Spelling is a science. And the word itself is of Greek origin and literally translates as “correct spelling”, or “spelling”. Contrary to the widespread notion that spelling is something that has always existed unchanged, the
rules for writing words have changed. Yes, and a single spelling system in the Russian language, for example, has not been around for a long time. The basic rules of Russian spelling, which are used today, were formed by the middle of the 20th century. Over time, laws governing spelling may change.
How did spelling come about?
In any case, in Russian, spelling is a set of rules for writing words, formed on the basis of the works of the Golden Age classics of Russian literature: Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Goncharov and others. When the question arose of how one or another unverifiable word is written, they watched how these writers used it and set the norm.
Spelling is a logical system
But there are far fewer unverifiable words in Russian than in some other languages. Checking Russian spelling is a reconciliation with the rules for writing a particular word or search for a test word.
Literacy of the Russian population todayIt is difficult to answer the question: "Are people literate now or not?" On the one hand, today in Russia it is impossible to find a person older than five to seven years who would not be able to read or write, and on the other hand, on the Internet or in real correspondence, sometimes people make such blatant errors of immediate correction that one wants to cry.
How to become more literate if you have already graduated from school?
There are very, very few people with innate absolute literacy, but they are. And the rest have to work, studying the rules of spelling, grammar, stylistics and punctuation. But there are ways to become more literate, even if you have already reached adulthood. We list some of them.
- Read a lot of books. When reading, the eyes over time remember the appearance of words, and then, during writing, the idea of how to spell a word comes “by itself”, intuitively.
- Play word games. Especially recommended are the Tyler, Burime, Contact, Scrabble and Hat. The fact is that in the process of these games you divide the word into its constituent parts, and then compose them again many times, so that you will remember these parts. And when guessing a word, you also remember its correct spelling.
- Transcribe Russian speech. Learn the basic laws of Russian phonetic transcription and special notation and, for example, transcribe your favorite poem. You will see how difficult it will be for you to write "wrong." But each time you will perform an operation in your brain: “So, it is written through“ o ”, and we say“ a ”!”
- Learn foreign languages. Firstly, when studying languages of other countries, you study a different system, master other rules than in your native language, and due to this you develop your analytical thinking. Secondly, there are a lot of borrowings in Russian, and once you learn to spell a root in another language (especially Greek or Latin), you will never again be mistaken in spelling it in Russian.