Daddy telled me a story!
It was a funny story, wasn’t it?
I didn’t thought it was funny!
Didn’t you? I did!
Consider this short but typical conversation between a Mum and her toddler daughter. Mum doesn’t correct either of her offspring’s grammatical errors. Why not? First, it must bashfully be admitted, Mum doesn’t know enough herself. Secondly, her daughter isn’t mentally equipped to understand an explanation. Thirdly, the child would be bored and intimidated by such explanation. She would be wary of opening her mouth again at least in the presence of her mother, perhaps at all. And, of course, the explanation would be almost instantly forgotten – it would be so manifestly somewhere other than ‘where it’s at’.
Those of us who have at all recently learned a new language know that a conscious knowledge of, and concentration on, the ‘rules’ of its grammar gets seriously into the way of the learning, and especially the production, of it. This is precisely because, in such case, we have been trained to invoke our conscious and not simply to trust our unconscious (and see notes to chapter six).
The centipede was happy, quite,
Until the toad, in fun,
Said 'Pray, which leg goes after which?'
This worked his mind to such a pitch
He lay, distracted, in a ditch
Considering how to run.
(Watts 1957. p.47)
Grammar will not, in the best conversational language courses, be overtly taught for this reason, although grammatical conventions will underly course structure so that grammar is learnt, as children do it, unconsciously. We still don’t know how the mind does this so are best advised not to teach our grandmother to suck eggs.
As with grammar, so with spelling.
Spelling rules are, self-evidently it seems to me, boring and unmemorable, mysterious, frightening and unreliable. Nobody is going to argue with much of that, probably. However, I also think that spelling rules (like grammatical rules) are psychologically expensive, and that they disable. The first point is relatively easily demonstrated. ‘G usually says /j/ when the next letter is E, I or Y.’ (Hornby & Shears’ Alpha to Omega) or ‘Words of one syllable ending in F, L or S double that letter after a short vowel.’ (Joy Pollock’s Signposts to Spelling) or ‘In one syllable words with a short vowel sound we must double the last consonant before adding an ending beginning with a vowel.’ (Allan’s Logical Spelling) I think it is intuitively clear that managing spelling by reference to rules would be an expensive way to do this job. It would also, given the number of exceptions, the difficulty of specifying what is to be treated as exceptional and the fact that many of the commonest words in our language are exceptional, be an unreliable way as well.
More importantly, I am certain that a knowledge of rules disables. I have long appreciated, watching my own and others’ spelling behaviour, the effect I call ‘i before e is no help to me’. (I only really know one spelling rule – how many do you?) I have noticed that I can write language full of irregularities and oddities without a single conscious thought for spelling. I have no difficulty (I spell well). Then I come upon an ‘i’ and an ‘e’ in juxtaposition. Here I have to stop writing altogether, leave ‘author’ mode and enter ‘secretary’ mode. I have to fetch the silly ditty out and compare it with my ‘i’ and ‘e’. (Are they near a ‘c’ and, if so, are they before or after it?) I have to decide which way about the wretched letters go, write that down and then try to become a writer again as best I can. ‘Receipt’ is a perfect example of the effect in a single word. I do not have to think at all about the weird, foreign and historical ‘p’ in there, it just falls off my pen, but I have to waste many laborious (and conscious) spelling seconds on the much more common and regular ‘i’ and ‘e’. I do not know how it is I recall the irregular bits in receipt, but it’s manifestly easier than the rather regular I & e bit. It’s infuriating. Thank God I know only one rule. And what a pity my primary teacher did.