Introduction

Abbreviations

Abbreviations – shortened forms of words and expressions – are useful time-savers. They can form an important part of the language of a professional or social group, but may be incomprehensible to outsiders. If an army officer says, for instance, ‘RV at 1800, and tell the CSM to get that sitrep to the 2IC now’, not all non-military people will understand that the officer wants people to assemble (RV = ‘rendezvous’) at 6 pm, and that the Company Sergeant-Major has to get a situation report to the Second-in-Command of the unit.

Ordinary non-professional language also contains large numbers of abbreviations, some formal (like e.g., meaning ‘for example’), and some informal (like doc for ‘doctor’). It is important for language learners to be familiar with the most common of these.

Prefixes and suffixes

It is also useful for learners to be aware of the most common prefixes and suffixes and their meanings, since this can help them to understand unfamiliar words. Knowing that hydro- means ‘related to water’, for instance, makes hydroelectric transparent. Many such prefixes and suffixes are derived from classical Greek or Latin, and a number of these are commonly used to form new words (e.g. technophobe, somebody who hates or fears technology, perhaps especially computers).

Spelling

English spelling is difficult for three main reasons.

1. English has a large number of different sounds: speakers of standard British English distinguish around 21 different vowels and 24 different consonants in pronunciation. But the English alphabet only has 26 letters, with only six vowels, and English does not use written accents, so most spoken vowels have to be represented by combinations of written vowels such as ea, ie, ou.
2. After the Norman invasion in the 11th century, a large number of French words came into English, and these were written according to French spelling conventions rather than those that had been developed for old English. The resulting unsystematic mixture of spelling rules gradually became fixed, and has persisted into modern English.
3. English pronunciation has changed a great deal over the centuries, but spelling has not, in general, been revised accordingly. So spoken vowels are often written in ways that are now misleading (like the vowels in women), and many common words contain ghost consonants representing sounds that are no longer there (like the gh in through, right, sigh etc).

It is not only foreign learners who find English spelling difficult. Many English-speaking children have a hard time learning to read and write, and some do not succeed. Indeed, even many highly educated adults have trouble with words like necessary or accommodation. Literacy would probably be greatly improved by a well-planned spelling reform.

However, English spelling does have some fairly regular patterns, and knowledge of these can help a good deal. The most important ones are explained in this Section.

For some notes on British-American spelling differences, (see here).

Do you know what’s wrong with these, and why?

I wonder why Daniel ha’snt written to us. (see here)

‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yes, I’m.’ (see here)

‘Are you ready?’ ‘No, I amn’t.’ (see here) note 2

She travelled extensively in north africa. (see here)

Professor Hawkins is a specialist in japanese history. (see here)

The production was realy original. (see here)

Their theory has been definitly disproved. (see here)

He completly misunderstood my argument. (see here)

The government could easyly be overthrown. (see here)

Tragicly, the message never arrived. (see here)

He should be made to apologise publically. (see here)

The results caused no surprize. (see here)

Too many people are out-of-work. (see here)

I am hopping to see you soon. (see here)

I will write again latter. (see here)

Thank you for offerring to help. (see here)

He did wonderful paintings of gallopping horses. (see here)

This is the begining of the end. (see here)

Please see illustration attatched. (see here)

Steack has become extremly expensive. (see here), (see here)

I am looking forward to recieving your reply. (see here)

The claim is hard to beleive. (see here)