courts). Under its new name – the English Spelling Society – it’s still very much a going concern, and has a phonetician, John Wells, as its president, and counts several linguists amongst its supporters. You can access its website at http://spellingsociety.org. A major project in the 1960s was the Initial Teaching Alphabet, designed by James Pitman (1901–85) to introduce children to reading on an essentially one symbol to one speech sound basis. Although it had considerable success in its aims, British teachers lost interest in it, and it was eventually abandoned. The ITA still has adherents in the USA, where it is used in some schools, in particular for teaching English spelling to American Hispanic children. There is more information at this website: http://www.itafoundation.org/.
The arguments in favour of spelling reform are very powerful. Research has confirmed that far more time is needed for an English-speaking child to learn to read than is the case for children in countries with languages with more rational spelling systems like Finnish or Spanish. Functional illiteracy is known to be a major problem in job training, and there have been suggestions that the high degree of illiteracy found in the prison population might indicate that the over-complex orthography of English could even help foster some kinds of criminality.
However, the difficulties of introducing spelling reform should not be underestimated. Wherever it has been attempted, there has always been great public resistance to any change. In the case of English, with its unique position as a world language, reform would require government co-operation on an international scale. Furthermore, English is spoken all over the world in many different accents, and a reformed alphabet would have to take into account all the varying pronunciation of its many users. This is the point discussed by John Wells in his piece in Section D (pp. 279–85).
Nevertheless, it is reassuring to realise that English spelling is really far less chaotic than might at first be thought. In fact, the vast majority of words are pronounced according to definable rules and the number of exceptional words going against these patterns is actually rather small – even though these are unfortunately amongst the commonest words in the language. The difficulties experienced by native speakers of English derive from the fact that they are normally well aware of how to pronounce a word, but have trouble in knowing how to write it. This is because they usually encounter the spoken form of the word first. For non-natives, the reverse is generally true. They first learn the written form of the word, but may easily have an incorrect impression of how the word is pronounced. In the remainder of this Unit, we shall try to give you some idea of certain useful spelling-to-sound relationships (graphophonemic patterns, as they are technically termed) so as to provide guidelines to help non-native speakers with English pronunciation. Learning about these patterns will help you to cope with some of the vagaries of English spelling, by enabling you to link the orthographic form of the word to its phonemic form. Similar grapho-phonemic guides can also be found in the two best-known pronunciation dictionaries, the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (Wells 2008) and the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones 2011). A useful little book devoted solely to the topic of spelling is Carney’s (1997) English Spelling. A more recent, and very readable, publication on English spelling, covering many different aspects of the topic, is Crystal’s (2012) Spell it Out.
Note that in the sections that follow, the warning triangle indicates an exception to the general guideline or pattern.1
Orthographic c is pronounced mainly in two ways: either /k/ or /s/, popularly termed ‘hard c’ and ‘soft c’ respectively.
| 1. Preceding a, o, u e.g. cat, cot, cut; in initial consonant clusters, e.g. clap, creak; and when final, e.g. music.
2. Coda combination ck is always pronounced k, e.g. block, sticks. |
1. Preceding e, i, y: cease, city, cymbals, grace, icicle, bicycle. (Word-final ce always represents /s/ and never /z/, e.g. mice, space.) |
Preceding ia, ea, ie, io in unstressed syllables, c is said as /∫/, e.g. special, ocean, ancient, precious, suspicion. Note pronunciation, society, where /s/ occurs: /prәnΛnsi’eI∫
, sә’saIәti/.
The letter combination ch is pronounced in three ways.
