About the Author

Masha became intrigued by English spelling when she first encountered it at fourteen, after learning the more regular writing systems of Lithuanian and Russian. When she later became a teacher of English in England, she was amazed by how long most native speakers needed to learn to read and write. The main impetus for her analysis of English spelling, and for her study of its origins, was when poor literacy standards became increasingly blamed on bad teaching. She suspected that English spelling played a big part and wanted to establish how and why.