Thank God For Spell Check

I have never been a terrific speller.  It just isn't in my genes.  I greatly admire people who can.  To me, it is a great talent.

As I pondered on why spelling is so difficult, I thought of some of the interesting spelling patterns we have in the English language.

There is:
             igh says long i
             ph says f
             tion says shen
             kn says n

Then there are the strange words like mnemonic and pneumonia.

Then comes those dreaded homophones like:
       to, too, two
       hear, here
       pare, pair
       see, sea

Dose anyone have any explanations for all of this?  

Here is a cute little song about spelling.





*This blog post was inspired by a former student of mine.  She just took 15th place out of about 115 spellers in the county wide spelling bee this past Saturday.