Spelling

Dictionary of Biological Psychology

Spelling is, in a curious sense, a relatively recent phenomenon. Before the publication of Dr Samuel Johnson’s magisterial Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 there was no accepted and standardized way of spelling words, nor common agreement on the meaning of many words.

Johnson’s Dictionary was incomplete but prepared the ground for later works, culminating in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (see Winchester, 1999). There are various disorders of spelling: see AGRAPHIA for discussion of these.

See also: reading; speech production; writing

Winchester S. (1999) The Surgeon of Crowthorne, Penguin Books, London.