Spell-Check

Years and years ago while married to Bill (for 21 years), he often told me I would be a good proofreader.  Seriously.  He would catch me circling (with red-ballpoint pen) any typo in whatever book or magazine I was reading at the time.  And he meant it as a compliment.

Today I’m doing well if I can complete my own sentences without spell-check, having become a bit of my mother.  The more languages she learned, the worse speller she became.

A month ago Petra wrote about the Charm of Mnenomics, remember?  When I read her post, I chuckled because I was already forming these thoughts after that quickie trip to Ireland two weeks earlier.

Look at that elegant, artistic font above from a book in the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin.   Don’t you wonder how those scribes of yore corrected typos without spell-check or white-out?!  Or did they?

Take MISSISSIPPI, as a mnemonic example.  I bet you learned to spell it as M-I-crooked letter, crooked letter-I-crooked letter, crooked letter-I-humpback, humpback-I.  HA!  It has a sing-song rhythm you could never forget.

To put me in my place, I remember terrible spelling snafus I made while growing up.  My name happens to be Virginia Louise but my family called me Bootsie for short (long story).  Somewhere along the line, when I obviously thought my powers of logic were exemplary, I decided the ‘sie’ at the end of Bootsie was the same sound as the ’ise’ at the end of Louise.  You don’t want to know how long I called myself (on paper) Virginia Lousie (lousy!) before I nearly died in horror on the spot.  Jeez Louise takes on new meaning, right?!

Further demonstrating how those powers of logic did not elude me, I’ll never forget the day I was singing a Daily Vacation Bible School song…”We’re going to the mansion on the Happy Day Express.  The letters on the engine R-J-E-S-U-S”…and suddenly “got” it.   Though I had sung it correctly, of course, it hadn’t computed.  Yup, very embarrassing.

This, of course, is totally aside from the they’re-there-their, your-you’re, lose-loose, then-than, its-it’s, led-lead, etc. quirks.  For some reason, those were always easy-peasy for me.  I understood that kind of logic.

Growing up we had a guy in our church, one of the biggest brainiacs I’ve ever known, who went to MIT.  I remember being aghast by letters he’d write home filled with spelling errors.  Later I learned that Einstein had dyslexia and he, too, was a terrible speller.  In fact, the list he’s on has quite an impressive line-up.  Long before spell-check!

Bottom-line, don’t you wonder if spelling is relevant at all, as long as we’re communicating?  Have we made it more important than it needs to be?  What does it say about us when we turn our nose down at typos and those who make them?  Especially if it has nothing to do with one’s intelligence!

Gotta love Winnie-the-Pooh, my guru, when it comes to these spelling things:

You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right;
but spelling isn’t everything.  There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.
(from The House at Pooh Corner, 1928)

My spelling is Wobbly.  It’s good spelling but it Wobbles,
and the letters get in the wrong places.
(from Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926)

How can you possibly dispute the logic of that!