Britain is turning into a nation of "tabloid spellers" - spelling Jane Austen is a far bigger challenge for children than getting David Beckham's name right. A survey carried out by Oxford University Press in research for a new dictionary showed that only 32 percent of school-age children could spell Shakespeare correctly. Only eight percent managed Jane Austen - variations such as Jayne and Jade proved especially popular.1 But J.K. Rowling did at least win top marks for teaching the children of the world the joy of reading with her Harry Potter sagas. The young magician's school - Hogwarts - was spelt correctly by 85 percent of the kids polled. Vineeta Gupta, senior editor of Oxford's Children's Dictionaries, said: "We were surprised at how many children managed to spell even quite difficult words correctly if they had a connection with popular culture that caught their imagination. "Nearly 15 percent, for example, could spell metatarsal, a word almost unheard of before David Beckham's pre-World Cup fitness problems." 2

1． Jane Austen 是18世纪英国女作家，代表作为《傲慢与偏见》。作者特意指出的两种错误拼写可能均与流行文化有关。前“辣妹”演唱组有一成员名为Melanie Jayne Chisholm，而Jade是英国流行真人秀电视系列剧《大佬》（Big Brother）中的人物。

2． 英国足球明星贝克汉姆在2002年世界杯前左脚跖骨受伤，引起举国关注。

英国正在变成一个“小报拼写者”的国度——对英国的孩子来说，简·奥斯汀的名字要比大卫·贝克汉姆难拼写得多。牛津大学出版社为编纂新词典而进行了一项调查，发现只有32%的学龄儿童能正确拼写“莎士比亚”。能拼对“简·奥斯汀”的人更是只有8%——事实证明把“Jane”错拼成“Jayne”或“Jade”的人尤其多。起码在让世上的孩子了解阅读的乐趣这方面，J·K·罗琳和她的哈里·波特系列传奇做得非常不错。接受调查的孩子中有85%拼对了少年魔法师的学校名称——“霍格维茨”。牛津出版社负责编纂儿童词典的高级编辑维尼塔·古普塔说：“我们很吃惊，有那么多孩子能正确拼写一些甚至相当难的单词，只要它们与左右他们想像的流行文化有关。”举例来说，将近15%的孩子能拼写“metatarsal（跖骨）”一词，而在大卫·贝克汉姆于世界杯前夕发生伤病问题之前，几乎没人听说过这个单词。

Remarks：这种状况在我国可能更加严重。据闻有女歌星在听罢《满江红》之后顾其经纪人曰：“此歌词甚佳，可唤岳飞来与我作词！”