Analysis: The English language is often viewed as chaotic and full of "exceptions," but most spellings follow patterns of sound, meaning, and structure
Few things in language attract judgement quite like spelling. Ever stop and check how many ms are in accommodate, or whether commitment has one t or two? Even minor spelling errors don't go unnoticed, often sparking eye-rolling, silent corrections, or assumptions about your intelligence, education, or professionalism.
For many, spelling mistakes aren’t just errors - they’re evidence, perhaps of a misspent youth, a lack of attention to detail, or even simple laziness. Some shrug these small misdemeanours off as inconsequential in our fast-paced society; others reread an email three times before pressing "send," knowing that one slip could be all a reader remembers.
Even in the age of autocorrect, spellcheck, and predictive text, spelling still matters. Misspell a word in a job application, an exam, a school assignment, or a public LinkedIn post, and the judgement lands - quickly and often harshly.
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From Radio 1's Ray D'Arcy Show, what makes words so hard to spell?
Writers still need to recognise the correct word, choose between near-identical options like their, there, and they’re, and spell unfamiliar words on their own. Technology can help, but the responsibility, and the risk, still falls on the writer. Every slip carries weight, shaping not just how others read our words, but how they read us.
So why do so many of us feel like we were never very good at spelling? The answer may lie in how we were taught. Memories of spelling instruction are vivid: Monday word lists, Friday tests, and the familiar ritual of "look, cover, write, check." Success depended on memorising word shapes long enough to reproduce them under pressure, often only to forget them by the next week.
If you excelled at this type of short-term memorisation, spelling was one of life’s little pleasures and taken for granted. If not, it could feel like a permanent failing. Yet the world doesn’t forget a misspelled word, and the stakes remain just as high today as they were in the classroom.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne in 2021, why is there a move on to change the spelling of common English words? With Stephen Linstead from the English Spelling Society and author of Traditional Spelling Revised and linguist for Apple, Des Ryan
For decades, classroom instruction relied on a simple but flawed assumption that the more words you memorised, the better speller you were. But memorising thousands of words doesn’t transfer easily to new ones, and it offers little support when memory fails. Many fluent readers struggle with spelling, challenging the notion that spelling can be reduced to exposure or memorisation. The real problem? Traditional methods treat spelling as a visual task, rather than a complex linguistic skill that can be understood, learned, and taught explicitly.
What's the secret to good spelling?
So how do we actually learn to spell? Research shows that spelling relies on linguistic awareness, not visual memory alone. English is frequently accused of being chaotic and full of "exceptions," but most spellings follow patterns of sound, meaning, and structure. At its core, English spelling is morphophonemic: it reflects both sound and meaning, often preserving historical roots. This design explains why English can look irregular - it prioritises meaning rather than perfectly mirroring pronunciation.
Imagine if homophones like rain, rein, and reign were all spelled the same - reading would be far more confusing. Sometimes this logic shows up in unexpected ways. The silent g in sign, for instance, isn’t a mistake; it reflects the word’s shared history with signal and signature. Pairs like please-pleasant, heal-healthy, or nature-natural reveal the same principle in action, showing how spelling preserves relationships even when sounds shift.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, why do some words give us the ick?
That doesn't mean sound is irrelevant. Spelling begins with listening closely to the speech sounds of words. Being able to hear the difference between the k in back and the g in bag, or to stretch sing into s‑i‑ng, helps early writers connect sounds to letters. But English doesn’t follow a simple one-sound-to-one-letter rule. Its orthographic system relies on just 26 letters to represent around 44 distinct speech sounds, which means the same sound can be spelled in multiple ways, and the same letter or combination of letters can represent different sounds depending on the word.
Spelling conventions guide our choices. For example, the /k/ sound can be spelled c, k, or ck: c typically appears before a, o, or u; k before e, i, or y; and ck after a short vowel, as in duck. Letters can also behave differently depending on a word’s history. For instance, ch is pronounced /ch/ in chair and lunch (from Old English), /sh/ in chef and machine (from French), and /k/ in chlorophyll and school (from Greek), reflecting how English borrows from other languages and showing that what appears random is actually shaped by underlying patterns.
But sound and history alone don’t explain everything. Meaning matters too. Morphology - the way words are built from morphemes - shows how prefixes, suffixes, and base elements combine to create meaning. Words like commitment aren’t memory puzzles; their spellings reflect their structure. Commitment, for example, is built from the prefix com- ("with"), the base element mit- ("send"), and the noun-forming suffix -ment, which explains the double m.
Understanding this morphological structure reveals the logic behind spelling, turning what looks arbitrary into a predictable system.
Other words, like accommodate, follow the same principle, reflecting how morphemes shape spelling. This logic also applies to past-tense endings: the suffix -ed can sound like t in jumped, d in hummed, or id in wanted, yet the spelling remains consistent because it marks meaning.
Once the logic of spelling is revealed, it stops feeling like a visual trick. Spelling is a linguistic puzzle, a system that balances sound, meaning, and history. Understanding that system transforms spelling from a source of anxiety into a skill you can learn and apply with confidence.
So next time you pause over their, there, or they’re, remember: the letters aren’t arbitrary, the patterns aren’t random, and once you understand the system, it’s far more forgiving than it seems. Spelling still matters because it shapes how we’re seen, but knowing the rules changes the stakes. It might not stop you from rereading an email three times before hitting send, but at least now you’ll understand why - and you’ll know you’re not alone.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
