> The purpose of this page is to describe those rules -- to explain the system behind English spelling, the rules that tell you how to pronounce a written word

> The purpose of this page is to describe those rules -- to explain the system behind English spelling, the rules that tell you how to pronounce a written word correctly over 85% of the time. The way that's written gives the impression that the author thinks "over 85% of the time" is something to be particularly proud of - but I'm not so convinced it is. There's still an error rate in there of more than 1 in 7 words, and even this short paragraph I've written has 64 words. Following the rules should still result in 9 pronunciation mistakes, which seems like a lot.