Letter g is pronounced in two main ways: either /g/ or /dƷ/, popularly termed ‘hard g’ and ‘soft g’ respectively. Note that g also occurs in several letter combinations, as detailed below.
|
1. Before a, o, u, e.g. gap, goat, gun.
2. gu and gue: here letters u or ue merely indicate a hard g and are silent, e.g. guess, guise, league, intrigue. 3. ng gives /ŋ/ in tongue /tΛŋ/, meringue /mә’ræŋ/, and ngu /ŋgw/: lingual, extinguish. 4. Intervocalic ng has two possibilities. If the word is derived from a verb, it is pronounced /ŋ/, e.g. singer, hanger, longing; if not derived from a verb, it is pronounced /ŋg/, e.g. anger, finger. Compare longing /'lDŋIŋ/ from to long, and longer /'lDŋgә/ from adj. long. 5. gh gives /g/ initially and medially: ghastly, ghost, spaghetti 6. Final gh gives /f/ (also in sequence ght): rough /rΛf/, cough /kDf/, laugh /lɑːf/ draught /drɑːft/. See section on silent letters below for silent gh as in though, daughter. gg gives /g/, e.g. luggage, dagger.
|
1. Before e, i, y, e.g. gesture, general, gin, danger, gibberish, gymnasium, energy, magic.
|
|
1. Initial s regular form: sit, sun, stick. 2. Medial between vowels (including y): /s/ is rather more common: a) Prefixes: mis-, dis-, e.g. misunderstand, misuse, disapprove, disobey.
b) Longer words (three syllables or more) ending in -sy: hypocrisy, ecstasy. c) -ss-: /s/ in assert, assess, essay.
d) sch: /sk/ in scheme, schism, scholar, school.
|
1. Initial z always /z/, never /s/, e.g. zebra, zinc, zoo. 2. Medial between vowels (including y): /z/ is less common, but does occur in some high-frequency words: a) Prefixes: de-, pre-, re- followed by a stressed syllable beginning s, e.g. design, preserve, resent. b) Short words ending in -sy, e.g. busy, clumsy, cosy, drowsy, easy, flimsy, lousy, noisy, queasy |
|
(less commonly) aise: no example ase: base, case, cease /siːs/, chase, purchase ause: no example eese: geese ese: obese ise: concise, paradise, practise, precise, premise(s) /'premIsIz/
oise: porpoise /'pɔːpәs/, tortoise /'tɔːtәs/ oose: goose, loose, moose, noose ose: close (n. and adj.), jocose, purpose, verbose ouse: house (n.), louse, mouse, spouse owse: dowse use: abstruse, diffuse (adj.), excuse (n.), obtuse, profuse, recluse, refuse (n.) /'refjuːs/, use (n.). When final -se follows a consonant (including r), s is pronounced as /s/, e.g. else, immense, immerse, lapse, sparse, universe.
|
(generally) liaise /li’eIz/, praise, raise ease, erase, phase, phrase, vase /vɑːz/ because, cause, clause, pause cheese Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, journalese, these criticise, devise, disguise /dIs’gaIz/, realise, revise, surprise. Also analyse, paralyse. Most ise words (not all) have an alternative spelling ize. noise, poise, turquoise /'tзːkwɔIz/ choose close (vb), compose, chose(n), dispose, lose, nose, propose arouse, blouse, house (vb), rouse browse, drowse abuse (vb), accuse, confuse, diffuse (vb), excuse (vb), fuse, refuse (vb), peruse, use (vb) |
The letter combination th has two main pronunciations, /θ/ and /ð/. There is no popular term for this distinction – surprisingly, many native English speakers are quite unaware of the fact that they make this consonant contrast.
|
l. Regularly in initial position except for function words listed opposite, e.g. thick, therapy, through, thermometer. 2. In medial position in learned or scientific words: anthem, atheist, authority, cathedral, ether, ethics, method, mathematics. 3. Regularly when word-final e.g. bath, heath, beneath, teeth, growth, north, south. Some have plurals with /ðz/, e.g. baths, paths, oaths. 4. th gives /t/ in a few proper names, e.g. Thames, Theresa, Thomas, Thompson, Anthony, Esther. Note also thyme. |
1. In the following function words: that, the, they, their, them, then, thence, there, this, these, those, though, thus. Note also these archaic forms: thy, thine, thou, thee, thither /'ðIðә/. 2. In medial position in most everyday words, e.g. either, gather, neither, father, mother, brother, other, northern, southern /'sΛð 3. Word-finally in booth, smooth, with. Final -the is always /ð/, e.g. bathe, breathe. |
* Letter is sounded by a minority of speakers.
