Tricky Words Only Push Us To Be Better Editors

I came across an article entitled "English is Too Hard to Read for Children," by Anushka Asthana in The Observer (Sunday, 8 June 2008). In her article she said that the English spelling system is "unspeakably, absolutely awful." That is because of a conclusion in a research that found children facing around 800 words by age 11 which hinder their reading because of the way these words were spelled. These words challenge kids just because they contain letter combinations. Such examples would be monkey, asparagus, spinach, caterpillar, and handkerchief. 

Literary researcher Masha Bell thinks that there were words in the list that could be made simple by dropping certain letters.  An example would be dropping the letter i in friend and u in shoulder. The tricky spellings make English particularly difficult for children with dyslexia and those from disadvantaged homes who are less likely to be read to by their own parents.

This reminds me that in editing, we have to custom-fit our writings to the audience we're writing to. It wold be wishful thinking to say that we can edit in whatever way we want. There are still correct sentence structures to follow; proper writng formats to bear in mind; and several other guidelines to look into every time we work on an article.

When it comes to spellings, editors like myself have to be alert when scrutinizing bodies of copy. Somehow this is a test on how well I know my vocabulary by heart; words that I've learned while growing up; and words that I'm still learning along the way.

If only editing could be as simple as taking a letter out from a word but still, that would be wishful thinking, and absolutely too far from becoming a reality.