Traditional Spelling Revised (TSR) is a conservative English-language spelling reform which seeks to apply the underlying rules of English orthography more consistently. It was created by Stephen Linstead and chosen by the International English Spelling Congress (IESC) as the preferred alternative to English orthography in March 2021.
The English Spelling Society, sponsor of the congress, afforded TSR a degree of support and publicity which was due to be reviewed in March 2025. TSR has consequently been mentioned several times in the media.
Changes TSR is broadly spelt the same as traditional English orthography, but some rules and spellings are applied more consistently.
'Magic e' rule Where a single consonant separates a vowel and a silent word final e, the first vowel is 'lengthened'. Unlike the doubling rule, the consonant is not doubled when 'lengthening' is undesired. Instead, the 'magic e' is dropped (unless it indicates soft or hard ⟨c⟩ or ⟨g⟩, then the consonant is doubled).
e.g. ⟨win⟩ / ⟨wine⟩, ⟨sad⟩ / ⟨sadist⟩, ⟨bit⟩ / ⟨biter⟩, ⟨fun⟩ / ⟨fuming⟩ The graphemes ⟨ar⟩ and ⟨or⟩ do not straightforwardly take on the "lengthened" forms. Instead ⟨-are⟩ represents /ɛər/ and ⟨-ore⟩ is unchanged.
Doubling rule The doubling rule dictates that when a stressed vowel is followed by a single consonant and another vowel (which isn't 'magic e'), the stressed vowel is 'lengthened'. This can be negated by doubling the consonant between the two vowels, thus keeping the vowel short. Therefore letters are dropped or doubled from traditional spelling.
e.g. ⟨swim⟩ → ⟨swimming⟩ but ⟨fail⟩ → ⟨failed⟩ e.g. ⟨accommodate⟩ → ⟨acommodate⟩, ⟨committee⟩ → ⟨comittee⟩ e.g. ⟨deddicate⟩, ⟨edducate⟩, ⟨perrish⟩ Doubled ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ may be spelt ⟨dg⟩ or ⟨gg⟩ to indicate whether it is soft or not.
e.g. ⟨flange⟩ → ⟨flandge⟩, ⟨hanger⟩ → ⟨hangger⟩ There is an exception for the letter ⟨i⟩, which does not lengthen itself unless it is part of the ⟨-ing⟩ suffix.
e.g. ⟨lipid⟩, ⟨limit⟩ but ⟨wining⟩, ⟨winning⟩
Disambiguation of graphemes Where graphemes ambiguously represent more than one sound, they are rewritten to be less ambiguous.
e.g. ⟨ow⟩ represents completely different sounds in the words ⟨low⟩ and ⟨town⟩, so TSR uses ⟨ow⟩ for /aʊ/ and rewrites the other spellings thus: ⟨low⟩ → ⟨lo⟩, ⟨own⟩ → ⟨oan⟩.
Silent letters Where letters are rendundant to pronunciation, they are removed. This includes uses of word-final e that suggest "lengthening" when there is none (unless it suggests soft c as in ⟨office⟩). The homographs that this creates are distinguished using apostrophes, hyphens or diaereses.
e.g. ⟨wrong⟩ → ⟨rong⟩, ⟨gnash⟩ → ⟨nash⟩ e.g. ⟨love⟩ → ⟨luv⟩, ⟨dove⟩ → ⟨duv⟩, ⟨live⟩ → ⟨liv⟩ e.g. ⟨hour⟩ → ⟨'our⟩, ⟨write⟩ → ⟨'rite⟩, ⟨know⟩ → ⟨'no⟩, ⟨create⟩ → ⟨cre-ate⟩ / ⟨creäte⟩ e.g. ⟨though⟩ → ⟨tho⟩, ⟨through⟩ → ⟨throo⟩ Importantly, the following spellings are not redundant to pronunciation.
