{"id":5187,"date":"2013-02-07T22:37:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T05:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5187"},"modified":"2013-02-08T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T22:52:36","slug":"the-secret-to-spelling-in-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5187","title":{"rendered":"The Secret to Spelling in English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is understanding how the Great Vowel Shift moved pronunciation away from spelling \u2014 and how that older spelling was fixed and fossilized by the 15th-century introduction of printing.<\/p>\n<p>Three quick items:<\/p>\n<p>1. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/thesundayedition\/shows\/2013\/02\/03\/sunday-school-the-great-vowel-shift\/\">A 10-minute radio discussion of the Great Vowel Shift, from the CBC&#8217;s <em>Sunday Edition.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>2. <a href=\"http:\/\/eweb.furman.edu\/~mmenzer\/gvs\/\">A website devoted to the Great Vowel Shift<\/a>, with discussion of Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc. <a href=\"http:\/\/eweb.furman.edu\/~mmenzer\/gvs\/dialogue.htm\">Check out the dialogs (top of page), particularly the one for Middle English <\/a>\u2014\u00a0pre-Vowel Shift.<\/p>\n<p>3. The technology of printing came to England from countries that did not use particular English letters such as thorn (\u00de) and edth (\u00f0) \u2014 and several others as well. <a href=\"http:\/\/mentalfloss.com\/article\/31904\/12-letters-didnt-make-alphabet\">Compromises were made, and some are still confusing people.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lingering offender is thorn. <a href=\"http:\/\/grammarpartyblog.com\/2011\/07\/26\/ye-olde-mispronunciation-the-long-forgotten-letter-%E2%80%9Cthorn%E2%80%9D\/\">If you read this<\/a>, you can now sneer at anyone who pronounces &#8220;ye olde&#8221; with a <em>Y<\/em> sound as being inadequately educated.\u00a0 (You can also sneer at anyone who names a business, etc. <em>Ye Olde Whatever<\/em> in the first place, on general principles.)<\/p>\n<p>3.5. You will also understand the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Menzies\">Scottish pronunciation of the name Menzies.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is understanding how the Great Vowel Shift moved pronunciation away from spelling \u2014 and how that older spelling was fixed and fossilized by the 15th-century introduction of printing. Three quick items: 1. A 10-minute radio discussion of the Great Vowel Shift, from the CBC&#8217;s Sunday Edition. 2. A website devoted to the Great Vowel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,12],"class_list":["post-5187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-england","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1lF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":57,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=57","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":0},"title":"Comprehending the Great Vowel Shift","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I love reading about the history of the English language. If I have 20 minutes to fill in my rhetoric class, I can give an impromptu lecture on that history, which I title (to myself) as \"Why the English Language Is Like a Club Sandwich.\" But never having formally worked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7677","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":1},"title":"Massive 2015 Year-End Link Dump! Something for Everyone!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of the links that I saved that never turned into blog posts . . . \u2022 The Internet loves quizes, so \"What Kind of Witch Would You Be?\" (answer: hearth witch). I always suspect that the answer is based on just one question, while the others are there just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theoutdoorwire.com\/image_archive\/2210514.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1336,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1336","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":2},"title":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate changes from being a Canadian journal with a Canadian editor to being published in Britain with an American editor, issues of spelling, punctuation, and usage arise. Contributors come from those three nations and others as well, including some for whom English is not their native\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=131","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":3},"title":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate changes from being a Canadian journal with a Canadian editor to being published in Britain with an American editor, issues of spelling, punctuation, and usage arise. Contributors come from those three nations and others as well, including some for whom English is not their native\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1351","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":4},"title":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate changes from being a Canadian journal with a Canadian editor to being published in Britain with an American editor, issues of spelling, punctuation, and usage arise. Contributors come from those three nations and others as well, including some for whom English is not their native\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1366","url_meta":{"origin":5187,"position":5},"title":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Editing Canadians As The Pomegranate changes from being a Canadian journal with a Canadian editor to being published in Britain with an American editor, issues of spelling, punctuation, and usage arise. Contributors come from those three nations and others as well, including some for whom English is not their native\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5196,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions\/5196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}