Are you a good speller?

R

Rider77

Member
Back in the day I would write a letter on a legal pad and then had it to my secretary to type I got a clever response. She quite simply said, "Mike since you don't spell well, just don't write neatly." That lady was great and I respect her tact as she put me in my place. (By the way her job title and job description was 'Executive Secretary')
 

CallMeKate said:
Yas, eye am a gud spellur. (My real answer is that I have to be as a freelance writer. When I catch myself not proofreading properly and missing something, I'm quite hard on myself. 🤷‍♀️ And grammar goofs? Thirty lashes time! )
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My wife prides herself on good spelling. That said I keep a dictionary handy when we play scrabble, so that I can continue to expand my vocabulary.
 

CallMeKate said:
Yas, eye am a gud spellur. (My real answer is that I have to be as a freelance writer. When I catch myself not proofreading properly and missing something, I'm quite hard on myself. 🤷‍♀️ And grammar goofs? Thirty lashes time! )
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I like to think that I can still spell, and follow proper English … but I swear that sometimes I go to post something and it’s all mangled with extra/ or missing letters.
Can drive a person crazy! lol
 
I used to be good, but mixing with Americans in forums like this,
seems to be confusing my mind, I was recommended to use a
spelling and grammar tool, which is OK, but sometimes I have to
overrule its suggestions, if it objects to UK spelling, I just click
the top right of the suggestion window, on what looks a bit like
a diploma, with ribbon, which is my choice dictionary, all user
names that put up a red line, go in there, it does point out errors
very efficiently. Free AI Grammar Checker - LanguageTool

Mike.
 
I was once the executive secretary to mechanical, nuclear, warranty, and finite element engineers. I was an excellent speller, and great at sentence structuring. A few of the engineers would throw notes on napkins at me and tell me to construct a letter for them to proof.

”Was” being the operative. I have backslid in my old age, and this IPad tends to rewrite what I type, sometimes making me look worse than I am🤯
 
No. Never. I was so bad in grade school, once I had to stand in front of the class and sing and act, "I'm a Little Teapot," as punishment for yet another failed spelling test.

It's strange because I started reading at age four and have read about 100 books a year ever since. I did hear somewhere that people who read a lot don't really see the middle of a word but skim through the first few letters to the last and fill in the middle just from learned expectation.

Maby thits wht I ben doon.
 
I always thought of myself as a good speller. But one time in elementary school I considered joining a national spelling bee. They gave me a list of weird words nobody ever uses and told me to study.

They were words you had to memorize because there was no way to sound out the spelling.

I bailed out of the spelling bee.

One thing I'm proud about now is that I have to look at the keyboard when I type (always have). So when I get typing, I look up and have very few corrections to make.
Well, there is the occasional attack of dyslexia in my old age when I try to type too quickly.
 
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HoneyNut said:
I remember my mom laughing at me because I thought the singular for potatoes was potatoe
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"It was Dan Quayle who famously "misspelled" potato as "potatoe" in 1992 during a spelling bee at a New Jersey elementary school, a gaffe that became a defining moment and symbol of his perceived lack of intellect, though he claimed he was following a card with the misspelling already on it. "

This poor guy had that "potatoe" word follow him for decades.
 
English is notorious for not being a phonetic language, meaning words are often spelled differently than they sound. This is frequently due to historical changes in pronunciation that were never updated in spelling, or borrowed words from other languages. Pronounce rough, cough and though. Then add through, thought and plough.
English also has silent letters, like knife, debt and write.
How non-English speakers master our tongue twisting language i will never know.
 
horseless carriage said:
English is notorious for not being a phonetic language, meaning words are often spelled differently than they sound. This is frequently due to historical changes in pronunciation that were never updated in spelling, or borrowed words from other languages. Pronounce rough, cough and though. Then add through, thought and plough.
English also has silent letters, like knife, debt and write.
How non-English speakers master our tongue twisting language i will never know.
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Point taken. But are you a good speller as well as a snazzy dresser?
 
I won spelling bee competitions in grade school and would use the sounding out method to spell big words. I now seem to have to check with google if I cannot remember how to spell, even simple words.
 

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