One of the most difficult and confusing aspects of the English language is its spelling system. There is often …..16 ….. < A discrepancy B discord C a similarity D concord > between the pronunciation of a word and its spelling. One cannot always tell how to spell a word …..17…. < A throughout B by C as D as form >its pronunciation In order to understand the peculiarity of English spelling ……18….. < A difficulty B confusion C system D code > it is good to know something about the history of the language. First it is helpful to realize that English was originally spoken by people who could neither read nor write the …..19 …. < A middle class B educated C less enlightened D uneducated > people spoke English, the literate upper classes spoke French and wrote Latin. Later when English became a …..20 ….. < A literary B romantic C written D coded >language, there was no system for spelling its words. Moreover, the first writers of English were French speaking ….21….. who knew English only slightly: therefore they carried many French spelling ……22…. into English in addition, these first writers English who were used to writing in Latin often ……23 ….. letters into words even when they were not pronounced because the ….24…. words in Latin was spelled that way, the confusion increased when the ….25 ….. < A diction B morphology C orthography D pronunciation >of certain words changed while the spelling remained the same.
