Spelling

11 Rules (And Their Exceptions) to Help Conquer Your Spelling Woes

English spelling can be frustrating and confusing, but there are things you can do to help make the task of getting it right more manageable.

11 Historical Figures Who Were Really Bad At Spelling

Would you recoil in terror if spell-check ever stopped working? Fear not: You're in good company.

George Bernard Shaw, a member of the Simplified Spelling Soesiety

The Early 20th Century Society That Tried to Make English Spelling More Intuitive

These British reformers wanted to ditch "i before e" for something a little simpler. Who could blame them?

26 of Noah Webster’s Spelling Changes That Didn’t Catch On

Some of Webster's suggested reforms caught on and still mark a difference between American and British writing. But you won't beleev how many of his reforms went nowhere.

11 Words That Started Out As Spelling Mistakes

Language is a continual process of evolution, but these words—from pea to sherry—changed thanks to outright mistakes.

9 Words Created by Spelling Other Words Backwards

A semordnilap (itself a semordnilap of “palindromes”) makes a completely different word when spelled backwards.