Remember when wunderkind Rebecca Sealfon won the 1997 Scripps National Spelling Bee in spectacularly embarrassing fashion, screaming out each letter of her winning word, “euonym”? (If not, click here.) Cringe-making stuff, but, hey—at least she can spell. That’s more than can be said for a vast majority of students, even university students, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement.
But wait. Or weight, if you prefer. Though the author of the piece in question is “fed up” with his students’ “atrocious spelling,” he isn’t suggesting that (for instance) students be made to pass a spelling exam in order to go to college in the first place. Perhaps you can guess where he’s headed:
Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I’ve got a better idea. University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students most commonly misspell.
The spelling of the word “judgement”, for example, is now widely accepted as a variant of “judgment”, so why can’t “truely” be accepted as a variant spelling of “truly”?
He goes on to list the ten mistakes he encounters most often, without pausing to consider that effectively teaching ten words to adult students might be easier than persuading his readers to debase their language. The piece almost reads like satire, but it concludes so earnestly that the possibility seems slim. The good news: The commenters are near-unanimous in rejecting this immodest proposal:
• Here is a suggestion for Mr Smith: Given how many people ignore many of those rules of behaviour which we call Laws, why not draw up of a list of those which are most often disregarded, and repeal them?
• “Judgement” is the standard British English spelling, it isn’t “widely accepted as a variant”. “Judgment” is standard in American English.
• Some of the rules of English spelling may seem arbitrary. But using correct spellings shows attention to detail. It is a hallmark of professionalism. And we are judged on it: in CVs, cover letters, research papers, grant proposals, tenders for work. Not encouraging students to develop in this area, if they need to, hamstrings their employability.