Letter |
Context |
Examples |
b |
Final mb |
bomb /bɑm/, climb, comb /kәƱm/, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, tomb /tuːm/, numb, plumb, thumb, succumb, aplomb. Also derived forms, e.g. bomber, dumber, dumbest, plumbing. Otherwise medial mb is pronounced in full, e.g. limbo, lumber, timber. |
Final bt |
debt, doubt (and derived forms, e.g. debtor, doubtful). Note also medial subtle. |
|
c |
Mainly in sc |
scene, scenario, obscene, scent, science, scissors, ascend, descend, crescent /'krezәnt/, corpuscle /'kɔːpәs |
d |
Medial sequences |
Wednesday* /'wenzdeI/, sandwich*, grandfather*, handsome |
g |
Initial and final gn |
gnash, gnarled, gnat, gnome, align /ә’laIn/, sign /saIn/, foreign /'fDrәn/, reign /reIn/. But note signal with sounded /g/, /'sIgnәl/ |
Final gm |
Only in paradigm, phlegm, diaphragm (note that g returns in derived forms, phlegmatic, paradigmatic, diaphragmatic) |
|
h |
ch |
ache /eIk/, chaos /'keIDs/, character, chasm /'kæz |
In gh |
ghastly, ghost, sigh, right, weigh, though |
|
Medial ph |
shepherd and some place names e.g. Bispham, Clapham, Felpham, Meopham /'mepәm/ |
|
Initial rh |
rhapsody, rhinoceros, rhotic, rhyme, rhythm |
|
Initial wh. See p. 51. |
what*, which*, white*, whether* |
|
Initially in a few common words |
heir, honest, honour, hour (and derived forms, e.g. heiress, honesty, etc.) |
|
Medial h (1) after ex- (2) intervocalic |
exhaust, exhibit, exhilarate, exhort, exhume; annihilate, vehicle, vehement |
|
k |
Initial kn |
knack, kneel, knife, know |
l |
al = /ɑː/ |
calf, half, almond*, alms, calm, palm. Note also: salmon /'sæmәn/; halfpenny /'heIpni/ (old coin). |
al = /ɔː/ |
chalk, stalk, talk, walk. Also baulk |
|
ol = /әƱ/ |
folk, yolk. In place names, final -folk = /fәk/, e.g. Norfolk, Suffolk. Note: colonel /'kзːn |
|
ould = /Ʊd/ |
Only in should, could, would |
|
n |
Final mn |
autumn, condemn, column, damn, hymn, solemn. Note that n returns in derived forms: e.g. autumnal, condemnation, columnist, solemnify, etc. |
p |
Initial pn, ps |
pneumatic, pneumonia, psychologist, psychiatrist, pseudo- |
In a few exceptional words |
coup /kuː/, corps /kɔː/, cupboard /'kΛbәd/, raspberry /'rɑːzbri/, receipt /rә’siːt/ |
|
r |
See p. 96 on non-rhotic accents |
Pronounced only before a vowel in non-rhotic accents Note: iron /aIәn/, but irony, ironical /'aIrәni, aI'rDnIk |
s |
In a few exceptional words |
aisle /aIl/, isle /aIl/, island, /'aIlәnd/, viscount /'vaIkaƱnt/ |
In recent loans from French |
chassis /'∫æsi/, debris /'de(I)briː/, precis /'preIsiː/, corps /kɔː/, rendezvous /'rDnd(e)Ivuː/ |
|
t |
In ending –stle, sten |
castle, nestle, trestle, bristle, whistle, fasten, glisten, listen, moisten |
In three common words |
Christmas, soften, often* |
|
In recent loans from French |
bouquet /buː'keI/, ballet /'bæleI/, buffet /'bƱfeI/, cachet /'kæ∫eI/, chalet /'∫æleI/, crochet /'krәƱ∫eI/, depot /'depәƱ/, mortgage /'mɔːgIdƷ/, sachet /'sæ∫eI/, ragout /'ræguː/ |
|
w |
Initial wh |
who, whom, whose, whole, whore |
Initial wr |
wrath /rDθ/, write, wrench, wriggle, wry |
|
Exceptional words and place names |
answer, sword, two; Greenwich, Norwich, Berwick, Warwick |
Of all the letters in the English alphabet, letter o is the one associated with most spelling irregularities. Here are some spelling–sound guidelines to help you find your way through the maze.
