Frank Brown Cloud

English spelling

On weird spelling.

Conquest, graft, and mispronunciation gave rise to the weird we know and love today.

February 24, 2018

Frank Brown Cloud

All posts

Alexander Smart, archaic English, Beowulf, Bible, Chaucer, divination, Dutch h, dyslexia, English, English spelling, etymology, ghost, Gutenberg, history of spelling, i before e, King James, monks, Norman conquest, Norman Invasion, OED, Old English, Oxford English Dictionary, professional scribes, reading tea leaves, Shakespeare, spelling, spelling bee, tasseography, tea leaves, typesetters, weird, wierd, William Morris, written language, wurd, wyrd, wyrde
On charming sentences and sifting the OED.

For the most part, I didn’t have fun at school. But I always enjoyed the days when we were given lists of new spelling words and told to look up their definitions and write a sentence using each. Sure, eventually we’d have a spelling test that I would fail — I scored between zero and…

July 6, 2015

Frank Brown Cloud

All posts, The writing process

Anne Carson, archaic words, Autobiography of Red, Bartholomaeus, capnomancy, chresmomancy, definitions, dictionary, divination, English spelling, Ferretcraft, griffins, Henry Swinburne, language, natural enemy of a crab, OED, On the Property of Things, Oxford English Dictionary, Plainswater, Samuel Hageman, sentences, spelling conventions, the ravings of a dorm-mate on psychedelic drugs, unrequited love, words