Fish Could be Spelled "Ghoti"? — Why English Spelling Doesn't Match Pronunciation
An old joke about English spelling goes, “You can spell fish ‘ghoti.’ Just take the ‘gh’ from ‘enough,’ the ‘o’ from ‘women,’ and the ‘ti’ from ‘motion’!”
This joke illustrates a frustrating reality of the English language: the irregularity of spelling. So why doesn’t English spelling match pronunciation? Let's turn to history for the answers!
Spelling Didn’t Keep Up With Pronunciation
For thousands of years, English spelling wasn’t standardized. Most words were spelled in different ways. For instance, over thirty spellings of the word “sword” can be found in old books and letters!
Then, about 600 years ago, the printing press was invented, and the resulting books and dictionaries helped fix this issue.
But while the printing press helped standardize spelling, it couldn’t stop English pronunciation from changing. As a result, many words still follow old spelling rules, even though their pronunciations have changed.
This is why we’re stuck with a lot of silent letters. Historically, English speakers pronounced the W’s in “two” and “answer," the K’s in “knee” and “know,” and the E’s in “age” and “life.” But at some point, they stopped pronouncing them, and spelling just didn’t keep up.
Influence of Foreign Languages
It’s time to blame other languages for English spelling problems!
Did you know that the English alphabet was borrowed from ancient Greek? It has 26 letters, but English has over 40 sounds. So from the start, there was no way that English would be a perfectly phonetic language.
Then, to make things more confusing, English adopted spelling rules from other languages. For instance, the word “ice” was spelled “is” in Old English. However, under the influence of French, Middle English-speakers changed the spelling to “ice,” since French C’s are also pronounced like S’s.
As a result, many English words now have C’s that are pronounced as S’s: – for example, “city,” “face” and “certain.”
Then, during the Renaissance, Europe fell in love with ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Scholars believed that these ancient languages were perfect, and began spelling many words with their original Greek or Roman spellings. For example, “dette” was re-Latinized to “debt,” and “receit” to “receipt.”
Sometimes, they got carried away and re-Latinized words that were not Latin to begin with. This is what happened to “island.” Though it comes from Old English, scholars mistakenly thought it was related to the Latin word “insula” and gave it an extra S.
English Spelling Is More Than Pronunciation
Finally, English spelling reflects many aspects of the language besides pronunciation.
For example, it helps us know which words are related. “Sign” and “signature” would look unrelated if spelled phonetically (“sine” and “signuhcher”). The same goes for words like “act” and “action” (instead of “akt” and “akshun”).
English spelling also reflects grammar. If the plural words “dogs,” “cats,” and “eyelashes” were spelled phonetically, they would be “dogz,” “cats,” and “eyelashiz.” The past tense words “missed,” “brushed,” and “acted” would be spelled “mist,” “brusht,” and “actid.”
So while English spelling doesn’t do a good job of reflecting pronunciation, it preserves other relationships between words.
👋 That’s it for now!
Hopefully, this has given you a taste for the history of English spelling. Which facts did you find most surprising? Which of them do you plan to share with your students?
In the meantime, check out the following English spelling resources:
