Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling, and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling Paperback – December 2, 2014

The book is fine and readable. However, there is a huge chunk cut out from the back cover which would eb OK if it had been advertised as maybe "Used -Acceptable" but not "Like New." It's more an annoyance and I don't remember any other problems with Thrift book but they need to be a little more accurate in their descriptions.

If you are reading this you are probably a word nerd. (Only word nerds are likely to find the subject of English spelling "enthralling"!) Some of Crystal's stories of how English spelling patterns evolved are fascinating. Crystal says he wrote this book as a bridge between English orthography's now "solid academic linguistic foundation" and the curiosity of the public about why words are spelled as they are--- and especially for teachers who need a "new pedagogy" based on explanations based on "sound linguistic principles". The reason I didn't give Spell It Out five stars is that, while the snippets and examples are indeed "curious, enthralling and extraordinary", Crystal doesn't really weave them in to any kind of coherent "story". His message is: "There a system behind the apparent irregularity", but he fails to put the system (or systems) in to any sort of clear or usable focus. The result is that the reader of Spell It Out constantly feels a little lost in the weeds.In contrast, Richard L. Venezky's The American Way of Spelling: The Structure and Origins of American English Orthography (1999) begins with seven general principles and a metaphor: English spelling is a parade of marching bands, all playing the same music but wearing different costumes (p. 5-11). These principles serves to "frame the discussion" throughout the rest of Venezky's 343 page book, anchoring every element in every chapter.Crystal's book does include am excellent discussion of the impact of digital media and the internet on English spelling, a discussion missing from Venezky's 1999 book.If you want an overview of the subject of English spelling, Crystal's Spell It Out may suit you. However, if you are a serious word nerd and you really want to understand principles and systems of English (American) spelling, you are likely to find Venezky's book more useful.

Very cool. Starting with spoken language, how best to communicate that language in writing? That is the ever evolving issue discussed in this book. Besides all of the fascination, I am a more confident speller having read it. One of my many favorites — how did silent b’s inhabit words like doubt or debt? David Crystal explains that when the French were ousted (around the 15th century?), the English ( or the relevant portion of them) thought to emphasize the Latin origins of words, So “debt”, for example, then commonly “dette” from the French, became “debt” from the Latin “debitus”. Back then English school children were immersed in Latin. So a bit of snobbery on this one, part of the same snobbery perhaps that blocks us from getting to “det”.

I learned that English is a long ways from being a phonic language for the most part. There are many exceptions to word construction which affects spelling, origins being the most prominent. Homophones make up a large segment of the language which cause a great deal of confusion. It truly boils down to memorization to master English spelling and application.

Quite a good book. I've been interested in the history and development of the English language for quite a while, and have read a few other books about it. This is really a different and unique take on the subject.It was actually kind of a page-turner, hard to put down. Which seems a little odd for a book of this genre, but there is a sense of suspense: what crazy thing are the scribes going to do next to deal with yet another new word that has shown up, the spelling for which was already taken by an older word.

This book is quite good. One thing I learned is that sometimes early scribes used various spellings of homophones intentionally. I am making up an example to illustrate, but, in a way, it is useful to spell "by", "bye" and "buy" differently. At once we can see which word it is.

The 'History of the English Language' is a worthy, if deep read, and perhaps not as expected as a help in guiding non-native English students to master the problems but certainly a fount of knowledge for the group of would-be EL tutors in which I place myself.For those native English speakers dedicated to improve their understanding of the language it is worth following the writings of this author.

This is a pretty good popularization and simplification. Crystal is himself a linguist and edited an academic text on the subject. His book uses a lightweight, hit-the-highlights approach that will give the general reader the basic ideas. Perhaps it oversimplifies -- to the point of being not quite "enthralling," as the subtitle promises -- but then I may have more historical bent than most.

