Art of Spelling: The Madness and the Method

In 1998, Parade's "Ask Marilyn" columnist Vos Savant did a reader survey about spelling and received more than 43,000 responses. The result of the survey is this book. Vos Savant offers some suggestions for spelling improvement, supplying common roots like anim-, arch-, and spec- and a list of 500 commonly misspelled words. She also includes a few quizzes, with answers in the back of the book. This is not a how-to book,however, for more than half of it examines what spelling ability tells us about intelligence and personality. Vos Savant points out that while it is true that spelling errors reveal a lot about the writer, spelling and intelligence do not necessarily go hand in hand: some highly educated people spell poorly, while some uneducated people spell surprisingly well. Fortunately, everyone can learn to spell better, This well-written book is fun to read and gives hope to the spelling impaired.The bibliography and web site list are nice additions as well. Recommended for all libraries.(Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.)