A Troubled Marriage Between A Skeptic and an Ascetic, or, The Oddest English Spellings

Confusing as English spelling may be, it has one well-publicized, even if questionable, merit: it tells us something about the history of the language. For example, sea and see were indeed pronounced differently in the past. This fact is of no importance to a modern speaker of English but can be put to use in a course “Spelling as Archeology.” In other cases, modern spelling only puzzles and irritates.
A Troubled Marriage Between A Skeptic and an Ascetic, or, The Oddest English Spellings