Orthography

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This is a word used in Linguistics, and not of much use to others. It means the whole business of representing a language on the page – 'orthodox writing'. It refers to how a writer shapes the letters (in handwriting), or what font s/he chooses to use on the computer; to the way diacritical marks are used; all other forms of showing language use in writing; and to spelling. Indeed, sometimes the word orthography is used, in pompous British English, to mean 'spelling'. In American English, it appears to mean 'spelling' much more normally. Indeed, the terms orthography and 'spelling' are used interchangeably, for example in a leading text-book of Linguistics – Fromkin and Rodman (1993) - where the Index item reads 'Orthography … See also Spelling'. In French the equivalent – orthographie – is the normal word.