Spelling - awful.

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My name is Ceili and I'm a terrible speller. Always have been. I spell the same words wrong every time I write them down and I have done since I can remember.
My question is why??
I read a lot. I write a lot. I'm a pretty smart cookie but... I can't spell. WHY? What the hell is wrong with me. Is this normal?
Is there a way I can improve or am I a hopeless case? Is this a sign of some brain problem? I'm actually serious about this. It bothers me to no end.
Is anyone else affected by this, (aside from those who don't give a damn) if so, have you been able to cure this problem and how?(the same words, same bad spelling)
I've memorized all the rules (i before e and all that) but still can't seem to put it on paper or type the same damn words properly. Is it a form of dyslexia or just plain stupidity???
I consistently forget to pluralize words, dropping the s or d when needed... I just don't get it, it's like I have a block or something.
Thanks

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Type: Discussion • Score: 21 • Views: 9,600 • Replies: 92

@Ceili,

The good news is that poor spelling has nothing to do with intelligence. Some people just can not spell.

1 Reply

@Ceili,

I have no idea. Sometimes I completely trip over words I've written correctly my entire life. When it happens, there is simply no possible combination of letters that even look right.

1 Reply

@Ceili,

Quote:

My name is Ceili and I'm a terrible speller.

Welcome to Spellers' Anonymous! The first thing that you must do is recognize that you cannot solve this thing alone. You must recognize that there is a higher power.

The second thing you must do is send me a certified bank draft for $5,000.00 and I'll send you "Seqrets to Becuming a Succezzfull Spellar".

Yes, it's normal. Forget the rules, i before e, etc, they are pretty much useless. That particular one is absolutely useless.

Depending on your age, there are some things that you can do to improve your spelling [they're all in my book] but it's mostly just hard slogging, rote memorization. These days, what with spell check and all, it's become way less important.

Roger's problem is simply momentary forgetfulness. It happens to us all, young and old, though old, because of age, has a greater problem. Smile

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@Ceili,

Quote:

I'm a pretty smart cookie

that would explain how you know you cant spell

i b4 e except after c when the sound is e

1 Reply

@oolongteasup,

That rule is weird.

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@roger,

tHATS JUST CUZ YOURE AN OLD FOOL.

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@Ceili,

You just have more important things cataloged and/or processing in your brain! It could also be a somewhat neurological adaptation to the ever present spell check available on every computer.

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A few years back, I forgot how to spell my first name - Charles. No combination of 'rles' seemed correct. Happily, the episode has not repeated itself.

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It seems like i cannot learn how to spell certain words. No matter how many times I see the correct spelling, I still can't remember how to spell it!

1 Reply

@Bella Dea,

Me, too!

My first spelling crisis came when I learned to type. Words that looked fine in script suddenly looked wrong in NYTimes.

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POM wrote:

NYTimes.

They are known for bad spelling..

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@Ceili,

I've noticed that how I first learned things made a big difference. Some things just took root and are there and that's it (except for the memory lapses). Others were planted badly and I have to think anew each time. (Like greater-than and less-than signs. In second grade my teacher told me something confusing about a fish eating something and I ALWAYS have to think about it before I can figure it out.) (Does the fish want to eat the bigger, yummier object or is it a big fish eating a smaller fish....?????)

That's not precisely the same thing, but you've had this problem since you can remember, maybe something similar may have happened with those words.

2 Replies

@sozobe,

By the way I don't know if you make liberal use of spellcheck or what but your spelling always seems fine to me.

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@sozobe,

Quote:

Others were planted badly and I have to think anew each time.

I definitely can relate to that...for me it was more in the area of math in the formative years.

Anyway, here's a look at a prefessional writer's angst over his inability to spell, with some humorous anecdotes and the lengths to which he's gone to conquer what he sees as an 'impairment' to his livelihood. (Also some interesting and scientific info towards the end of the article).

Quote:

I once spent 20 minutes rewriting "mosquito" because I couldn't even get close enough for spell-check to take over.)

Quote:

A far more appealing diagnosis of my affliction, if you ask me, is a growing body of evidence showing that some chronically awful spellers have an actual neurological misfire, a kind of dyslexia that keeps the most well-intentioned brain from remembering what words "look" like when it comes time to write them. One thing I can spell, people, is d-i-s-a-b-i-l-i-t-y. If this pans out, I may be able to get a better parking place at the mall.

Quote:

It doesn't need to be this way. Did you know they don't really have such a thing as misspelling in Italy, Spain, Portugal and other countries with a more straightforward orthography? Ask a fellow on the streets of Lima how to spell abogado, and he'll simply repeat the word more slowly. It's like asking someone in Washington to spell FBI.

Quote:

What researchers think they are seeing in those scans is dyslexia in action. And some of them think it's also the neurological core of bad spelling.

"If you don't activate Area C, you'll never be a good speller," Gentry argues. "That's where you 'see' a complete word in your mind's eye, whether you're reading it or writing it. And if you can't visualize it, you're just winging it based on what it sounds like. In a language with as many irregularly spelled words as English, you're going to be wrong a lot of the time."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27074-2005Feb15?language=printer

3 Replies

@Irishk,

Good post.

I teach developmental English and I have many students for whom English is a second . . . or third . . . language. For some of them, spellcheck just does not work. A Puerto Rican woman constantly spelled "with" as "wife." In most contexts, wife was ignored. I tell non-native speakers to use a paper dictionary.

I also have students who begin their college careers with zero knowledge of computers. The above woman, although perhaps under-30, didn't know how to start a computer. A middle aged student, looking for a more lucrative career to end her working life, didn't know those red and green lines under some of her words meant anything.

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Along those lines, this paragrah in the article stood out to me:

"Those are simpler, phonetically based systems," says Gentry. They enjoy something much closer to a one-to-one correspondence of a single letter or letter combination to a single sound. "In Italian, they have 33 letter combinations to spell 25 sounds. In English, we have about 1,120 letter combinations to make 44 sounds."

1 Reply

@Irishk,

Interesting Irishk.
Being ESL myself, I used to write different spelling methods on paper and whatever looked better to me, I used, but only if there wasn't a dictionary handy. This was before spell check of course - which by the way isn't all that of a great tool for someone who is weak in spelling. You don't get the "aha effect" of finding the right word in the dictionary and re-writing it in your context. Spell check corrects errors fast, too fast for your brain to memorize the correct spelling.

3 Replies

@plainoldme,

Agreed - I am a poor speller and I would consider myself to be somewhat intelligent and like you, love to read. There is no logic to many of the English words so if you are logical and do not have photographic memory, then it would make sense that you are not a good speller.

I think it is more important to recognize it and when it is important to spell well (any sort of professional correspondance) to double check any words you have in doubt or have some one else re-read it.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

Sometimes, I just have to ask my students what they meant when they wrote their pieces. They hear English through Arabic or Spanish or a language of India. Even Spanish speakers from different countries hear English in a different way. Peninsular Spaniards have a better handle on English than many New World Spanish speakers.

There have been times when it was futile to ask what word they meant . . . because they sometimes can not detect the difference between two English words . . . I have to ask using the definition.

0 Replies

Spelling - awful.

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