Customer Reviews

Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary: Or Why Can't Anybody Spell

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As a non native English speaker and a former student in languages, I consider myself a pretty good speller. But I know that some people find English spelling really frightening. Unfortunately this is not a book for them.

It is for people who master well enough the language and can make distinctions between various forms and spellings of English. Even those who think they are excellent at spelling, can still take a look at some of the exercises. You might find out that there are still words you don't know how to write them correctly.

And for those of you who still have a long way to go to master the English language, get a good grammar book and don't worry too much: Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Emily Dickinson had similar problems, just to name a few personalities.

This is a strange book and I'm not sure how well it travels outside the specific region for which it appears to have been written (southern England). There are some fascinating history lessons on English spelling but many of the more modern examples don't make sense outside of specific dialects. For example: our and awe aren't homophones where I live. They aren't even close! There are also some examples of "American" example which may been regionally correct but aren't nationally correct. Here are some examples: dialog, glamour, catalog. In my neck of the woods, they are spelled: glamor, catalogue, catalogue. Then there is the weird spelling of hiccup (hiccough in the book). I've NEVER seen it spelled hiccough and even found a couple examples from the BBC website of the hiccup spelling. In conclusion, I think this book would have been stronger if it had just stayed with one dialect and its history of spelling rules.