The Art of Spelling: The Madness and the Method

I believe our culture lacks an appreciation of the goofiness of our spelling system, its history, and its value. This book does a fairly good job of providing a humorous, insightful, and helpful look at English spelling, without taking either a superior or a belittling attitude. Down-to-earth, a fun read, and maybe helpful for people who really want to improve. A little bit less history than I would have included, but probably just as much as most people want to hear. For geeks like me, there's always the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here is an author who is said to have the highest IQ ever recorded. Why, then, did she waste her time writing this book? This book is also a waste of time for the reader. If you're a good speller, it has nothing to teach you. If you're a bad speller, it won't help you any more than all the rules you were taught in school but never learned. If you want to spell correctly, consult a dictionary or a good speller.

With Joan Reilly's illustration this lively, comprehensive & useful guide for spellers of all abilities takes a look at what our spelling reveals about our intelligence & personalities.

Marilyn vos Savant reconstitutes our turbulent history in spelling this language we call English, offering us insights about the use & misuse of spell-checkers - remember, computers won't know the difference between wave & waive or their & they're & she sketches some surprising portraits of all kinds of us spellers.

If spelling interests you in the least little bit, do give this book a go - you may very well find it a delight, I did! Do visit my site for my full review & editorials on the love of reading & writing!

The Art of Spelling by Marilyn Vos Savant is a book to be read not an exercise manual. It summarizes much of the advice found in other books on spelling improvement and includes such things as a list of the most frequently misspelled words but contains no drills. As close as one gets to the usual content of a self help book on spelling is a personality questionnaire.

Nearly half of the book is devoted to the psychology of good and bad spellers so it makes sense to determine if the reader has the characteristics of either of these groups.

Unlike many books on this topic, the author has not only read the best books on the topic but has interviewed the authors.

It certainly makes sense to interview the experts but I have rarely seen this strategy used as effectively as it is in this book.

Although she interviews the Anglo-Saxon scholar who the president of the Simplified Spelling Society, she misses the opportunity to address any of the real solutions to the spelling problem.

She does identify the problem as "phonetic irregularity" -- many words are not spelled the way they are pronounced.

She follows up this insight with a misleading quote from author Edna Furness (p.119) "Research in linguistics has shown that the English language is more phonetic than we realize (approximately 85%)."

All languages are 100% phonetic. It is the writing systems that try to record meaningful sounds that go astray.

There is some statistical regularity in English spelling. Four spelling patterns for the 12 elementary vowels will account for 75% of the vowel spellings in the dictionary. [See www.unifon.org/uu-18ways.html].

Most writing systems achieve a spelling predictability rating of over 85% but not the traditional one used to transcribe English. In English, knowing how to pronounce a word will enable someone to come up with not one but a half dozen orthographically correct spellings. Since each sound in English is spelled 14 different ways, narrowing the spelling of a particular pronunciation down to 6 alternatives is an accomplishment.

There may be an 85% chance that one of these six allowable spellings is correct -- i.e., matches the dictionary.

Knowing the basic code does help narrow the field and Vos Savant lists up to five of the most common spellings for 39 of the 40 or so sounds in English speech. She also provides some useful mnemonic devices for selecting the best alternative in the group.

Other practical advice includes how to use a spelling checker without being overly dependent on it.

This is a book that anyone with an interest in spelling will enjoy reading. Marilyn Vos Savant is a seasoned writer and it shows.

All my life, that's 68 years, I've been a horrible speller. Even though I am a member of Mensa, as is Marilyn Vos Savant, I can not spell well. Even though I have an earned Ph.D. from Texas A&M University I can not spell. This lack of spelling ability has caused me many episodes of embarrassment and concern. I have a dictionary at hand when ever I write. I seldom send anything out without having it read by an editor, my wife, Nell.



Given the above, I wrote Marilyn Vos Savant and asked her this question. "Do you believe that the ability to spell is a measure of intelligence, education or desire?"



Ms.Savant's printed my question in Parade Magazine. She got 42,000 answers from readers. She then used her 200+ IQ and did a very comprehensive job of researching what others had said and written. After she examined the 42,000 answers and the results of her research she wrote one of the most informative books I could imagine. Her analysis and very readable writing style is a testament to her great mind.



I recommend this book to ALL teachers and others who are interested in spelling problems. It is worth much more than the few dollars Amazon is charging.