how-to-spell
how to spell
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Check your spelling for free - Online Spell Check Tool
Erstellt: 2011-12
Check your spelling for free - Online Spell Check Tool
Antwort von ulicorn am 2007-08-18 15:40:06
Die Großschreibung des "I" hängt schlicht mit seiner Lesbarkeit in Texten zusammen. Als einzelner Buchstabe könnte ein kleines "i" einfach untergehen. In "The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology" wird erklärt, dass sich "I" aus der altenglischen Form "ic" entwickelt habe, welche noch nicht groß geschrieben wurde. Das "I" im modernen Englisch und in Mittelenglisch hat sich aus dem früheren "i" in einer hervorgehobenen Position entwickelt. Durch die Großschreibung wurde das "I" zum deutlich erkennbare Wort, wodurch Lesefehler in Handschriften vermieden wurden. In den nördlichen und und binnenländischen englischen Dialekten tauchte das groß geschriebene "I" um 1250 auf. Im Süden Englands entwickelte sich das alte "ic" in der Aussprache zunächst zum "ich" (und wurde dann wohl auch so geschrieben). Die Form "I" gehörte dort erst ab 1700 zum allgemeinen Gebrauch.
Why is English spelling so difficult?
Many languages don't have a word for "spell". In Spanish and Italian, for example, it is almost a meaningless concept, because the way words are written corresponds exactly to the way they sound. English is different. A single sound may take a dozen or more forms when written down. The short "i" in fish can be represented by every other English vowel (orange, pretty, women, business), and it doesn't stop there - think of myth, sieve, and marriage, to name just a few.
It's this mismatch between what we say and how the words are written that makes spelling in English such a challenge. There have been many (unsuccessful) attempts to regularize English spelling, and for over a hundred years, advocates of reform have claimed, jokingly, that you could spell "fish" with the (non-existent) word "ghoti". (The "gh-" is like the "f" sound at the end of "enough", the "-o-" is like the sound in "women", and the "-ti" is the "sh" sound you find in words like "ration" or "motion".) But language is rarely random, and although our spelling system looks chaotic, there are regular patterns lurking under the surface. Understanding these "rules" can help you become a more confident speller.
A bit of history
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Lowell, Massachusetts
Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs Fight Plaque
The two writers famously didn't come to blows over the Oxford comma.
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The Oxford Comma
The debate rages on regarding inclusion of the Oxford, or serial, comma. Our GrammarBook.com Rule 1 of Commas recommends, "To avoid confusion, use commas to separate words and word groups with a series of three or more."
I would like to share the below OnlineSchools.com presentation with you for this week's grammar tip. I apologize for the small size of the type; we could not make it bigger and still fit it into the newsletter. If you find it hard to read, click on the graphic to see it in larger type. This chart does a nice job covering the pros and cons of the Oxford comma. Note their recommendation at the end, "If you're in the United States, use it . . ."
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[Ads-l] The Oxford Comma in use Shawnee Moon
The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars
BY Arika Okrent
Oxford comma
- Definition - Another name for the serial comma, which is a [controversial!] comma that some writers place before the conjunction that precedes the last item in a list.
- Example - Lock, stock, and tomahawk (In the above, the comma preceding the and is a serial comma.)
- Etymology - It is called the Oxford comma because the Oxford Style Guide is the most prominent advocate of its use.
What is the Oxford comma?
The presence or lack of a comma before and or or in a list of three or more items is the subject of much debate. Such a comma is known as a serial comma. For a century it has been part of Oxford University Press style to retain or impose this last comma consistently, to the extent that the convention has also come to be called the Oxford comma. However, the style is also used by many other publishers, both in the UK and elsewhere. Examples of the serial comma are:
Video: how should the Oxford comma be used?
- mad, bad, and dangerous to know
- a thief, a liar, and a murderer
- a government of, by, and for the people
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The Oxford Comma, in Pictures
Red Pen Diaries: Caring About the Oxford Comma
March 22, 2010
Last week we heard from Erin Brenner about the so-called "serial comma" or "Oxford comma." For a counterpoint, here is a spirited defense of the Oxford comma by Megan Zinn, an associate of our good friends at Editorial Emergency. Continue reading...
Article Topics: Writing, Usage, Grammar
The "Oxford Comma", "Harvard Comma", or "Serial Comma"
That’s the comma that sometimes appears just before the coordinating conjunction (normally "and" or "or") near the end of a list of three or more items. There’s one in the title of this post. It became known as the "Oxford Comma" because “for a century it has been part of "Oxford University Press" style to retain or impose this last comma consistently”.
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The ambiguous Oxford comma
The more finicky a distinction, the more fanatically people take sides over it. The Oxford comma (aka serial comma, series comma, etc.) is a case in point. Some people - often copy editors or writers - adopt it as a tribal badge and commit to it so completely that it becomes part of their identity. They become true believers.
