By lavender
vertical
exercise
I never spell these words right. But the nearly-always-wonderful Word program automatically corrects my mistakes by quietly swapping der for dar in lavender.
And when I misspell vertical, which is every single time I type the word, the spell-checker changes the le to al without saying a word. I guess it doesn’t want to hurt my feelings by blaring, “Hey, you stupid idiot, how did you manage to get past 8th grade?”
Now, for exercise, when I use a z instead of an s, it underlines the word with a jagged red line, because that particular spelling apparently is so far off base that Word can’t even attempt a guess at what I’m trying to spell.
The only time I remember having a chance to compete in a school-wide spelling bee was in junior high, and exercise was my downfall. I was shocked. I even argued with Mr. Schmidt, who was pronouncing the words. “What? There’s no z in exercise? Since when?”
I know the dictionary backs him up, but after all these years, I still contend exercise should have a z in it. It just looks right.
Oh, another word I consistently misspell: nickel.
This is “English,” and there are SO many words that are “irregular!”–such as one, said, through, two, too, to, eight, words that end with -tion (how do we get /shun/ out of “tion?” –I have a list of “outlaw” words I teach to my AP kids …..and, if they’d only asked ME, –I’d throw (there’s another one) the “c” out of the alphabet! (ph for /f/)–spelling can be a nightmare/nitemair/niet/mair/?
Well, I’m gonna have to fight ya on taking the C out of the alphabet. I know you CAN spell Cheryl with an S, but that’s just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Hmm, I suppose I *could* spell “Carol” as Karol, but somehow that just doesn’t look right in my name. How about Quarol?
Janet Carol Fish
Janet Karol Fish
oops, I completely forgot about the /ch/ sound, but the “ch” in Cheryl is the /sh/ sound….HOW can that be?
I’m just glad I don’t have to learn English as a second language; it would drive me nuts with all the homonyms and irregulars.
I’m a “champeen” speller, but even with spell checkers, I still keep two dictionaries and a thesaurus at my elbow when I’m writing.
George Bernard Shaw demonstrated how ridiculous some spelling rules are. By following the rules, he said, we could spell fish this way: ghoti. The “f” as it sounds in enough, the “i” as it sounds in women, and the “sh” as it sounds in fiction.
– written by John ‘Garp’ Irving