SPELLING |
SOUND |
EXAMPLE |
Main patterns |
||
o |
/D/ |
hop, box, slot, rotten, doll, long |
o…e, o…o, o…a |
/әƱ/ |
hope, sole, solo, sofa, solar |
Subsidiary patterns |
||
o |
/Λ/ |
son, love (see worry words below) |
final o |
/әƱ/ |
tomato, banjo, potato
|
oa, oe |
/әƱ/ |
toad, toe
|
oi |
/ɔI/ |
boil, voice |
oo |
/uː/ |
food, root |
ook |
/Ʊ/ |
book, hook, look
|
ou |
/aƱ/ |
house, pout, blouse
|
/uː/ |
group, youth |
|
ow |
/aƱ/ |
cow, town, growl |
/әƱ/ |
growth, own, shown |
|
oy |
/ɔI/ |
toy, loyal |
There are a number of high-frequency words spelt with o which are pronounced with /Λ/. These are sometimes known familiarly as the worry words. The most common are shown below, divided into groups, based on spelling, so that they can be learnt more easily. The worry words form an important area of pronunciation error which can be readily eliminated. You’re recommended to memorise them!
done, none, son, ton, won, one /wΛn/
front, month, London, Monday
honey, money, wonder(ful)
onion, sponge, stomach
among(st), tongue, monk, monkey
above, glove, love, lovely, shove, shovel
slovenly, oven, govern, government
cover, covet, covert (also /'kәƱvзːt/)
come, some, Somerset
comfort, comfortable, compass(es), company, accompany
brother, mother, smother, other, nothing
dozen, colour
thorough, borough, worry
To the list above we can add the following worry words which have o in combination with other letters.
SPELLING |
SOUND |
EXAMPLE |
ou |
/Λ/ |
country, double, couple, cousin /'kΛz |
oe |
/Λ/ |
does |
oo |
/Λ/ |
blood, flood |
ough |
/Λf/ |
enough, rough, tough |
Before r |
||
or, oar, our |
/ɔː/ |
cord, board, four, course, tour(ist) |
|
||
our |
Ʊә/ |
hour, sour |
|
||
-our (word-final unstressed) |
/ә/ |
flavour, glamour, honour |
oor |
/Ʊә/ or /ɔː/ |
poor, moor |
Between w and r or |
/зː/ |
work, world, word |
Before l |
||
ol + consonant |
/әƱ/ |
gold, told, bolt, soldier |
oul |
/әƱ/ |
mould, poultry. Note /Ʊ/ before silent l in should, would, could. |
In unstressed syllables |
||
o, or |
/ә/ |
reason, visitor |
Note -ford is /fәd/ in British place names, e.g. Bradford /'brædfәd/, Oxford /'Dksfәd/.
1.1. The TRAP VOWEL is virtually always spelt a, e.g. cab, bat, saddle. There are just two exceptions with ai:
ai in plaid, plait
1.2. are usually represents /εː/ SQUARE (see below).
1.3. ar followed by any vowel except e represents trap, e.g. carol, aristocratic, charity, Paris, comparison, barbaric (cf. barbarian /baː'bεːriәn/), maritime, baritone, arr usually represents TRAP (and never SQUARE), e.g. marry, embarrass, carrot, narrow.
