English as she is spoke

A major part of the problem with writing the English language is that our spelling isn’t necessarily phonetic – the way a word is pronounced isn’t always the way it’s written.

This is particularly a problem with words containing an R, at least for those English speakers who speak a version where the letter R isn’t pronounced in every instance (for example, at the end of words like “butter”) or after long vowels (words like “farm”). Many of the accents within England itself are like this; it tends not to be a problem for the Scots and Irish, or for most North Americans.

It’s not uncommon for these people to misspell words by omitting the R (and perhaps the vowel in front of it too), or by inserting one where there shouldn’t be one. Here are a couple of examples of the more common misspellings:

• Mint-condition penny blacks are much sought after [not "sort after"]
• He keeps his socks in the bottom drawer [not "draw"]
• The collection was formerly housed in the British Museum [in other words, it used to be; if you used "formally" instead, it would mean something very similar to "officially"]

If in doubt, the best thing to do is check in a dictionary, whether it’s a book or an online one.

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