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 ...

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 ...

Many people were spellbound as they watched the newest Scripps National Spelling Bee champions — Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar — correctly sound out scherenschnitte and nunatak in order ...

This post is in partnership with History Today. The article below was originally published at HistoryToday.com. Note: Usually, History Today posts appear on TIME.com with American spellings. For this ...

Misty Adoniou is a Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne and an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra. She is the author of the Cambridge University Press book 'Spelling ...

My 11-year-old student sighs. How can the same letters make so many different sounds? We are looking at the letter combination “ough”, which can be read in seven different ways: “through”, “thorough”, ...

Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less ...

How can it be that “laughter” and “daughter” not only don’t rhyme but don’t sound remotely alike? What about “tomb,” “bomb,” and “comb”? Meanwhile, “liar” and “choir,” which couldn’t look more ...

The preliminary rounds for the 94th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee have begun, and on Tuesday, May 28, spellers will compete live to take home the trophy. These kids are too young to drive, but ...

We English-speakers take a perverse pride in the orneriness of our spelling, which is one reason why the spelling bee has been a popular entertainment since the 19th century. It's fun watching ...