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London: English spelling should be simplified and the apostrophe abolished to avoid wasting time at school, a leading London academic says.

John Wells, Emeritus Professor at University College London and president of the Spelling Society, said children should not be forced to memorise a wide range of spelling complexities.

Instead, a phonetic approach and the language of text messaging and the internet should be adopted, he said.

For centuries academics and teachers have been divided over how strictly the English language should be preserved. University tutors and examiners have said that even bright A-level students misspell common words, and employers have had to adopt a "three strikes and you're out" rule, in which candidates are allowed two spelling errors in job applications before being rejected.

Professor Wells called for greater freedom to allow phonetic spellings. He told The Times: "It seems highly likely that one of the reasons Britain and other English-speaking countries have problems with literacy is because of our spelling and the burden it places on children.

Ludicrous

"In Finnish, once you have learned the letters, you know how to spell, so it would be ludicrous to hold spelling tests. In countries like Italy and Spain it's similar. With English it's not phonetic, and there are just so many irregularities," he said. "Lots of other things are neglected in class because so much time is spent on spelling."

Learning how to use the apostrophe was also a waste of time. The apostrophe should simply be left out, with "it's" becoming "its", or replaced with a space, so "we'll" would be written "we ll".

"Text messaging, email and internet chat rooms are showing us the way forward for English," he said.

The suggestions immediately ran into opposition. Elaine Higgleton, editorial director of Collins Language, said the problem with a phonetic approach would lie with deciding whose pronunciation to base it on. "Would we continue spelling the word 'think' with a 'th' because that is how some of us pronounce it, or would it be spelled 'fink' as it is in the East End or 'tink' as in Ireland?" she said.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, condemned the "ridiculous" idea. "Teachers have taught English spelling for years to a high standard. If some can do it there's no reason why they all shouldn't do it. Punctuation like the apostrophe gives meaning to words which are vitally important," he added.

"Without it, the English language would lose its precision." He dismissed the idea that schools should teach text-speak as "surrender to youthful fashions" that will "lead to a general deterioration of standards".

Tricky words, endless confusion

Pupils often fail to use double consonants - acount, aply, ocurred - or double the wrong ones: accross, affraid, gett, leggs.

Silent letters in words frequently become invisible too: bild, dout, frend, yor, yung or appear in the wrong place: freind, detb, lauhg.

Then weak spellers will put extra letters into words: vigourously, gowing, hellow.

Logical attempts and guesses often follow phonetic patterns: sed, thay, wate.

Then there is the confusion over words that sound the same: there/their, here/hear, allowed/aloud, see/sea, weather/whether.

Page last updated 01 January 2020