Some words are spelt the way they are because the spelling supposedly reflects the origin of the word - that is, it shows how the word used to be pronounced a thousand years ago, or else it shows how it used to be spelt when it was part of the Latin or French (or Greek etc.) language.
For example, the spelling 'night' is supposed to indicate how the word was pronounced in Middle English (about the year 1400), when there was a rough 'h' sound before the final 't'; on the other hand, our spelling of the word 'cease' comes from Old French 'cesser', to stop (and with an 'a' thrown in as well).
Our spelling also indicates derivations of complex words. For example, the words 'pleasant' and 'pleasure' both use the spelling 'ea' for the short 'e' sound, even though the ‘ea’ represents a different sound in the word 'please', from which the other two words are derived.
So our spelling system is in a complete mess. The spelling of a word often bears little relation to the sound of the word, but rather to its derivation in Old English, Latin, French or Greek - or to a related word with a different sound.
It is time we developed a proper system of spelling English. We should spell words taking account of how they are spoken - not of how they were spoken a thousand years ago, or of how they were spelt in the language where they originated.
Spoken English - as distinct from written English - is a wonderful instrument of communication. Developed by an evolutionary process over thousands of years, our verbal language is concise, accurate and infinitely expressive. In some ways talking is a more important way of communicating than reading and writing. Recent studies have shown that spoken language is an instinct - it is innate within us - wired into our brains as they develop, by means of instructions stored in our genes. Reading and writing, on the other hand, must be learnt.
So spelling should be loyal to our spoken language. Spelling should relate to the sounds of the words. And the representation should be as efficient and logical as we can make it.
In other words, our spelling system should be "phonetic" - that is, it
should depend on the sounds of the words.
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