I’ve heard that French is the hardest language to spell. Knowledgeable people have told me that even the native speakers have a hard time with it. I’m sure that’s not correct.

It’s true that you can’t tell singular from plural in French from how it sounds; final “s” is not pronounced. But other than that I don’t think French is much of a spelling challenge. Like the other romance languages it doesn’t have many vowel sounds so what you hear is mostly what you spell.

Not so our native tongue! We have at least as many vowel sounds as there are cards in a deck. And English has been spoken for so long and so widely that it’s had many chances to pull in foreign spellings and to increase its irregularity.

There are many words that can be sounded out, but for much of our language you just have to memorize the spelling to get it right.

I think good spelling comes from two qualities: much reading and a retentive memory. I’m referring to amateur good spelling; I’m not going to get into what it takes to compete in those spelling bees.

Even good (amateur) spellers have their moments. I am always tripped up when I try to use the noun form of absent: absense or absence? (the latter, indicates my spellchecker, but I’ve learned defense and offense are defence and offence in the UK, so I’m sure to continue unsure).

Here are three tricky spellings: rhythm, privilege, and supersede.

Rhythm is cool because it puts y in your face as a vowel. The word doesn’t have any others. My dictionary indicates it’s a cousin to rhyme, and it’s from the Greek rhythmos (measure, measured motion) from rhein (to flow).

Privilege looks like it’s spelled wrong. We’re accustomed to seeing a d before that g: priviledge would be more like what we expect. But the word is from the Latin privilegium, an exceptional law made in favor of (or against) any individual, from privus (separate) and lex, legis (a law).

I first heard about supersede’s spelling at some party. “Bet you can’t spell supersede.” The common answer is “supercede.” You then bring it home by suggesting they consider the word in its noun form. “Oh!” they realize. “Of course. It would be supersession – not supercession!”

And that would be true, except in my time our language has evolved so much that, according to online dictionaries, supercede is now considered an acceptable alternate spelling.