Take a look at the following English words: butcher, squirrel, mortgage, and choir. Does something seem off about them? At one point in time, the words move and love rhymed. So did blood, good, and ...

In a normal year, millions of Americans would be following closely this week as preteens showcase their knowledge of words most of us have never heard of. The social and professional benefits of ...

Detroit News, December 1906. Roosevelt sits stunned in a boxing ring after losing his match with the dictionary. Stars flutter around his head like thought bubbles: “Kissed not kist,” “though not tho, ...

Many people were spellbound as they watched the newest Scripps National Spelling Bee champions — Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar — correctly sound out scherenschnitte and nunatak in order ...

If you're a kid learning how to write, or an adult speaker of a language with sensible spelling, English spelling can seem like a cruel prank. And even if you're a completely literate adult native ...

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 ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. English, we have pointed out repeatedly, is not a logical language. That hasn’t prevented attempts to impose logic on it, from ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. This May, students from across the United States will gather in Washington D.C., for the 100th anniversary of the Scripps Spelling ...