American English Spelling: An Informal Description » (New Edition)

D. W. Cummings is emeritus professor of English at Central Washington University. He can be contacted through his website, www.dwcummings.com.

In this study of the English language as it is spelled in America, D. W. Cummingsdemonstrates that behind the apparent disorder of spelling in American English lies a self-regulating and self-reorganizing system that is responsive to four kinds of imperative: phonetic, semantic, etymological, and systemic. Cummings offers a systematic theory of orthography and applies this theory to the American English vocabulary with numerous examples. Cummings also describes the explication of written words into their elements, particles, and processes, and he sets out the tactical and procedural rules that control the distribution and sequencing of vowels and consonants. In the largest section of the book, he provides an exhaustive description of the major and minor correspondences between the sounds of American English words and their spellings. An essential reference work, American English Spelling moves beyond questions of how words are spelled to an understanding of why they are spelled as they are. . . I have two copies of it now and I am sure that they will quickly become . . . dog-eared and annotated." Mark Aronoff, Language for the serious student/scholar of American English, its spelling, and its formation." American Reference Books Annual an underlying structure to which most words adhere. In American English Spelling, D. W. Cummings updates Jespersen and other grammarians, elucidating the rules of English orthography in meticulous detail . . . It can be browsed with much profit, or used as a reference to answer specific questions." Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics Author Bio:D. W. Cummings is emeritus professor of English at Central Washington University. He can be contacted through his website, www.dwcummings.com.