Ever wondered why we spell two with a 'w'?
A lot of my students (especially when they're in a hurry with their writing!) spell it 'tow'. This is a classic mistake. They know there's a 'w' in there and they know there's an 'o'...
But why is there a 'w' in two? And why is it silent and why don't we pronounce it like the other tw words like twice, twelve and twenty?
In my video on silent letters I mentioned how understanding the history of words will improve your spelling. I also talked about how most silent letters used to be pronounced but over time they became silent? This is probably the case with two.
In Old English they had a 'w' in the spelling, twā, can you see that, and originated from the Dutch twee and the German zwei (English developed from Dutch, German and Scandinavian) and so the Old English 2 was most likely pronounced like these. Then it became silent but we keep the 'w' to show the history and origins of the word.
Let's look at how we can remember the spelling for two
Two is linked to and has a relationship with some other tw- words like twelve, twenty, twice, twins, between.
Let's look at the members of the tw word family
two - twice - twelve - twenty - between - twin or twins - twist two pieces of twine together- tweezers (two pieces of metal joined to make one)
Notice how these are all related to two in some way.
