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lady_mair's review against another edition
4.0
Really excellent and oh, so fascinating! History and language are such intriguing subjects.
akayeh's review against another edition
5.0
read with a dictionary for some chapters but other than that it is nonfiction that reads like fiction!
sharonfalduto's review
Apparently, throughout history, there have been movements to make spelling in the English language more simplified, so it is easier to learn to read, for instance. Mr. Decimal System himself--who called himself Melvil Dui--was a proponent. People, however, are very resistant to change--though some things, like the proposed spelling "thru," has become more widespread, if not totally accepted. This was a fun little book.
samirakatherine's review
3.0
Yet another history book written by a journalist. So much fun when they are not on my subject matter.
jonjeffryes's review
4.0
Some interesting stuff...the history of spelling up to the modern day spelling reformists. My only problem with this book was the same problem I have with the Mary Roach books...I like the facts, but don't much care for the author's personal journey. Less personality, more interesting factoids.
psteve's review
3.0
Breezy entertaining story of efforts over the centuries to change English spelling. Sometimes the efforts succeed, at least partly, as when letters were added to many words (like the b in debt, the o in people) to make them look more like Latin. Mostly, however, English spelling has changed slowly. The book recapitulates much of the standard history of the language, but the author adds quite a bit at the end about spell checkers and Google. Entertaining, but if you know your history of English, it won't add a lot.
psalmcat's review
5.0
Why are English words so WEIRD and varying in terms of spelling. The author traces the history of the language, but it much more concerned with why everyone gets so worked up about spelling, why there has to be a "right" way to spell things when we invented spelling in the first place as a tool.
This book completely changed the way I look at spelling problemsother people have. I've always known Shakespeare "couldn't even spell his own name consistently", but maybe the point really is that he didn't CARE how it was spelled. The point is really to make us able to communicate without misunderstandings. Then people who need to control things got involved and started making rules and ... now we have spelling bees.
All of this is told in easy-to-read chapters that don't talk down to the reader, but also don't require a PhD. in linguistics to understand.
This book completely changed the way I look at spelling problems
All of this is told in easy-to-read chapters that don't talk down to the reader, but also don't require a PhD. in linguistics to understand.
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