If you're a kid learning how to write, or an adult speaker of a language with sensible spelling, English spelling can seem like a cruel prank. And even if you're a completely literate adult native ...

Take a look at the following English words: butcher, squirrel, mortgage, and choir. Does something seem off about them? At one point in time, the words move and love rhymed. So did blood, good, and ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. This May, students from across the United States will gather in Washington D.C., for the 100th anniversary of the Scripps Spelling ...

STORY: Why is English so hard to spell? There are clear differences between how words are written and how they are said. If English is your first language you may not realize it’s not that normal. In ...

Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. English, we have pointed out repeatedly, is not a logical language. That hasn’t prevented attempts to impose logic on it, from ...

I watched from the edge of my seat Friday night as fourteen-year-old Anamika Veeramani calmly and correctly spelled the word “stromuhr” on national television, becoming the winner of the 2010 Scripps ...

A new study of English spelling practices demonstrates that the way we spell words is much more orderly and self-organizing than previously thought. A new study of English spelling practices ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...

Today Sam will plow through the city’s rough boroughs in search of artisanal cookie dough, even though he ought to stay home to nurse his cough. What’s wrong with that picture? Seven words containing ...