I bought this book for three reasons: 1. I'm interested in all languages but English in particular, 2. I've read other texts by Professor David Crystal, so I know he's a good writer; 3. I'm an English teacher, and for any teacher of that language, spelling is a major issue (addressed by the author in 'A teaching appendix'). It's a very detailed factual explanation of why English is so far from a phonetic language, starting with its origins in Anglo-Saxon, where scribes were faced with the issue of representing many non-Latin sounds using Latin letters. Further on the author addresses why some logical Middle English spellings ('bild' for 'build', 'frend' for 'friend') have acquired extra unpronounced letters in Modern English, and how the Great Vowel Shift and the arrival of printing presses at the end of the 15th century took the language even further away from its phonetic roots. Later chapters cover spelling reforms and how the 16th century obsession with Latin as the pinnacle of linguistic achievement introduced some nonsensical additions to perfectly sensibly spelled words e.g. 'det' changed to ''debt', 'doute' to 'doubt', 'sutell' to 'subtle', 'iland' to 'island', 'sammon' to 'salmon', and so on. Chapter 24 explains why most spelling 'rules' don't work for a language with such a diverse range of origins and influences. In some cases it's necessary to devote a whole paragraph to individual words e.g. 'eight' to explain how such an illogical spelling ever appeared. Important influences on spelling included early bibles, the internet, Dr Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster in the US. The author notes that, in spite of 150 years of lexicographers' efforts to standardise the spelling of English, "there is more variation in spelling today than ever before." The situation is further complicated by the increasing number of loanwords derived from other languages, such as Irish (shamrock), German (noodle), French (facade), Hindi (bhaji), Russian (Slav), and many others. At the end of the book, David Crystal argues that current methods of teaching spelling don't always work well and proposes a more effective approach, focussing on spelling as a separate skill, for future learners. All in all, I thought this was an interesting and useful book, though for me the middle section got a bit bogged down in the minutiae of the erratic spelling of English vowel sounds, hence I've given it four stars instead of five.

English spelling has a reputation for being difficult and arbitrary. Here, Crystal explains why it is the way it is, and attempts to show that such an understanding can make the task of spelling more straightforward, if not exactly easy.He takes an historical perspective, starting with Latin-speaking 6th century scholars attempting to fit some of the weirder consonants (thorn, eth, yogh, and more), and multiple vowels, of Old English into the too-small Latin alphabet. They each had their own ideas, and multiple different styles got frozen in. Then there were pronunciation changes. Then there was the Great Vowel Shift. Then there were loan words from other languages. Then there were later scholars attempting to retrofit Latin spelling onto English. And so on.With all that going on, it’s not surprising that the spelling seems a mess. But Crystal’s analysis shows up rather more regularities than might be apparent on a first look. Whether teaching this history would make learning to spell easier, I don’t know. But it certainly makes for a fascinating and informative read.

This book is more than 'spelling' as the history of the English language is so closely tied up in it. I strongly recommend buying this book. Mine has not been returned to me in more than six months as it has gone from English teacher to History teacher and round and round. I can't say enough about the content and I don't like to give away information when an author has gone to so much trouble to present the evidence so much better than I can here but I will say, just as a snippet, the French/Norman influence brought us silent letters - consider the Irish pronunciation of 'think' as 'teh-hink' where all the letters are sounded. Making a sound from two letters together or creating a sound such as cough (coff) is an amazing development. The effects of latin and the changes brought in because of the printing industry (extra letters added to justify the text!) and new letters added to the alphabet for reasons you will discover. When writing this review the book was still fairly new and has no collectors value: buy it now. Explaining how and why words evolved could be the key to helping some children learn to spell.If you are interested in history, English or just want to get your spelling right - read this book!

A real eye-opener of a book. Speaking and writing the language every day means you're thinking more about whatyou're expressing rather than how you're expressing it. Once you start reading this book it really is hard to put down. Behind the (odd and quirky) spelling of a lot of words the author gives fascinating and logical reasons why certain words are spelt the way they are. Not only the spelling but also the pronunciation. If you are at all interested in the English language buy it.

As with the same author's "English in 100 words", which I also glowingly reviewed, we have a phoneticist / linguist / lexicographer who knows his subject & plainly enjoys telling others about it. It differs from the other work in being more academic: this isn't a criticism, but one does need to concentrate & be prepared to make cross-reference back to phonetic matrices at the front of the book. There is a lot to get out of this book; I'm still reading it & look forward to what else the author will reveal.