Spellings and more

SupriyaDinesh · Feb 27, 2012

I have this nagging feeling after reading some ridiculous spellings in public forums,Face book comments etc.What is going wrong?Students were expected to write correct spellings , no short-forms in exams.Not any more i think.
Every individual has his/her own set of spellings,lingos and short-forms making it difficult to reinforce correct spellings.
Finding meaning and spellings were not easy as now with wordweb and other application.We solely relied on dictionaries at the library.Teachers used to assign homework to find correct meanings referring the huge oxford/webster and the like dictionaries.With the advent of phonics based teaching i would say the spelling has gone hay wire.
This incident happened few weeks back.My son is in kindergarten who needs to read sight words given in printed sheet.As i was reading to him aloud, we came to a word 'but',i spelled 'b-u-t', but. Immediately he said i know this word and pointed to his butt.I was in shock and later giggled.I never knew that word until i was very much older. They was he is taught phonics makes me forget all the things I learnt in my school in south India.During his first term parent-teacher meeting the teacher reported that the given few alphabets whose phonics he has to master.There was 'h' alphabet too.i told her he says this word correct,she said he pronounces 'h' as 'hech". I told thats what I taught him.No, it is pronounced "Aeich" .I told her I was taught like that in my school and all these years I have said like that only.Here after i will teach him like that. All that time i was thing i am becoming older and wiser, this one stumped me.
The use of "J" is another mystery.Due to the Spanish language, the use of J is made as 'h" in english too and sometimes it is made silent.I had hard time in reading Baja fresh(baha fresh), Tassajara(tassahara), javer(havier) and lot more.
I strongly recomment using spell check ,in Induladies forum too.Few days back i read a post where for gold caret ,it was written Carrot and angle for angel.My point to not to point out the mistakes but how to make kids and also adults to write the correct spelling.

Viswamitra · Feb 27, 2012

Thank you for your post with the way English was taught earlier and the way it is taught now. The Americans have influenced the language of English considerably both the way it is spelled in writing as well as the way it is spoken. The internet has brought so many abbreviations for use of words so that majority of younger generation does not care anymore about the correct spelling of the words.

In India, majority of us used to pronounce the word Vote as Ote due to the influence of the local langugages without moving our lip outwards to stress on V. When I moved to the United States, the Americans had tough time in understanding my speech. I went to an accent reduction program and learned that the difference is in how the words were split in America entirely different than the way it is split in India. After learning it, life became lot easier for me.

Viswa

suryakala · Feb 27, 2012

Hi Supriya,
It was a nice Blog,Yeah, you are right,The European way of talking in english different from our way of speaking. If you are coming for the first time from India, it is very hard to adjust for sometime.(particularly for South Indian,exp-tamil nadu.)
We call an aeroplane as aaroplane-giving importance to' a'.But they say it, aeroplane- they call an aeroplane 'a'-is smoothly mentioned.and they say- I can't do.we thought she said she can do this.That is wrong.she gave less important for 't'. Airport-the same problem. If you are going for the first time - It is very hard to adjust and it is very hard to understand .But if you follow their pronounciation,constantly,then you will do wonderful and you will own the Whites and they repect our values.
Thanks, it was a useful Blog-Those who have suffered a lot, during their first experiences in foreign countries.

SupriyaDinesh · Feb 27, 2012

Thanks viswamitra , Suryakala.

strangerrr · Feb 27, 2012

one person who would love this blog is my boss; & guess who would hate it??

SupriyaDinesh · Feb 28, 2012

Strangerr,Why is it so?Not keen about spelling?

ManpreetKaur · Mar 22, 2012

yeah, u are absolutely right. things were so different when we were in school and now...!!!!

ramyaramani · Apr 7, 2012

Very relevant in the current world. I hate it when somebody uses SMS style writing. Another thing that I hate is the autocorrect feature in smartphones. Sometimes they work well but sometimes they are disastrous.