Spell It Out

“[A] whirlwind review of the history of English spelling . . . with small gems of discovery every few pages.” — Booklist Why is English spelling so difficult? In thirty-seven short, engaging and informative chapters, linguist and logophile David Crystal takes readers on a history starting with the Roman missionaries’ sixth-century introduction of the Roman alphabet and ending with where the language might be going. He looks individually at each letter in the alphabet and its origi