Spelling 'one' and 'two' - lexical spelling

I write this on a once-in-a-century day! The date is 11/11/11 - the only day in a hundred years when all those numbers are the same - lots of lovely ONEs. To celebrate and honour the number one, let's look at its spelling.

Learners have asked me "Why do you spell one without a w although you pronounce a w in it? And then why does two have a w when you don't pronounce it?" Great questions!

So why? The simple answer is that these two words are not phonetically spelled. Their spelling shows lexical or semantic links with other words - we are spelling by meaning not sound. All of the words below contain the letters o-n. Can you see how each of them relates to the idea of one?

one, alone, only, lonely, once, none

And how about two? (I'll deal with that now as I may not still be blogging on 22/2/22!) Where did that w come from? Again - it's about meaning not sound. What's the link with the number 2 in these words containing tw?

two, twenty, twice, twelve, twin, between

Pointing this pattern out to learners can help prevent them writing *tow*, instead of two, and mixing the homophones. It also helps them to see there is some logic and that you shouldn't rely too much on sound when spelling.

Some questions for you:

• Can you think of any more words related to the number one that include the letters on (together)?
• And any more tw words related to the number two?
• Do you know other sets of words in which the spelling can be learned by linking meanings rather than sound? (There are more in my book.)

Answers in the Comments please.

 Johanna

Should spell-checkers be allowed in tests?

There has been recent debate about whether spell-checkers should be used in tests. Should they?

Well, for me it depends what the test is testing. If it is testing knowledge of specific spelling patterns, the spell-check would defeat the object of the test. But if the aim is to test a learner's general writing skills or content knowledge, I would say yes, let them use one. If learners are living a life where they will be doing most of their writing electronically, this is what they need to be able to do - write accurate and expressive text, using all resources (internal and external) available to them.

Those who object to the use of spell-checkers in tests are forgetting that you have to be a halfway decent speller anyway to be able to use a spell-checker. Your attempt has to be close enough to be recognised by the software and where there is an option, you have to be able to choose the right one. You also have to cope with homophones and other real-word errors on your own. See http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/spell-checkers-how-useful-are-they.html for more on spell-checkers and an activity to train learners to use them well.

Allowing spell-checkers in tests doesn't mean you don't need to teach or correct spelling in classwork and homework, of course.

Why not allow spell-checkers in tests but be more demanding about accurate spelling? After all they are getting more help.


To me, Autocorrect is much more worrying. This corrects your spelling automatically without you noticing it. So there is no opportunity to learn. I blame Autocorrect for the fact that I always spell 'the' as 'teh' because I got away with it for years and now the muscle memory is so established that I can't do anything about it (believe me I've tried!). Autocorrect was also a nightmare when I was writing my book (Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners) because every time I gave an example of an error Autocorrect kindly 'corrected' it for me! Yes, I know I could turn it off, but then what about all the 'teh's?

Anyway, back to the subject, should spell-checkers be allowed in tests? I would love to hear your comments.

Johanna

ps Just ran a spell-check on this post in Blogger. I'd written 'anyting' instead of 'anything'. This is what the spell-check suggested: 'any ting', 'anting', 'anteing', 'Antin'! Thanks Blogger, really helpful - not! Luckily all spell-checkers are not equal!

The the Impotence of Proofreading - very funny

Here's a video clip that a friend (thanks, Shaz!) showed me. It's a poem written by Taylor Mali about someone who can't spell. Very clever, very funny and rather rude in parts! So if you're easily offended, best not to watch!



If you want to read the words, they're on Taylor Mali's website

Homophones - How not to teach them.

Last week I blogged about homophones and what they are. This week I want to look at how to teach and learn them and this can be summed up in one word - don't!

What???

Danger! Homophone lessons.

It's true homophones can cause confusion but lessons on homophones can introduce confusion where there was none. By pointing out to learners that 'there', 'their' and perhaps 'they're' have (about) the same sound but different spelling, we may be drawing attention to a difficulty in spelling that they have never had - and it could even spark off that confusion. It could plant a seed of doubt that stops them automatically writing 'there' (in, for example, "There are four people in my family"). They may find they have to stop and think about it now, and may come to the wrong decision.

Sure, if learners are already confused, we can acknowledge that different words sometimes have the same sound. But lists of homophones, or gap fill exercises where learners have to choose between two homophones, are not going to help them.

So what's the alternative?

Focus on other words that LOOK the same rather than SOUND the same. And show how words that look the same are often related:

So show that:

• here, where, there are all related to place and all contain h-e-r-e.
• hear, ear, heard are all related to perceiving sound and all contain e-a-r.
• two, twice, twin, twelve, twenty, between are all related to 2 and all contain t-w.
• one, once, only, none, alone, lonely are all related to 1 and all contain o-n.

This is much more learnable than looking at these confusing homophones:

• hear/here,
  
• where/wear,
  
• there/their,
  
• heard/herd,
  
• to/two/too,
• one/won,
• none/nun.

So beware! The internet is full of these lists and interactive games for practising homophones. They may be fun for good spellers but for the confused, being super-confused is no fun.

Homophones, homographs, synonyms and other spelling challenges

I would imagine that all languages contain synonyms - different words that have the same or very similar meanings. But English probably has more than its fair share of homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings and different meanings) and homographs (those which are spelt the same but have different pronunciation and different meanings).

I have tried to simplify the differences between words with the same spelling and/or the same pronunciation and/or the same meaning here:

This diagram is inspired and adapted from one here.

You can see that we have three elements to consider: meaning, pronunciation and spelling. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. If we have two words that are exactly the same in meaning, pronunciation and spelling, then they are just two identical words. If the three elements are all different, then of course they are completely separate words. But you will see from the diagram that there are six other alternatives.

When spelling we have to watch out for:

• homophones: make sure you have the right spelling for the meaning you want to convey. These are probably the trickiest types of words and spell checkers can't help you with these;
• alternative spellings - there are a few words that have two possible spellings- I guess that's good news really - if you don't know how to spell one, spell the other! And some of these differences are between US and UK English, eg colour and color;
• homographs: remember sometimes one spelling can have two different pronunciations and meanings - try not to get confused by this;
• alternative pronunciations - again don't be misled by the differences in pronunciation, the spelling of these doesn't change.

In the next few postings we'll look at some homophones and some of those alternative spellings.

Meanwhile a challenge for you:

How many words that are homophones can you find in this posting (NOT including the diagram)? For example, I (eye).

Write them in the comments below.