To tell you which words I have trouble with

As a teacher I would often reassure parents that spelling was developmental.  I was a terrible speller all through elementary and secondary school. Then in university something switched and voila I could spell.  There are a few words that still elude me, others I have conquered, however I still second guess the spelling of Winnepeg (it's Winnipeg in case you're wondering).

Every time.  I always write it as everytime because it seems like it should be a conjunction, like the word sometime, I think that it should be the same.  But it's not so I will try to change, but I cannot promise I will because everytime (ugh) I type it I think that it's a real word and am in shock that it is not.

Every time is much like highschool.  I think it should be one word, but it is not.  And I am always confused that it gets highlighted by my spell checker.  It should be one word.  Because it is not a school that you go to get high, it is not on a hill, high is not a qualifier, it is a name of a building, it should be highschool, but it is not so I will learn to correct it.

Parallel. I thought I could get away with misspelling this word, but when it shows up in your literature review and a research assistantship position you learn pretty quickly that it is not parralell or paralell or even parrallell.  It often got me as a geometry teacher too.  I would abbreviate it to para just so my students didn't know that I struggled with its spelling.

Pretty much any word that has a double letter in it somewhere.  I had trouble with recommend (reccommend) until my brother told me it was re and commend, then I had it.  The same with tomorrow, that one teased me through grade school (tommorow or tommorrow just to be safe).  I would have to apologize for how I spelled appollogize to people, and would remember that I did not remmember  how to spell apollogize.  I blame Apollo 13 for my issues with apologize and my friends that had speech impediments for remmember.

Arguments. I hate that I spell this word incorrectly, arguements, it really irks me.  It's an argumentative word and it drives me bonkers.  I know the rule of dropping the e and blah blah blah but it's a strong u sound and deserves the e directly beside it.

Achieve gets me too.  I often spell it acheive which is ironic since I love to achieve.

One of my favourite words, and I have to apologize (I also had to correct apologize while typing) for this, I thought that the computer didn't recognize it as a word and have been spelling it incorrectly for a number of years: Bizarre.  I was convinced that it was bizzare. The emphasis is on the bizz in speech, so why wouldn't it be the same in spelling too?

These errors have come and gone, some lasting longer than I would like, I apparently just need to learn better mnemonics like re and commend to help with my spelling.  But I think that every time will get me everytime.

That's all.

Comments

  1. Hi Kara, as promised on tweeter, here I am. And this is your first post I read. You got me LOL. To me, it's worse because I learned my English using Brits English but nowadays, even the computer is set up American English. Re: achieve. Same with their and people write it as thier.. Great writing. Cheers.

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