Overview

When did ghost acquire its silent h? Will cyberspace kill the one in rhubarb? And was it really rocket scientists who invented spell-check? David Wolman answers these questions and more in Righting the Mother Tongue. Wolman takes students on the journey of Seven-hundred years of trial, error, and reform that have made the history of English spelling a jumbled and fascinating mess. Wolman tells the cockamamie story of English spelling, by way of a worldly adventure-from English battlefields to Google headquarters. Along the way, he joins spelling reformers picketing the national spelling bee, visits the town in Belgium where the first English books were printed, and takes a road trip with the boss at Merriam-Webster Inc. Righting the Mother Tongue is a captivating story rich with history, pop culture, curiosity, and humor that shows students how English spelling came to be, traces efforts to mend the code, and imagines the shape of tomorrow's words.--Kirkus Reviews

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9780061369254

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Sprightly history that sensibly balances the merits of standardization against the forces for freedom. -- Kirkus Reviews

The lively, informative book is full of evidence/cocktail party fodder proving that the English spelling system is a hopeless tangle of French, Dutch, Latin, German and much, much more and really makes no sense at all.--Portland Tribune

Author Information

DAVID WOLMAN is a Contributing Editor at Outside. He has written for the Wired, the New York Times, New Yorker, Nature, and many other publications, and his work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. He is the author of The End of Money, Righting the Mother Tongue, and A Left-Hand Turn Around the World. David lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family.

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