The Art of Writing Speaking the English Language | Page 5

differently, can be studied only in connection with their
meaning, since the meaning and grammatical use in the sentence is our

only key to their form. So we have to go considerably beyond the mere
mechanical association of letters.
Besides the two or three thousand common irregular words, the
dictionary contains something over two hundred thousand other words.
Of course no one of us can possibly have occasion to use all of those
words; but at the same time, every one of us may sooner or later have
occasion to use any one of them. As we cannot tell before hand what
ones we shall need, we should be prepared to write any or all of them
upon occasion. Of course we may refer to the dictionary; but this is not
always, or indeed very often, possible. It would obviously be of
immense advantage to us if we could find a key to the spelling of these
numerous but infrequently used words.
The first duty of the instructor in spelling should be to provide such a
key. We would suppose, off-hand, that the three hundred thousand
school-teachers in the United States would do this immediately and
without suggestion--certainly that the writers of school-books would.
But many things have stood in the way. It is only within a few years,
comparatively speaking, that our language has become at all fixed in its
spelling. Noah Webster did a great deal to establish principles, and
bring the spelling of as many words as possible to conform with these
principles and with such analogies as seemed fairly well established.
But other dictionary-makers have set up their ideas against his, and we
have a conflict of authorities. If for any reason one finds himself
spelling a word differently from the world about him, he begins to say,
"Well, that is the spelling given in Worcester, or the Century, or the
Standard, or the new Oxford." So the word "authority" looms big on the
horizon; and we think so much about authority, and about different
authorities, that we forget to look for principles, as Mr. Webster would
have us do.
Another reason for neglecting rules and principles is that the lists of
exceptions are often so formidable that we get discouraged and exclaim,
"If nine tenths of the words I use every day are exceptions to the rules,
what is the use of the rules anyway!" Well, the words which constitute
that other tenth will aggregate in actual numbers far more than the

common words which form the chief part of everyday speech, and as
they are selected at random from a vastly larger number, the only
possible way to master them is by acquiring principles, consciously or
unconsciously, which will serve as a key to them. Some people have
the faculty of unconsciously formulating principles from their everyday
observations, but it is a slow process, and many never acquire it unless
it is taught them.
The spelling problem is not to learn how to spell nine tenths of our
words correctly. Nearly all of us can and do accomplish that. The good
speller must spell nine hundred and ninety-nine one thousandths of his
word correctly, which is quite another matter. Some of us go even one
figure higher.
Our first task is clearly to commit the common irregular words to
memory. How may we do that most easily? It is a huge task at best, but
every pound of life energy which we can save in doing it is so much
gained for higher efforts. We should strive to economize effort in this
just as the manufacturer tries to economize in the cost of making his
goods.
In this particular matter, it seems to the present writer that makers of
modern spelling-books have committed a great blunder in mixing
indiscriminately regular words with irregular, and common words with
uncommon. Clearly we should memorize first the words we use most
often, and then take up those which we use less frequently. But the
superintendent of the Evanston schools has reported that out of one
hundred first-reader words which he gave to his grammar classes as a
spelling test, some were misspelled by all but sixteen per cent{.} of the
pupils. And yet these same pupils were studying busily away on
categories, concatenation, and amphibious. The spelling-book makers
feel that they must put hard words into their spellers. Their books are
little more than lists of words, and any one can make lists of common,
easy words. A spelling-book filled with common easy words would not
seem to be worth the price paid for it. Pupils and teachers must get their
money's worth, even if they never learn to spell. Of course the teachers
are expected to furnish drills themselves on the common, easy words;

but unfortunately they take their