When I was a young child I had an awakening to the fact that spelling was not my cup of tea. My childhood friend Rosalie was the intellectual type who could often be found in a squatting position looking at bugs in the dirt. Her twin Rachelle was the tomboy type who was the fastest girl on her big wheels in the neighborhood. I was a bit more in touch with my faint feminine side, but we still all managed to play nice. Rose would win our spelling bees with regularity. When comparing my spelling skills to hers I felt like a dunce. I could read like the wind, but spelled like a hillbilly. I tried not to care, but I did. I still do.
Sadly I rely heavily on the spell check even to this day. Interestingly enough when I come across writings with gross misspellings and grammatical errors I have a hard time reading on. I guess I am a misspelling hypocrite. Even though spelling does not come naturally to me, if I see as I am typing along on my computer that the word gets underlined indicating an error, I will try 2-3 times to get it right before giving up and looking the word up. I want to learn from my mistakes! I don't seem to improve much over time though. If you aren't spelling everything right by the age of 40 I think you can pretty much consider yourself an old dog who can't learn new spelling tricks by now. (Although I have to give myself props for just spelling 'consider' correctly on my own, that is a word that I naturally want to spell with two Cs). Maybe it's not too late for me after all! (Whoops, spoke too soon, I just tried to spell afterall without a space-duh! What would Rose say to me?)
One time when I had been writing to a friend on his mission he sent me a form letter of sorts that was supposed to be a joke asking questions like "What would you like our first date upon my return be?" and "Please put your lip prints in the space below" etc... The 4 page form was riddled with misspellings (this was before spellchecking-yes I am that old). At my tender age of 19 I was not even able to recognize them, but my friend Rose had a hay-day with her red pen correcting all the mistakes. We sarcastically answered all the questions and returned the form. Let's just say he was not amused. Strangely he still took me out when he returned. It didn't go far though. (Thankfully!)
I have to compare one of my spelling defenses to my old pal Porky Pig. You know how when Porky gets into one of his stuttering fits he starts off with one word and when he can't get it out instead of pursuing that word any longer he just chooses another one. For example he'll say, "Hey guys lets build this house out of st st st sti sti sti st st... mn mn wood." Well I do that with spelling all the time! I was typing the word acquaintance the other day and couldn't get it right and was too lazy at the time to look it up so I went with friend. Even though I really couldn't call that person my friend. No one has to know. But now you all do. I wonder if there is ever a study on my writings if one can tell that I do this by the words that I use (or don't use). If there is ever a name attached to this type of thing I think it should be called Porky Pig Spelling. Works for me!
7 comments:
I tend to be judgemental when I see poor spelling. I came in second place in the spelling be in 6th grade!
It's always been a strong suit of mine.
Fun blog Kell! I love the Porky Pig parallel! Cute.
You know, I can't remember exactly who that missionary was. I totally remember however laughing over the form, correcting it and making up all the silly responses with you. That was fun. I guess I don't hold it against him personally though, never pinned the errors to the face. I don't judge people that way, I just like the text to be perfect if I can help in any way, you know. So who was it?
You have an awesome memory Kell, of people, details, situations, commercial jingles, movies...your memory is scary! That is a talent you were born with.
I have that editing brain wiring for some reason. I just scan a page, speed-reading it and my brain picks out the errors by itself. I can't help it. It's like the correct words blend together, and just errors stand out in bold to jump off the page first at me. I should put it to good use and see if I can land an at-home job where people pay me to scan their blogs or web pages and tighten up the syntax or spelling to appear more professional. That would be an easy, fun, no-thinking job. Sigh.
Thanks for your comment Rosalie. I remember the Elder's name, but perhaps I should protect the innocent. He once told me I could remember his name because it was the gateway to the small intestine. Gross! It's no wonder we didn't click.
He was not someone you knew anyways so you don't have to linger on the subject, although I have a feeling you will be calling me tonight.
I do have a good memory- thanks for helping me look at the bright side!
KT
I can't help myself.
"when he can't get it out instead of pursuing that word any longer he just choses another one"
You see it now, don't you?
When I was in second grade, spelling was my only poor subject. Mrs. Lewis spent a lot of effort teaching me phonics--and creating a monster.
Scrabble, anyone?
Dear CSI,
Thanks for finding my typo. See it only proves my point even more that I can't spell I guess. For me that is more of a typing too fast thing and not a misspelling. Those errors don't tend to bug me as much but since it bothered you, I fixed it.
I will have to watch my Ps and Qs (and apparently double Os too) around you!
Oh and no thanks on the scrabble~
One of my English ed. professors at BYU said, "Spelling is a gift. Some people have it, some people don't." I love that. Yeah, you have to edit carefully for things like resumes and, oh, dissertations and business letters, but sometimes spelling gets in the way of creativity.
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