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What the internet desperately needs is another blog post about the Oxford comma
Oxford Comma Drama
May 8, 2017 by samanthalleal
Drama has swept the nation with the unfathomable Oxford comma. Haters and lovers have been debating over this topic for years now. You would think that they would reach an agreement by now! Sadly, it has gotten more out of hand than ever. Professors in universities have different opinions about the comma. When you are assigned a professor, who hates the comma, they will take off points because of their belief. An example of this would be when I was a freshman in college, my professor saw the Oxford comma and took off 5 points because I made a huge grammar error. I did not want to argue with them so I just let it go. I’ve been looking at some articles and the only thing that people can do is just deal with the person’s preferences.
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It's also called the "Harvard comma" from the house style of the "Harvard University Press", but the more general term is "serial comma". It's common in American English and it is recommended in the "Chicago Manual of Style" and other US style guides.
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Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
On this website you can spell-check any text online. It works with English, German, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Suomi, and Swedish texts.
To do so, simply copy or prepare your text, hop over to the online editor here, paste or enter your text, choose the language, and start the process by clicking the “spell check buttonCheck Spelling” button.
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Kurzbeschreibung
This is an enlightening tour of English spelling that untangles "stationery" from "stationary" - and explains why the "i before e except after c" rule is so misleading. Why is there an "h" in "ghost"? William Caxton, inventor of the printing press and his Flemish employees are to blame: without a dictionary or style guide to hand in fifteenth century Bruges, the typesetters simply spelled it the way it sounded to the foreign ears, and it stuck. Seventy-five per cent of English spelling is regular but twenty-five per cent is complicated, and in "Spell It Out", our foremost linguistics expert David Crystal extends a helping hand to the confused and curious alike. He unearths the stories behind the rogue words that confound us, and explains why these peculiarities entered the mainstream, in an epic journey taking in sixth century monks, French and Latin upstarts, the Industrial Revolution and the internet. By learning the history and the principles, Crystal shows how the spellings that break all the rules become easier to get right.
Über den Autor
David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He has written many books and articles in fields ranging from forensic linguistics and ELT to the liturgy and Shakespeare. He is the author of "The Story of English in 100 Words" [9781846684272], published by Profile, and "How Language Works".
Spell It Out: The Many Shades of English Spelling
Posted: 02/11/2012
When Professor David Crystal's new book "Spell It Out: the Singular Story of English Spelling" came out on 6 September 2012, a few weeks later it was a bestseller on Amazon, ahead of the erotic trilogy "The Fifty Shades of Grey". Cooking. Spelling. Sex. That was the order. English spelling sexier than sex! Could it have ever occurred to the Anglo-Saxon bards that we would come to this?
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The discrepancy between English spelling and pronunciation is so eye-popping for learners of English that they oft toss in the sponge in despair.
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In the most recent of his many sexy books - "Spell It Out: the Singular Story of English Spelling", Professor David Crystal starts the story from the early times when the Christian missionaries in late 6th century faced the need to suit the Roman alphabet of 23 letters to a language which had at least 37 phonemes. Their decisions were clever as well as random.
As the language was evolving into its Chaucerian form, words were losing their endings, relations between them now expressed through word order. Spelling too, naturally, was affected. There was a huge amount of variation and the busy scribes did not always appreciate the rich array of English dialects and accents reflected in the many spellings. "Night", Professor Crystal writes, according to the OED, had over 60 spelling variants by the 13th century, and he goes on to illustrate them all.
The need for a standard spelling was first sensed when William Caxton introduced printing in England in 1476. Though, Professor Crystal mentions, publishing helped to fix spellings as much as added to the fancifulness, due to the foreign tastes of Caxton's Dutch type-setters.
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By Shakespeare's time, spelling was still relaxed (take the name "Shakespeare"!). Indeed, variation was ripe even by the 18th century when a word like "music" would have over 40 variant spellings, Professor Crystal highlights.
Dr. Johnson was the top authority (and he, too, had preferences) in establishing standards - so was Webster across the pond.
The brave new world of the Internet has added a new dimension to English orthography. Professor Crystal positively dwells on this and the creative, ludic potential of text-messaging.
... explaining is key, so is acquainting children with basic etymology at an early age. Professor Crystal is brilliantly convincing: "The story of the English writing system is so intriguing, and the histories behind individual words so fascinating, that anyone who dares to treat spelling as an adventure will find the journey rewarding."
In "Spell It Out", the many shades of English spelling are accurately examined, exposed, and entertainingly explained. And who but David Crystal could make English spelling more appealing and seductive a subject than "the office between the sheets"!