If your child asks you how to spell something...

[Fluffymonster]

I was in a school-based reading/writing session with my dd today, which involved reading a book with her, then her writing three sentences to summarise the story.

The teacher mentioned at the start not to worry too much about spelling etc. as long as they get the sounds right. Fair enough.

In working out the sentences though, dd was suddenly unsure of how to spell "woman" as WOMAN or WOMUN and asked me which it was. She got the WO bit correct, and then for the rest, I said "when you say "man", is it muh-ah-nnn, or muh-uh-nnn?" She then worked it out.

I also pointed out to her that she had written "g" backwards a couple of times, and reminded her that "g" and "y" sits on the line, with their 'tails' hanging down below. They were 'floating', which she does habitually. In general her writing is good - neat, good spelling, good spacing of the letters, letters fairly even in size. So I was giving her constructive feedback on areas she could easily improve on, I thought.

At the end the teacher came over and had a look, and asked dd if she did it by herself, or if mummy helped her. Dd said she had a bit of help from me, so I explained where I had given my input. The teacher reiterated not to worry too much about spelling as it's far more important that they get the sounds right. Slightly slapped wrist I felt.

Well, I know, but I didn't just give her the answer, I prompted her to sound it out - was I wrong to even 'prompt'?

So next time do I just shrug, even if dd's asking me a question? I have to say if she spells something incorrectly and I'm sat there, I can imagine myself getting the urge to do what I did again - why is it not the done thing? And with the letters sitting on the line - well, it's practice isn't it, if she's not reminded to look at the position of the letters, how is she going to learn to remember?

No but repeating something for 80 years still doesn't mean there is a grain of truth in it.
Shaw because of his fame was widely recorded and there isn't a single reference in either his writing or in the recordings of others ...strange that

As the "ghoti" article dates from 1874 there is no evidence that Shaw even read it ...

Possibly, it depends on whether or not it was being done as a joke. Back then gentlemen met in clubs and who knows what they did there. It wasn't for general consumption, hence being in the club in the first place. It was well known that Shaw was a supporter of spelling reform. It may simply have been something done for fun. (It also is a clever way of getting across a point.)

He wouldn't have had to read it, he would only have had to have heard it.

You are clutching at straws.

There's a serious point here, which is that ghoti is a clever way of getting across a complex idea. Whether or not Bernard Shaw used it or not isn't the point. It's a side track. But it cannot be proven that he didn't.

Is it a clever way to get the point across when it uses a combination/order of letters never found in the English language or does it just demonstrate lack of understanding?

If as you say Shaw made an off the cuff joke in his gentleman's club which was never recorded /reported how has the myth perpetuated for 80 years learnandsay?

Because it appeared in an American newspaper.

So how did the American newspaper know what Shaw said in the privacy of his gentleman's club if no one recorded his "joke"?

It is possible that Mario Pei the author of the 1946 Los Angeles article confused Shaw with Jones (a well known spelling reformer) who did use the word "ghoti" in a speech.

So who started the myth, when did the myth start, and why? It is definitely known that Shaw was a supporter of spelling reform and even created a separate alphabet. If the first use of 'ghoti' predates Shaw, all that proves is that if he used it as an example to illustrate the need for reform, it was not original.

It is possible that Mario Pei the author of the 1946 Los Angeles article confused Shaw with Jones (a well known spelling reformer) who did use the word "ghoti" in a speech.

So the example was circulating in spelling reform circles. As Shaw was interested in spelling reform then he would have been well aware of it.

The first person to attribute "ghoti" was Mario Pei in his 1946 article which is almost 100 years after Ollier wrote that his son had come up with the spelling. (before Shaw was born)
Ollier's son was also a member of the spelling reform movement

Professor Jones and Bernard Shaw were associates. So if Jones was fond of telling the joke there's no reason why Shaw couldn't have heard it.

I am in the wrong timezone to be able to keep up with this discussion!
mrs (only because you said you were interested) the schwa spelling problem relates to the syllable of woman, not the first, you know, the bit the Op's daughter had trouble with.

I had already pointed that early in the thread mummyAbroad
here
" mrz Thu 06-Jun-13 19:36:21

and the OP helped her child hear the sounds in the word woman where the letter is a schwa so the only way she can get the sounds right is by precise pronunciation which is exactly what the OP did"

and it was the strange idea that the word was non-phonetic that interested me

learnandsay Jones wasn't making a joke it was a speech promoting spelling reform and regardless of whether Shaw heard him or not the fact is attributing it to him is like me attributing the "I have a dream" speech to you because you once heard it

A few of these trick spelling have been published, ghoti is one of the simpler (and catchier) ones. What the author of the article said was that Shaw wrote ghoti down and asked people to pronounce it. He didn't say Shaw invented it. If spelling reformers found this kind of behaviour funny I suppose that was up to them. (It is quite funny.)

learnandsay there are limitless examples ...

You are still clutching at straws or should i say Shaws ... and making up your own version of things which if you are lucky people will be peddling as truth in 80 years time

Lots of cliques have their own jokes. What's 1.57? Half a Pi. I can't see why spelling reformers have to have no sense of humour.

'woman' is not spelled correctly when spelled as it sounds (i.e. /w/ /short 'oo'/ /m/ /shwa/ /n/).
Phonetically spelled, one would expect to see something along the lines of: 'wemun' or 'weman'.
That is all.
There are plenty of exceptions to English spelling rules - just as there are exceptions to the code.
atozphonics.com/teaching/84/phonics-rules-secret-codes/

Do you say "wemun"?

Try reading something more informed
beckclasswiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/SpellRead+Lexicon.pdf

The word woman is fine. It's women that some non-phonicsy people have a problem with.

Rule 2
^When a one syllable word ends in a consonant and has only one vowel, that vowel is short. Eg: mat, red, fish, sock, rug." how about post and mint find post* etc
Rule 10
When a syllable has 2 vowels together, the first vowel is usually long and the second is silent. Eg: ?rain, meat, coat, res/cue, day? NOTE: Diphthongs don?t follow this rule
bread , head ,

As I said yesterday learnandsay "women" is one of a very few words that contains a unique sound representation