Spelling Games for all occasions

Here is A Spelling ABC,
which is different from a Spelling B

Spelling BEEs used to be the acid test as to whether you were Educated - or not.

The acid test for Education today is the Spelling ABC. Answers are posted below.

In a Spelling ABC Quiz,:

* Contestants are asked questions about Spelling

* Every time they win a trick, they win the right to ask everyone else, including the judges and audience, any other Spelling Question, whether they know the answer themselves or not.

*And if nobody knows the answer, it's up to the judges to go off and find out.

Quizmasters can ask any of the following - or anything else. There is an element of chance in winning or losing because you might get an easy questions, or you might get a hard one.

START NOW !

1. How many letters are there in the alfabet?

2. How many speech sounds are there in the English language? (That is, the basic minimum fonemes without going into fine discriminations.)

3. How many spelling patterns in English spelling represent those basic sounds?

4. a. Are there any letters in the alfabet that are always sounded the same way?

b. If so, which?

5. How many letters can be silent? eg e is silent in private.

6. a. Are there any sounds that are always spelled the same way? b. If so, which?

7. a. What sound has the greatest number of possible spellings?

b. What consonant sound has the greatest number of possible spellings?

8. What letter has the greatest number of possible ways to pronounce it? (Not counting when it is part of a letter combination like 'th')

9. Eat can be pronounced as in eat, great or sweat. How many different sounds can be spelled with ough?

10. Did you know that most major languages in the world, even French, have improved their writing systems in the past 150 years? a) Name five languages that have had sweeping changes in their writing systems in the past 150 years.

b) Name five languages that have had small but important changes in the past 150 years.

11. How many reasons can you think of why English spelling can never be changed? Look at the evidence for them.

12. About how many vowel letters are in the English language? a) What are they?

b) About how many English spelling patterns are used to spell them?

13. When did the English first start saying that their spelling needed spelling reform?

14. Name three great makers of English dictionaries who thought English spelling needed reforming and tried to make some reforms themselves?

15. Name dozens of eminent people who have wanted English spelling reform.

16.a. How many different ways do children spell scissors? (Rough guess) b. What is the most common way that children misspell scissors? c. Which is sillier, the mis-spelling or the 'proper spelling'?

17. How many 'contradictory facts' do children have to accept in learning present English spelling, according to Sir James Murray, compiler of the Oxford English dictionary?

18. Name as many principles of education that you can which are contradicted when children have to be taught present English spelling.

19. Do we learn about the history of our words from their spellings?

20. How do people in other countries with updated writing systems learn about the history of the words in their language?

Answers to the Spelling ABC

1. There are 26 letters in the alfabet.

2. There are around 44 speech sounds (fonemes). Consonants are: h l m n r w y hw ng and voiced-unvoiced pairs b-p, d-t, v-f, th-th, z-s, g-k, j-ch, zh-sh. The 19 vowels, including the most common fused diphthongs (merging sounds) are: a e i o u ae ee ie oe ue ah er air aw ow oy oo (boot) oo (book) plus the most common vowel sound, which is the unclear sound 'schwa' as in proper, dependant.

3. A J Ellis worked out that these 44 English speech sounds can be spelled at least 658 different ways.

4. a. Are there any letters in the alfabet that are always sounded the same way? None. Even k and m are sometimes silent as in knot and mnemonic. b) None.

5. All 26 letters can be silent at times. We have a def and dum alfabet.

6. No sounds can be relied upon to be always spelt the same way.

7. What sound has the greatest number of possible spellings? The obscure vowel 'schwa' which is unstressed has 66 posibl spellings. Next comes i and AE, with 51 possible spellings each. For a, 38 of these spellings are in common use, as in - baby, made, played, maelstrom, champagne, dahlia, maim, raise, campaign, straight, trait, halfpenny, gaol, gaoled, plague, plaguing, gauged, gauging, may, mayor, re, they, great, fete, feted, matinee, veil, dossier, Seine, reign, reigned, eight, weighed, ballet, conveyed, eyre, applique, bouquet.

7b. The sound s has 25 fairly common spellings: sit, hiss, kissed, scene, coalesce, schism, case, dishonest, raspberry, thistle, isthmus, Mrs, sword, cell, ace, Gloucester, Worcester, psalm, worsted, boatswain, waltz, next, except, exhibition, pizzicato

8. Letters a e o can all be pronounced in ten different ways, eg,

for A - man about many stomach was making tamtam part fall Isaac

for E - egg open fern sergeant feted femme pretty be azalea have

for O - on orb atom reason women woman mother over do choir.

9. Ough can be pronounced a least 6 different ways, as in cough, dough, through, thought, doughty, enough, thorough.

10. Well, you know now. a) Possible answers could Indonesian, Turkish, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Malaysian, Vietnamese b) Possible answers include Dutch Greek, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese.

11. Huh. The main ones are inertia and better spelling might look different for a while.

12. a) Six letters used as vowels - a e i o u y b) Over 213 common spelling patterns.

13. People first started saying that English spelling needed spelling reform as soon as they started to spell, in medieval times.

14. Great makers of English dictionaries who tried to promote spelling reform - Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, James Murray and H W Fowler of the Oxford English Dictionary and English Usage all thought English spelling needed reforming and tried to make some sensible reforms themselves, including Johnson.

15. Hundreds of eminent historical persons have wanted English spelling to be reformed, including Shaw, Mark Twain, Dickens, President Theodore Roosevelt, Prince Philip . .

16. a) How many different ways do children spell scissors? Over two hundred. b) The commonest way they mis-spell is sisors. c) Which is sillier, the mis-spelling or the 'proper spelling'? Your guess.

17. Sir James Murray, lexicographer, said there were 'thousands of contradictory facts' in English spelling.

18. Principles of education that are contradicted include reason, independent thinking, self-help, generalising, experimental method, respect for elders' wisdom, creativity, useful task, efficiency . .

19 Not much. What do you learn from their spellings about the history of words like are could through who you that you could not find more reliably in a dictionary, or that you need every day when you use those spellings?

20. They look up dictionaries.