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17.                       ENGLISH SPELLING

            Why  does  English  spelling  have  a  reputation  for  being  difflcult?  English
        was  fírst  written  down  when  Christian  monks  came  to  England  in  Anglo-
         Saxon (1 )______ . They used the 23 letters of Latin to write down the sounds
         of Anglo-Saxon (2 )______ as they heard it. However,  English has a (3 )_______
         range of basic sounds  (over 40)  than Latin.  The alphabet was too  small,  and
         so  combinations  of letters  were  needed  to  (4)  ______  the  different  sounds.
         Inevitably, there were inconsistencies in the way that letters were combined.
            With the  Norman invasion of England,  the  English  language was  put  (5)
        ______  risk.  English  survived,  but  the  spelling  of  many  English  words
         changed  to  follow  Erench  (6)  ______  ,  and  many  Erench  words  were  (7)
        ______into the language. The result was more irregularity.
            When  the  printing  press  was  (8)  ______   in  the  fifteenth  century,  many
         early  printers  of English  texts  spoke  other  íírst  languages.  They  (9)  ______
         little  effort  to  respect  English  spelling.  Although  one  of the  short-term  (10)
        ______of printing was  to  produce  a  number  of variant  spellings,  in the long
         term  it  created  fíxed  spellings.  People  became  used  to  seeing words  spelt  in
         the  same  way.  Rules  were  (11)  ______  ,  and  dictionaries  were  put  together
         which  printers  and  writers  could  (12)  ______   to.  However,  spoken  English
         was  not  fixed  and  continued  to  change  slowly  -   just  as  it  still  does  now.
         Letters  that  were  sounded  in  the Anglo-Saxon  period,  like  the  ‘k’  in  ‘knife’,
         now became  (1 3 )______ . Also, the pronunciation of vowels then had little in
         (14)  ______  with  how  they  sound  now,  but  the  way  they  are  spelt  hasn’t
         changed.  No  (15)  ______   ,  then,  that  it  is  often  difficult  to  see  the  link
         between sound and spelling.

         1.   A. times         B. centuries        c. ages             D. years
         2.   A. chat          B. communication c.speech               D.  discussion
         3.   A. wider         B. longer           c. thicker          D.  deeper
         4.   A. explain       B. tell             c. períorm          D.express
         5.   A. in            B. at               c. on               D. under
         6.   A. guides        B. plans            c. patterns         D. types
         7.   A. announced     B. íound            c. started          D. introduced
         8.   A. discovered    B. made up          c. invented         D. taken in
         9.   A. made          B. did              c. brought          D. put
         10.  A. actions       B. effects          c. conclusions      D. meanings
         11.  A. handed out    B. filled in        c. got across       D. drawn up
         12.  A. check         B. refer            c. look             D. see
         13.  A. dumb          B. quiet            c. speechless       D. silent
         14.  A. common        B. alike            c. same             D. similar
         15.  A. idea          B. wonder            c. problem         D. mention


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