ABSTRACT
There are predictable relations in English between the orthographic and the phonological systems, relationships between phonemes and graphemes vary, and not all of the regularities of English spelling are tied to phonology. This chapter illustrates the large number of silent letters, homophones, homographs and heteronyms in English forms a rich basis for many different types of word play, poetry and other kinds of creative uses of language, as the poems. These illustrative poems suggest that the existence of all the variety in English spelling gives an impression of English orthography as extremely complicated and inconsistent. Writing systems are, at least in the present age, quite conservative in comparison to phonological systems. While some variability in spelling, or orthography, is tolerated in speech communities, a uniform writing system is essential to maintain written communication with speakers outside the local speech community. In contrast, variability in phonology within and between speech communities which share the same written conventions is expected and normal.
