Re: Spelt vs Spelled

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:19:49 -0800, Towse <self@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:07:38 +0900, "Bernie" <rainbow1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The "spelt" spelling might well not be used so much in the good
ol' USA these days, Josh, -- even though it's still included in
your very own Webster's.

But you'll find that most of us oldies prefer the original
usage -- i.e., we prefer to write it as it was and still is
pronounced by us.

Hope that helps.

As charming as I find the irregular form, a quick web check suggests
that it's rare in American usage. Similarly,

Burn Burnt OR burned
Dream dreamt OR dreamed
Lean leant OR leaned
Learn learnt OR learned
Smell smelt OR smelled
Spell spelt OR spelled
Spill spilt OR spilled
Spoil spoilt OR spoiled

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa110698.htm

A bit dogmatic and not accurate as far as I know in my neck of the
woods. Perhaps the dogmatism is so blatant because it's an ESL site and
the teachers feel it's safer for an American English learner not to be
given too many choices.

I wonder how much of this right/wrong American/British clash is
intensified by editors who are working with house rules that insist they
change every "wrong" spelling of "spelt" to a "correct" spelling of
"spelled" even when the "wrong" spelling isn't wrong.

Get out that red pen and changed "spelt" to "spelled" often enough and
people will begin to think that "spelt" looks odd when one isn't talking
about grainy foodstuffs.

Editors like consistency because it provides the reassuring illusion
that we actually know what the hell we're doing. Not that I'm a fan of
variant spellings. I mean, I'll type something and say "Hey, wait, is
'iq(q)at' spelled with one or two q's?" and I'll look it up and the
dictionary will list it both ways which means no wonder I was confused
about it and thanks a lot for wasting my time world.

--
Josh

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals.
We know now that it is bad economics." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
.

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