The Times is launching the UK's first National Spelling Bee championship for schools. Libby Purves has written an article which looks at the fascination of spelling and why it still matters.
There is no point in pretending that English spelling is easy. But then
neither is water-skiing, nor horsemanship, nor playing the guitar, nor doing
tricks on a skateboard. And the rewards are curiously similar: precision,
communication and aesthetic satisfaction. English words are not dull
products of an isolated and narrow monoculture: they reflect the
kaleidoscope of history. They are eccentric, wayward and playful, thumbing
(with that crazy b in the middle) their nose at dull phoneticists. No vowel
sound depends on only one letter: we have peep and leap, weird and police,
ski and key and people; we have truth and fruit and tomb and blue. Read on >>
