Spelling Words
I may sound like I’m hopelessly old school when I write this particular blog entry, but it does seem like the English speaking world is losing the ability to spell words. Spelling words incorrectly does seem to have something to do with the new forms of telecommunications, where shorthand and slang terms have proliferated.
Someone texting on their cellphone is unlikely to have the time (or patience) to manipulate their phone’s keypad for correct spelling, while someone writing on instant message on the internet wants to use rapid, conversational typing – not the methodical, grammatical spellings. Spelling words correctly doesn’t seem as important, especially when the others in the conversation understand your shorthand.
What bothers me is that people don’t seem to know how to spell their words when they email me. Rapid fire texting and IM’ing I can understand, but when you want to send a formal email or letter, it just looks better when your spelling and grammar are correct.
Making the matter worse, everyone sitting at a computer screen has several ways to check their spelling: spell check programs on the computer, spell check functions on their email service. So it becomes that many people don’t see the need to spell word correctly anymore, or see that it’s worth the time to correct their spelling mistakes with the tools at their hands.
Spelling Bees
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I enjoy watching the Scripps Spelling Bee on the television every year. The spelling bee affirms that there are at least a few in the younger generation who understand the value of learning the rules of the language correctly. Of course, cynic that I am, I also tell myself that there will always be those exceptional few who choose to study the old ways, like those rare individuals who learn to read a “dead language” like Latin. To maintain the art of spelling words correctly, we have to make sure that the mainstream of the next generation understand the value of spelling words the way they are taught.
The Value of Spelling Words
Spelling correctly has a whole number of benefits.
1. Spelling Words Correctly Makes You Respectable – Spelling words the correct way makes a good impression on others who know how to spell correctly: educators, the literate and many employers. Better put, if you can’t spell correctly, your arguments and documents aren’t going to look very professional. Even on the internet, spelling words correctly makes your life easier.
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen debates on online forums and message boards turn on the argument, “If you can’t spell your words correctly, then you obviously don’t know anything about ____”. (Don’t get me wrong, I would never point that out myself to the spelling-challenged, but I have seen it countless times, and I’m certain you have, too.) It may be harsh, but a person looks ridiculous when they cannot form their words correctly, or can’t capitalize words when they need to. To someone who knows the rules of spelling, a writer making constant spelling errors is the same as a speaker who can’t pronounce their words correctly. You open yourself to ridicule.
2. Spelling Words Right is Good Communication – Spelling words correctly helps you communicate better with other people who know how to spell. There is less confusion when you know how a word is used and use it correctly, and there’s no confusion about which word you’re using. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas. Good communication is getting your idea across to the person you are speaking to in the most efficient way possible.
That’s why I don’t go so far as to urge correct spelling when texting or using other instant communication, since you are communicating effectively if others know your shorthand. It’s when you assume that everyone outside that medium will know your shorthand, or you simply don’t care whether you are understood correctly, when I have a problem with bad spelling.
3. Spelling Words is Understanding Words – Knowing the spelling of words helps you understand the meaning of the word. Notice in the spelling bees, when a contestant asks for the etymology of a word. Knowing the original language of a word helps the spelling bee contestant know how to spell the word.
Why?
Because language and linguistics follows certain patterns. The more you know about these patterns, the more you know about the word itself. Spelling correctly gives you insight into the origin of words and helps reveal double meaning or hidden meanings of words.
I remember a professor of mine in college telling us that being fluent in multiple languages had a “transcendent quality”. Speaking several languages means you learn to think in several languages, so you see the world from multiple perspectives. You step outside of your native language and native culture and learn to perceive the world through foreign eyes. You transcend your language.
Understanding the spelling of a word allows you to do the same thing, though in a much more limited way. You get outside the use of the word itself and begin to understand how that word came to be. By dissecting a word through it’s letters, you learn the stem word from which it derived, as well as the affixes that qualify or change the meaning of a word in one way or another. As you learn the rules of spelling, then, you begin to analyze how that word was built originally.
You don’t just know words, but you understand words.
So Spell Words Correctly, My Son
So this is an appeal not to children to learn how to spell words correctly, but an appeal to parents to make certain their children learn how to spell words correctly. This is helped by encouraging children to read books, because this gives them an added perspective on spelling besides the endless text messages and online conversations they’re going to be involved in. Kids learn from what they are exposed to, so expose them to reading. As the old saying goes, the best teacher is a good book.