I remember walking down a busy street in Delhi during my first stay in India and noting the different ways in which the same words were written in Latin script. Lakshmi here, Luxmi there. Since then I ...

STORY: Why is English so hard to spell? There are clear differences between how words are written and how they are said. If English is your first language you may not realize it’s not that normal. In ...

Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and ...

George Bernard Shaw, a member of the Simplified Spelling Soesiety The English language is notorious for complex spelling rules-and the many words that break them. We all know i comes before e, except, ...

How can it be that “laughter” and “daughter” not only don’t rhyme but don’t sound remotely alike? What about “tomb,” “bomb,” and “comb”? Meanwhile, “liar” and “choir,” which couldn’t look more ...

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 ...