REGARDING the efforts of the gentlemen of letters and dollar-marks who propose a reform of English spelling, Serena and I have decided that nothing will come of it. Serena points out to me that I have ...

English, whatever its merits as a language, is a bitch to spell. There are so many rules, and so many exceptions, and yet in the end you have to learn a lot of words on a case-by-case basis. If future ...

While going through some old schoolwork, Sal Perez discovered a sheet of paper from his preschool years in which he drew out shapes and attempted to spell their names underneath. He shared a photo of ...

In the summer of 1859, a year before his election to the U.S. presidency, Abraham Lincoln received a curious letter in the mail. Addressed to “A. Linkon Esq.” and dated “Ogust 6,” it was written in ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

Backers of a universal alphabet say it will make pronunciation easy and foster international understanding. But can phonetic spelling systems really smooth the path to world peace? You are in Vietnam ...

THOMAS P. HUGHES, LL. D. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, ...

Sir, I am sure Lucy Wadham is steeped in French spelling and grammar (“French spelling wars are a displacement activity”, Comment, February 18). But I am worried about her knowledge of English. She ...