Demon words. Oddballs. Rule breakers. The terms used to describe words—like indict and villain—whose spellings don’t match their pronunciations tend to veer negative. It’s as if the words broke with some established order and wreaked havoc on the language, fueled by their own rudeness or irreverence.

In fact, words are just words. Language itself is messy, though, full of complexity wrought by natural evolution and intentional intervention over time, place, and population. No authority makes English orderly or sets its spellings and pronunciations in stone, though many have tried.

English is as dynamic as the 1.5 billion-and-counting people who speak it. The language is inflected with the diverse accents, history, and vocabulary of those people, teachers, communities, and cultures. Old English was forged through conflict. The germanic tribes who invaded early Britain would recognize a number of words and word roots in today’s English. But the English of native speakers today, from Australia to Zimbabwe, would dazzle them with its breadth and variety.

So what’s the use in villainizing words as many parents, teachers, authors, and spelling programs do? Why characterize letters as misbehaving adversaries? Instead, why not treat them as intriguing—as tantalizing windows into a storied past?

And, on the flip side, what if we expected unexpected spellings? What if approaching spellings as rich, complex expressions of words’ pronunciations, meanings, and history was our default?

I think our teaching would improve with our appreciation for spelling’s nuances. If we stopped labeling spellings strange or evil, we might approach them with curiosity and eagerness to learn, versus disrespect or dismissal. We might bring our knowledge of word origin, history, meaning, and structure to spelling. We might access our familiarity with letter patterns and frequencies. We might bring a repertoire of skills and perspectives to the rich, deep subject. And our children, rather than inferring that these words are something to resent or even fear as too difficult, might absorb our positivity.

As parents our job is to teach the language, not judge it. So, I say, skip the negative labels. Focus on giving your child reliable strategies for learning the spellings they’ve struggled with.

Personally, I’ve shifted to calling hard-to-spell words quirky, instead of tricky. Quirky feels a little more positive. Like unusual, but in a good, endearing way. Still, my perspective and teaching might be even better served if I went all the way and thought of, and taught, unexpected spellings as gifts—special and distinctive.

What have you called or heard others call words that are difficult to spell? Do you think it matters? Are some terms better or worse to use when introducing the words to children? What would you call them?

Syringe. Fluorescent. Privilege. Spellings for words like these don’t exactly roll off the tongue. Their silent, ambiguous, and unusual letters create mismatches between print and pronunciation that often lead to misspellings. So what’s a speller to do?

I say, focus on every letter, identify the unexpected bits, and create a special pronunciation of your own that makes the letters easier to remember. Don’t use the alternative pronunciation in conversation, but lean on it all you want when writing. It’s just another bit of adhesive to stick the word in memory.

As an elementary school student, I often overpronounced words with tough-to-recall spellings when writing. For example, Wednesday always sounded more like windsday to me, putting me at risk of misspelling it. I knew this and would exaggerate the pronunciation to wed-nes-day (in my head) to help me spell it correctly. (I may or may not still do this today.)

Turns out. “Spelling pronunciations” are a thing. Many people slightly alter words’ pronunciations to better reflect their spellings when writing. And you would be smart to do so—and teach your kids to do so—because it works.

Researchers have studied the so-called spelling pronunciations and found that they are effective mnemonic devices (memory aids). The strategy helps kids (and adults) to learn commonly misspelled words. And the method is particularly powerful for poorer spellers.

The speller holds two pronunciations in mind—the conventional one used in speech and a second one that’s a crutch for spelling. The latter pronunciation is essentially an attention device. It helps spellers focus on all the letters in a spelling. It boosts memory of letters that don’t map to sounds at all or in the expected manner.

The takeaway? Explicitly teach kids to use spelling pronunciations. It’s not the end-all-be-all of spelling strategies, but it’s a worthy addition to all of our toolkits. It takes an arsenal.

Kids love a good story and, when we parents take the time to teach them, can appreciate the stories behind how words come into existence. That history brings spelling to life, makes teaching time more fun, and helps answer the perpetual question of why many words aren’t spelled the way they sound. Plus, stories make spellings stick in memory better than just staring at or copying words.

Here’s a quick list that explains the origin of spellings from karaoke and hangry to squawk and Achilles tendon. As you read the descriptions below, see if you can identify which category each of these words fits into. Then review the answers at the end of this post.

1. Absorption. English swallows spellings from other languages, especially where food is concerned. Quiche, pizza, tortilla, anyone? Over time and with instruction kids can recognize that words derived from certain places tend to spell sounds a certain way. Such as French-derived words using ch for /sh/, as in chalet, chauffeur, and chivalry.

2. Compounding. Putting two independent words together to form a new word is the most universal method of creating more complex words across languages. But the meanings of some pairings are more transparent than others. Think doorbell versus hogwash. When kids recognize that a rattlesnake is a snake that rattles, they have a better shot at spelling it right than if they approached it letter by letter.

3. Imitation. The spellings of some words, “onomatopoeias,” are influenced by the sound of the item or action they refer to. Think of comic book favorites like, boom, pow and splat or other examples, like hiss, ping, and whack. Some examples like cuckoo have been present with various spellings since Middle English.

4. Naming. English takes names and turns them into words, too. Such “eponyms” include Leotard, hypnosis, and Mary Janes, along with thousands more. “Proprietary eponyms” includes words like kleenex, post-it, crockpot, and breathalyzer. They were born of brand names that got so popular that their names came to stand in for the whole product class.

Creating words from people’s names is particularly prevalent in medicine, where diseases, symptoms, and tests are often named after their discoverers. And more than 350 additional medical terms are derived from literary character names. (Fun fact: Some physicians argue against the use of eponymous distinctions, driven by a desire to better reflect the collective nature of medical discovery and to develop more clear scientific nomenclature for patients’ benefit.)

5. Abbreviation. Collections of initials, or “acronyms,” can be either pronounced letter by letter, like CNN, or as single words, like NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) or GOAT (greatest of all time). Words can also be shortened by dropping off the end, such as adorbs (adorable) and rando (random).

6. Errors. Once a spelling goes viral, it’s hard to change it, not because it’s any more “correct” than an alternative spelling but because it’s more popular. Even mistakes have become conventional spellings because printing and distribution gave them wings. Dord, a misspelling, went unchallenged in the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for density. Expediate, invented when a politician misspelled expedite in the 1600s, lives on today.

7. Blending. Combining parts of two words to create a new one has given us frenemy (friend + enemy), glamping (glamour + camping), and cosplay (costume + play). Author Lewis Carroll named the blends that he created—like mimsy (miserable + flimsy) and chortle (chuckle + snort)—portmanteaus, after stiff leather suitcases with two compartments.

As for the words listed at the top of the post? Karaoke was imported from Japan and means “empty orchestra.” Hangry is a blend of hungry and angry. Squawk is likely an example of onomatopoeia as its name imitates the harsh abrupt scream of a bird. And Achilles tendon is an eponym derived from the Greek mythology warrior Achilles.

Taking an existing word and giving it a new meaning is yet another way to make a new word. And so, the list goes on.

Do you have other examples? Have you used stories to enliven spelling, reading and writing practice with your kids? Share in the comments.

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