2.1. The DRESS VOWEL is in almost all cases spelt either as e or ea, e.g. bet, leg, help, steady, sweat, instead.
a … y, a … e any, many, ate, Thames. Note that ate, traditionally /et/, is increasingly pronounced /eIt/.
ai, ay said, again, against (also /ә’geIn, ә’geInst), says /sez/
Some oddities are: friend, Geoffrey /'dƷefri/, Leicester /'lestә/, leisure /'leƷә/, bury /'beri/, burial /'beriәl/.
3.1. The SQUARE vowel is overwhelmingly spelt are or air, e.g. care, share, rare, square, aware, compare, parent, air, fair, chair, dairy, fairy, prairie.
apparent /ә’pærәnt/
3.2. Note also: ary and suffixes -arious, -arian, e.g. wary, vary, Mary, hilarious, various, barbarian, vegetarian, and ari (in)variable /'vεriәb
/, variant /'vεːriәnt/.
ear in bear, pear, swear, to tear, wear
ay mayor /mεː/, prayer /prεː/; eir, heir /εː/, heiress /'εːres/; their. Note their, there and they’re: all three words are pronounced /ðεː/.
ar Sarah /'sεːrә/; scarce /skεːs/, scarcity /'skεːsәti/
Non-native English speakers often experience difficulty deciding which words are to be said with goose and which with foot. But this is easily sorted out. The spellings are reasonably regular and it’s well worthwhile learning the main patterns.
There are only three common spellings for the foot vowel. It occurs in very few words – but note that these include some of the commonest items in the language. It’s easy to learn all the important words containing foot merely by committing to memory the following list. High-frequency words are listed first and shown in bold.
ood |
good, hood (also as suffix -hood: childhood, manhood, womanhood, etc.), wood(-en), stood |
ook |
Almost all words with ook are pronounced with FOOT |
book, cook(-ery), crook, crooked /'krƱkId/, hook, look, shook, took, brook, nook, rook |
|
|
|
ool |
wool, woolly, woollen |
oot |
foot (and footing, footloose /'fƱtluːs/), soot(y) |
o |
woman,2 bosom /'bƱzәm/, wolf, Worcester /'wƱstә/ |
These mostly precede either l or sh. (Think of a door marked pull on one side and push on the other!)
ul or ull |
full, -ful (e.g. mouthful),3 pull, bull (and derivatives, e.g. bulldozer), bullet, bulletin /'bƱlәtIn/, bullock, bully, fulfil, fulsome, pullet, pulley, pullover, pulpit |
ush |
bush, push, bushel, ambush, cushion |
Note also: |
put, sugar, butch, butcher, cuckoo, pudding, puss(y) |
|
as strong form for verbs could, should, would |
2.1 The GOOSE vowel has a lot of different spellings, but only three: oo, u, o, overlap with those of the FOOT vowel.
oo |
boot, food, mood, proof, noon, soon, spoon, room, fool, too |
u |
duty, music, truth, ruthless |
o |
do, who, two, to, tomb /tuːm/, womb /wuːm/ |
2.2 All the following spellings can represent goose (but not FOOT)
oo … e |
choose, loose, goose, groove |
o … e |
lose, whose, move, prove, remove |
Ou |
group, soup, route, youth, through |
u … e |
cube, tube, crude, rude, huge, tune, June, assume, accuse, refuse |
Ui |
fruit, juice, pursuit, suit, suitable |
Ew |
brew, chew, crew, new, screw, threw, view |
Ue |
blue, cue, clue, glue, sue, pursue |
Eu |
feud, manoeuvre, neutral, neuter, pseudo- /'sjuːdәƱ, ‘suːdәƱ/ |
Common words with unusual spellings: beauty, canoe /kә’nuː/, shoe
/, chemist, chord, choir /k