Reflection #2

I have always wondered how it is decided what is the proper way to spell words. From my early grade school days I always remember that there are certain rules to follow, such as “I before E except after C.” But then there are words like weird, and their, and foreign, and a whole slew of words that don’t contain a C but do have E before I. It would sure look weird to spell weird with an “IE”, but it still breaks the rule.

Some words seem to have too many repeated letters. One has to memorize how to spell words such as Mississippi or embarrassment, the latter of which looks like it has too many R’s. For the former I never learned any rhyme or sentence to remember it; I only kept in mind that after M the only vowels are I’s, all of the consonants are doubled, and there are two sets of S’s. Some words are confusing to spell because they aren’t pronounced the way one thinks they should be. For instance, why is separate spelled with an “A” in the middle when I feel like it needs an “E” and people say it like “uh” (or the schwa sound)?

And then there are words that are two words put together that, when apart, sound like the complete opposite, an oxymoron. The word extraordinary is a good example: to me, when reading, it looks like something is very ordinary instead of above the ordinary. The phrase “all right” is usually used (in the circles I traverse) to indicate that something is only “okay”, and not necessarily wanted but must be accepted anyway.

In the United Kingdom they speak the same language we do but their words can sometimes mean different things. When I first started reading the Harry Potter books I had no idea why Harry and Ron would be wearing jumpers and what bogeys were… but Rowling meant sweaters and boogers. The British say “crisps” for “chips” and “biscuit” for “cookie”, “lift” for “elevator” and “flat” for “apartment.” They spell words differently, too. On the Dark Angel message board I used to frequent those from the UK would spell pajamas with a “Y” and add a “U” for words like honour, flavour, and savour, just to name a few. But on the other hand the English language also has different spellings for the same thing, too. I was taught that a boy is blond while a girl is blonde. No one can agree whether to spell the color (colour) gray or grey.

But even in America it depends on where one comes from when it comes to naming things. Most people around here call what I refer to as a Traffic Circle as a Roundabout. In Arizona we say Freeway while around here it is Interstate. When I was living in the Carolinas all of my friends thought that West was Ohio while to me West starts in Colorado and Ohio seems pretty far east to be called Central (of course, most of these friends were from Ohio, so their concept of the term is decidedly different). And then there are words out East that do not even enter into our dialogue, terms such as “Frou Frou,” which is everything that the modern day Southern Belle is about.

Words just make me wonder sometimes. Of course there are no answers to any of my questions and observations without much research, and all of my questions are merely rhetorical… but spelling and syntax sure does confuse things.