⟨easy⟩ not ⟨esy⟩, ⟨high⟩ not ⟨hi⟩, ⟨letter⟩ not ⟨letr⟩, ⟨lie⟩ not ⟨li⟩, ⟨pack⟩ not ⟨pak⟩, ⟨switch⟩ not ⟨swich⟩ Silent ⟨g⟩ is retained to preserve the long vowel: ⟨benign⟩, ⟨design⟩, ⟨sign⟩ Silent ⟨gh⟩: ⟨high⟩, ⟨bough⟩, ⟨bought⟩, ⟨eight⟩ Change ⟨gh⟩ /f/ to ⟨ff⟩: ⟨coff⟩, ⟨enuff⟩, ⟨laff⟩ Retain ⟨ph⟩ /f/: ⟨phone⟩
Homophones There are cases in which spellings of homophones will not merge (and therefore not be disambiguated using an apostrophe). Some phonemes have several different permitted spellings, which helps to distinguish homophones visually.
e.g. ⟨main⟩ / ⟨mane⟩, ⟨buy⟩ / ⟨by⟩ / ⟨bye⟩, ⟨stare⟩ / ⟨stair⟩, ⟨sight⟩ / ⟨site⟩ / ⟨cite⟩, ⟨none⟩ / ⟨nun⟩, ⟨scene⟩ / ⟨seen⟩, ⟨tail⟩ / ⟨tale⟩ Some words are respelt where an alternate spelling can be used instead of an apostrophe. However, neither ⟨or⟩ / ⟨ore⟩ / ⟨oar⟩ nor ⟨pore⟩ / ⟨pour⟩ are differentiated.
e.g. ⟨bear⟩ → ⟨bair⟩ (to distinguish from ⟨bare⟩), ⟨great⟩ → ⟨grait⟩ (to distinguish from ⟨grate⟩).
New graphemes Two new letter combinations have been introduced to unambiguously represent /ɑː/ ⟨aa⟩ and /ʊ/ ⟨uu⟩.
Exceptions The spellings of some common words that do not otherwise comply with the rules of TSR are preserved so as not to drastically change the look of text. These exceptions, called "sign words" in the documentation, are given in groups, though not all the words in these groups are changed.
personal pronouns and adjectives: I, you, he, she, we, me, us, they, your, their(s), them variations of verbs to be and to have: are, was, were, have, having names of numbers: none, once, one, two, four, seven, eleven, twelve, fourteen, seventeen days of the week: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday months and seasons of the year: January, February, April, July, Autumn demonstrative adjectives, pronouns and adverbs including ⟨th⟩: than, that, then, thence, there, these, this, those, thus interrogative pronouns beginning ⟨w⟩: what, where, who, whose other common words with unusual spellings: the, of, to(day/gether), any(one), (e)very, eye, nothing, some, with, woman, women, yes, either, (n)ever Some common suffixes are retained.
involving /ʃ/: -cean (ocean), -cial (special), -cian (musician), -cient (prescient), -cience (conscience), -cion (suspicion), -cious (spacious), -ssion (passion), -tial (partial), -tient (patient), -tion (nation), -sure, -ed involving /ʒ/: -sion (invasion), -sure (pleasure), -sual (casual) Some common letter sequences, called "sub-groups" are retained even when irregular.
⟨-ald⟩ (bald), ⟨-alk⟩ (talk, walk), ⟨-alt⟩ (falter, halt), ⟨ange⟩ (danger, angel), ⟨-aste⟩ (taste, waste), ⟨-ign⟩ (benign, sign), ⟨-ind⟩ (find, mind), ⟨old⟩ (old, gold), ⟨-olk⟩ (folk, yolk), ⟨-ore⟩ (therefore, shore), ⟨-other⟩ (brother, mother), ⟨-ould⟩ (could, would), ⟨war-⟩ (warm, warn), ⟨wor-⟩ (worm, worst). Proper nouns are kept the same, unless alternative spellings become accepted. Loan words are indicated in italics.
Sound-to-spelling correspondences Each phoneme has its own spelling patterns.
Vowels
Consonants The following table lists the consonants that don't always represent the same phoneme, so /b/, /d/, /h/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, /t/ and /v/ are omitted.
Inconsistencies
"Ch" with /k/ sound Words of Greek origin are supposed to retain "ch" for /k/, though these words are respelled in the word list:
technique → tecnique technological → tecnolodgical
Example text Gettysburg Address
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