Submitted by: Joy Cardin
Rotarians were taught a lesson on the evolution of the English language and why we spell certain words the way we do – on the same day we honored the top spellers of the recent All-City Spelling Bee.
UW-Madison Professor of English Anja Wanner explained the many factors that influenced our spelling system – including word origin, politics, and even human error. For example, there is a “g” in the word sign, because it comes from the word signal; there is an “s” in the word island, because a printer made a mistake; and dictionary maker Noah Webster took the “u” out of honour and many other words because he wanted the United States to have its own distinct English language.
And why do we have words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings? There are TOO many reasons TO go into here, so take a moment or TWO and check out the recording of the program here: https://youtu.be/3Tr-SQt33Wc.
Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin 