Every year, Edison Township has contestants for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and their cute pictures would be published in the local newspaper. Last year, even if it was cancelled due to the pandemic, an online substitute contest was won by an eighth grader from Edison, Navneeth Murali, who spelled the word “Karoshthi” correctly. I don’t know what “Karoshthi” means and I am sure even if I read the definition of “Karoshthi”, I still wouldn’t understand what it is. I am hopeless with spelling, or memorization, or the intricacy of roots, definitions, and etymology.
Nice to know immigrants’ children become expert spellers, but for the rest of us, spelling is a struggle. English is a whimsical language and it often inserts silent b, w, k at will, and doubles a letter for no reason at all, just to mention the least of the troubles. English has spelling rules, but the problem is that the rules are broken so frequently that you can’t help but wonder why bother to have rules at all.
If you ask me what’s the greatest invention of the 20th century, I wouldn’t go for airplane, spaceship, washing machine, movie, TV. Yes, you guessed it, my pick will be the humble word processor and its spellcheck. Without the modern Microsoft Word’s auto-correction and Google’s as-you-type spelling assistance, I would have gone crazy long time ago. It is still a mystery to me how people survived a writing task in English without word processors in the past.
When I was in graduate school, I knew a person who can spell, and she often mocked people in her department who cannot do the same. Although I agreed with her just to be on the polite side, I’ve always wanted to tell her that she is a little too proud of herself. Of course I never told her that, and would never dream of doing such a thing. I am a polite girl and I want to keep it that way. Still I have my private opinions.
Mark Twain once said that to misspell a word is to display your imagination. Not exactly his word for word, but something to the same effect. Not just misspelling. Many of our faults originate from our imagination, don’t you think? Our anxiety for example. It often happens that the anxious type suffer deeply from their own imagined disasters. Lovers’ jealousy, for another example. So if your spelling is not good, like mine, “bee” positive and don’t “bee” too hard on yourself. You have the imagination to misspell, the compassion to live with imperfections, and the resilience to bounce back from language disasters no matter how humiliating.
Haoyan Do 
Because of dyslexia i do spell things wrong, thankfully there’s auto correct lol without a phone or computer my spelling would bee a lot worse, also theres the punctuation police that sometimes laugh at my writing lol brilliant blog post my lovely blog friend.
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Thank you for reading. English spelling is very challenging and with dyslexia, it is even more challenging. Thankfully, the greatest of all inventions–auto correct–comes to people like us. Yes, my fellow sufferer and blogging buddy, we thrive despite the laughter of the punctuation police. LOL.
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This is a very awesome topic my friend 👍💙😂.
I believe that there is a time and a place for everything, so if you are conducting business or something of a serious nature in written form, it’s best to stick with standard English as much as possible, that way, you are more likely to avoid writing something that gives people the wrong impression — you want to structure your writing in a way that keeps it in context, and sometimes one word being spelled incorrectly can throw the point of your whole message off lol
Otherwise if you are just talking casually or interacting with friends or having discussions for the fun of it, the use of a ton of dialect and slang is usually just fine, and incorrect spelling wouldn’t matter as much hahaha. It’s all about knowing when and where 😂
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That’s true. Know your audience. LOL.
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Hahaha exactly know you audience or make sure that the audience actually gets the true point that you are actually trying to make 😂😂
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These words make me smile
I will bee 🐝 happy.
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😜😊😉😂 🤣LOL
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It’s in the feelings not in spellings😅
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That is so true. LOL.
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When you have a language that is comprised of old German, Latin, a little of Greek, and even Norse then of course you have a language that’s inconsistent with spelling and grammar.
That’s why there is one goose and two geese, but not one moose and two meese.
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LOL. You are right on it–the spelling is treacherous and little pitfalls exist everywhere. Irregularities more frequent than regularities, at least that’s how I feel. Haha.
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Such a relief to know I have such a good imagination😅
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Me too. 😂😜😆😉😊. Let’s have a party of imaginations. LOL.
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Ha..ha..ha. I can relate to the post. I’m not good at remembering the right spelling and the right word. Sometimes, I invent a new word by mistake.
Anyway, I love to write about the idea which I love so much. Expression and communication is more important, I think.
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I totally agree–communication and expression being more important than correct spelling.
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More important what you say than how you spill it (sic) !
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That’s very true. Content is more important.
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