Abstract
It’s important that our children know of different spelling between countries – but their minds are already full of a thousand rules and exceptions. Give them a break.
English is a difficult language to learn. This is never more obvious than when you watch your children learn to read and write.
“EA makes an ‘ee’ sound,” I remind my son.
“So why is great spelt EA?”
Yep, for every rule there’s an example of that rule being broken, twisted, thrown out – take the old “I before E except after C” rule.
Except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters (full disclosure: I stole this wonderful piece of literature from a friend’s coffee cup).
In other words, this little rule that so many of us would have learnt as kids really should say: “I before E except after C or when it sounds like A as in neighbour or weigh and not when you spell science and ageing and insufficiencies and … oh dear”.