Banning language teaching rules will leave us tongue-tied

I went house-hunting last week. I drove off in pursuit of that elusive item, the perfect place to live. I was following directions printed on the estate agent's glossy brochure. "Turn left," it said, "then bare right." Obedience could have led to arrest for indecency. Wouldn't that have been a flashy way to greet potential new neighbours?

It is, of course, all in the spelling.

I am appalled to read that teachers in England and Wales are being told by the government to stop teaching the rule, "I before E except after C".

Why banish what is one of the easiest pieces of linguistic guidance? It's a catchy rhyme which has kept me right over the years as my pen hovered uncertainly over ceiling or piece; deceive or reprieve. Why ditch it?

Rules with exceptions complicate spelling unnecessarily, say those who support the move. Such rules put barriers in the way of learning. What nonsense. If anything, rules offer a guiding hand.

I speak as someone who is not naturally good at spelling. I have a Northern Irish accent and, for all that I love language, I have an instinctive tendency to spell as I speak. As a result I have a constant debate going on in my head - for example, is it tendency or tendancy? As often as not, I come down on the wrong side.

Left without uniform rules, people such as I would write phonetically so that, over generations, we would return to Babel. Communication is much too important to allow that to happen.

One of the most useful wedding presents I received was a two-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary which is always to hand when I'm working. Spellcheck won't always do the job. It will agree to a word that isn't correct in the context. It's probably responsible for allowing the estate agent to instruct me to strip.

Does it matter? Should we simplify and have just one spelling for bare? We could do and work out from the context whether we are talking about leaning in a certain direction, taking off our clothes or a large furry animal. But in simplifying spelling, wouldn't we lose the richness that is the joy of the English language.

If England continues down the route of government spelling edicts, Scotland could, ironically become the standard-bearer of the language as we know it.

Fiona Hyslop's education department has no centralised spelling policy. It leaves such fine detail to local education authorities and individual schools. There is, however, an emphasis on literacy and numeracy within the Curriculum for Excellence. Spelling is now the responsibility of every teacher, not just those in the English department.

I was surprised to learn that this is a new rule, for it is also an old rule. I certainly recall teachers of all disciplines scribbling "sp" on my work. I also remember having to write the correct spelling repeatedly underneath the essay - until I knew it.

And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the small ability it gave me to paint word pictures that others can understand, for the ability to read and grasp new concepts, to explore new disciplines and for the key to appreciate delicate nuances of meaning so that poetry and fine literature come to life.

That isn't to say that I want the English language set in aspic. It is already an ancient mongrel, a living, developing means of communication. There are words from Latin, Greek and French. Some words can be traced back to Sanskrit, while new ones are incorporated every year.

Scotland's approach will allow that to continue. Local control allows for grassroots development, while marking national examinations on the basis of accepted spelling maintains a shared standard.

Liz Lochhead wrote a wonderful poem, Bairnsang, about how the Queen's English was superimposed upon the vernacular Scots:

It wis January and a gey driech day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu'ed oan ma pixie an' my pawkies

It was January
and a really dismal day
the first day I went to school
so my mother wrapped me up in my
best navy-blue top coat with the red tartan hood,
twirled a scarf around my neck,
pulled on my bobble-hat and mittens

It's a rich read. No lover of language would want children to lose a syllable of either version. And every lover of language would want them to spell both with accuracy.

Those who support the change in England point to the 23% of the population categorised as functionally illiterate. They see rules such as "I before E" as unnecessary and unkind obstacles in their route to mastering the language.

Illiteracy is both a scandal and a shame, but it has nothing to do with maintaining a standard in spelling. The illiterate have yet to master the basics. If they reach a point where they can read a newspaper, fill in forms and know which train to catch, I doubt they will fret about whether they have a niece or a neice.

But most of the literate do.

The fact that applied mathematics will forever be a mystery to me doesn't mean that its rules should be simplified. As long as I can get round the supermarket and tally my accounts, I'm happy for others to excel.

Those calling for change say that hieroglyphics had their day and Latin died out, so why not abandon some grammatical rules?

The difference is surely that hieroglyphics and Latin died of natural causes. They weren't executed by the state.

The language, as we speak and spell it, will morph, will change. Txting has already infiltrated it - and it's all right in its place.

But communication requires clarity: the law, for example, requires precision of language; medicine demands accuracy; and the arts depend on expressiveness.

English is the one great gift the English gave us. We have used it well, polished and honed it, enriched and embellished it, while all the while abiding by its rules. Surely, the English should show it more respect.