A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

COULD I HAVE THE LANGUAGE OF ORIGIN, PLEASE? If you've ever wondered what the spellers do with this information, Merriam-Webster's "Spell It!" Guide (PDF) is a helpful read. For example, they suggest:

• Don’t shy away from consonant clusters! German words often have combinations of three or more consonants that don’t occur in thoroughly English words. Examples include gst in angst, schn in schnauzer, and nschl in anschluss.
• The letter o is the vowel most often used to connect two Greek word elements. If the connecting vowel sound is a schwa (ə) as in xylophone, notochord, and ergonomic and you must guess at the spelling of this sound, the letter o is a very good guess.
• The letter k rarely appears in words from Latin, and its sound is nearly always represented by c as in canary, prosaic, canine, mediocre, Capricorn, aquatic, cognition, precocious, and many other words.