Quotes About Spelling

Elizabethans were as free with their handwriting as they were with their spelling. Handbooks of handwriting suggested up to twenty different—often very different—ways of shaping particular letters.

An is indisputably correct before just four words beginning with 'h': hour, honest, honour and heir.

here is a new rule: If you are too stupid to spell "disappointed" even approximately correctly, you are not allowed to take part in public discourse at any level. Trawling

Sometimes the pronunciation changed, as between bath and bathe and as with the "s" in house becoming a "z" in houses. And sometimes, to the eternal confusion of non-English speakers, these things happened all together, so that we have not only the spelling doublet life/lives but also the pronunciation doublet "l?ves" and "l?ves" as in "a cat with nine lives lives next door.

The marriage license itself is lost, but a separate document, the marriage bond, survives. On it Anne Hathaway is correctly identified. Shakespeare's name is rendered as "Shagspere"—the first of many arrestingly variable renderings.

Webster was responsible also for the American aluminum in favor of the British aluminium. His choice has the fractional advantage of brevity, but defaults in terms of consistency.

As a rough rule, I would suggest that a company's orthographic eccentricities should be noted, possibly even observed, but never overindulged. Just because a company chooses to put a backward letter into its title or to spell its name in small capitals does not entitle it to become a distraction in print.

If you count proper nouns, the word in English with the most varied spellings is air with a remarkable thirty-eight: Aire, ayr, heir, e'er, ere, and so on.

If there is one thing certain about English pronunciation it is that there is almost nothing certain about it. No other language in the world has more words spelled the same way and yet pronounced differently.

cuticles), Vick's Vapo Rub, Geritol, Serutan ('Natures spelled

Nor can we be entirely confident how he pronounced his name. Helge Kökeritz, author of the definitive Shakespeare's Pronunciation, thought it possible that Shakespeare said it with a short a, as in "shack." It may have been spoken one way in Stratford and another in London, or he may have been as variable with the pronunciation as he was with the spelling.

In this chthonian world the only thing of importance is orthography and punctuation. It doesn't matter what the nature of the calamity is, only whether it is spelled right.

I tell myself that some names can be mistakes, like Mxyplyzyk, a store in New York that lost customers because few could spell its name to look up the address. I tell myself that lots of writers agonize over titles, and often get them wrong at first.

I won't eat anything I can't spell or wouldn't tread in.

This is probably the most annoying thing of all to the French. Not only do we pronounce the battles incorrectly (Crécy should be 'Cray-see' and Waterloo 'Watt-air-loh'), with Agincourt ('Ah-zan-coor') we even get the spelling wrong.

I before E except after C and when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!!!!

That's why I admired that kid who spelled it wrong on purpose so he could sit down. He knew he wasn't going to win, so why stand there for 3 hours. First round. "Cat, K-A-T, I'm outta here." Then as he passed you, "Ha! I know there's 2 T's.

I would have been a lot better off if I'd studied more when I was growing up, y'know. But you know where it all went wrong was the day they started the spelling bee. Because up until that day I was an idiot, but nobody else knew.

I' before 'e' except after 'c' and when sounding like 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh' and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May and YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!!!!

What's yuh firs' name? VICARRO: Silva. JAKE: How do you spell it? VICARRO: S-I-L-V-A. JAKE: Silva! Like a silver lining! Ev'ry cloud has got a silver lining. What does that come from? The Bible? VICARRO: (sitting on the steps) No. The Mother Goose Book.

Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana', but didn't know how you stopped.

His sister had been sent down to the village to ask Mistress Garlick the witch how you stopped spelling recommendation.

Bad spelling can be lethal.

How do you spell 'contravention'? said Carrot, turning over a page. I don't, said Nobby, pushing through the crowds.