Saturday, September 20, 2008

I Can Spell!

When I was younger, back in the dark ages, I had the worst time with spelling. It never seemed to click with me. I used to dread spelling tests because I knew I was hopeless. I blamed my inability to spell on the fact that I am left-handed. (It's a "handy" excuse. I use it a lot) I was always frustrated by teachers who told me to look up the word in a dictionary if I didn't know how to spell it. Hello, McFly! If I can't spell it then how can I look it up? Logic people, logic!

Then, along came spell check! It was love at first correction! I didn't have to know how to spell anymore! Spell check would fix all of my mistakes! Except when there was a homonym or something - in that case I would just look like an idiot. Which, come to think of it, happens frequently enough without spellcheck...

After many many many years of enjoying spell check I began to resent it. I began to hate seeing words underlined in red. It was as if my 3rd grade teacher was grading my work all over again! I actually began to pay attention to words that I frequently misspelled like maintenance, unconscious, necessary, convenience (for some reason I could never get these right).

Pretty soon I was ambitious enough to tackle miscellaneous, obsequious, ubiquitous and other strangely spelled words. Since starting school again two years ago I have had to write a multitude of papers and every time it becomes a game. A challenge. Me versus Spellcheck. And boy do I love it when I can just hit "ignore" because stupid spellcheck doesn't recognize some obscure IT technical term. Take that, Spellcheck! HA HA!

Even Blogger and I face off from time to time. I can not even describe the swell of satisfaction when I click on the tiny little check mark and discover zero misspellings. I suppose I've just found another slice of life to obsess over - but at least this obsession has a practical purpose! My elementary school teachers may not have been able to motivate me to spell but by golly, spell check did!

(as a foot note, I just hit spell check and it found that I had misspelled "describe" "tackle" and "elementary." So much for my super spelling prowess!)

4 comments:

Madame Queen said...

Ha! Fortunately for me, spelling is always something I've been good at. I even won the county spelling bee in fifth and seventh grade. I have found, however, that the older I've gotten the worse my spelling has become.

Do you know what I find ironic? That Blogger doesn't recognize the word blog. It may now, but it didn't for a while.

WORKING MOM said...

Yeah, what the hell is with the "look for the spelling in the dictionary" comment? Good for you with the spelling, and I go head to head with grammar check on my Word processing all of the time.

Unknown said...

I am sure they were just typos, not misspellings....is there two s's in mis-spellings...

ah, I feel your pain.

Matter Of Fact Mommy said...

wow, a post re: spelling.

i had a great 3rd grade teacher. but i also think it has a lot to do with a "Spelling Gene". seriously. hear me out... everyone in my family can spell. that is; my mom, my dad, and my brother. my sister (different dad) says the wrong words and can't spell for shit. one time, when i was 14yrs old (she's 11yrs older than me) she used the word "antidote" instead of "anecdote" and i was all over her shit. "WAIT. did you just say ANTIDOTE?!"

anyway, glad you've been able to conquer your 'fear' of spelling. ;)