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 ...

This post is in partnership with History Today. The article below was originally published at HistoryToday.com. Note: Usually, History Today posts appear on TIME.com with American spellings. For this ...

My 11-year-old student sighs. How can the same letters make so many different sounds? We are looking at the letter combination “ough”, which can be read in seven different ways: “through”, “thorough”, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Jill Kitson: Welcome to Lingua Franca. This week: revelling in the richness of English spelling. Robert Dessaix examines the case against spelling reform. Robert Dessaix: Not long ago in Melbourne, at ...

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 ...

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 ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...