Ya gonna wanna sorta luv this - non-standard spelling surprise

I wanna look at some 'non-standard' spellings. I'm gonna surprise ya wiv some information about dem. I dunno about u but I thought these spellings were sorta new, from the sixties maybe. But I gotta tell ya, they've been around a long, long time. Ya might not believe me, but it must be true cos I read in it David Crystal's book, which I luv by the way, called The Story of English in 100 Words. He tells us when these words first made it into the dictionaries as 'alternative' spellings cos they were used so frequently:

• wanna   -   1896
• gonna    -   1913
• ya         -   1941    
• wiv       -   1898
• dunno   -   1842
• sorta     -   1790 (yes, really!)
• gotta     -   1924
• cos       -   1828
• luv        -   1898

And look at this:

An S A now I mean 2 write

2 U sweet K T J 

The beginning of a poem called "An Essay to Miss Catherine Jay" by an anonymous author in 1875.
 

Great to see how the young people of today are reviving old spellings!

       

Johanna

Wordsearch your personality - a bit of wordy fun

I'd love to attribute this to someone but I can't find out who - it just seems to be flying round Facebook at the moment.

Actually, it should say 'the first four adjectives you see describe you', because the first word I saw was 'ram'! That's not me at all! Once I realised what I was meant to be doing though I came out as outgoing, dramatic, reserved and talented. Not quite sure how I can be outgoing and reserved at the same time!

Anyway what about you? Which four words did you see first? Teachers, try it with your students - a bit of vocabulary personalisation? And great for seeing words within words, which can really help with spelling long words.

By the way, a big hello to the people I met at the Language Show in London on Sunday and all the teachers I'm looking forward to meeting in Romania this week (25-30 Oct 2011).

Now, come on, what were your words? And do they describe you?

Johanna