Spelling Bees
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Jun 27 2008
The word occasion. I don’t know what it is about that word, but every single time I type it I get it wrong. I know that if I were in a spelling bee and up for millions of dollars it would be that one simple word that would bring me down.
In a conversation lately with a friend we were discussing spelling and today’s youth. Okay, specifically her daughter. Because of spell check and computers it seems that we are all becoming poor spellers. I have to say, I still instinctively backspace and change words as I’m typing. Must have been those manual typewriters I learned on. But I think most people simply type away, let the red lines appear, and spell check to fix everything in the end. Few bother to actually learn how the words are spelled.
What about you? What are your thoughts on spelling today and what words always, always trip you up?
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
For me, it’s always been “conscious” and “conscience”. Can’t keep their meanings straight, and can’t spell them, either! Ever since I goofed them up and lost the 7th grade spelling bee, they’ve continued to haunt me.
Oh, well. In the words of Rosanne Rosannadanna, “It’s always something … “
Have a great day.
KATHLEEN IRENE PATERKA
“Villain” – want to write villian” – always have to check the dictionary.
While I love my spell check, I agree that it’s turning my kids’ generation into poor, lazy spellers; the same way their school’s allowing the use of calculators has made them forget many of their multiplication facts.
I have a mental block with any of the “ough” words: though, through, and especially thoroughly and throughout. Ugh!
Growing up, I was the Queen Bee of all things related to English (my favorite subject) and spelling. I just loved words – still do! – and I was a stickler for knowing how they looked on paper. The dictionary was probably my favorite book and constant companion back then. Drove my older sister crazy – especially since her spelling was horrendous (still is, poor thing, but I love seeing what she comes up with!)
Consequently, I am a stickler for making sure my daughters get it right, too. They are forever asking me, “How do you spell that?” I think you are so right in your assessment about the computer making it too easy for kids these days to get by without putting in the effort to learn how some things are spelled and that spelling would be a lost art if not for that little contest they have for it each year. Like you, I also find myself backspacing to correct something – sometimes even before the spell checker picks it up; instinctively, I can tell that it’s wrong.
What a great, thought-provoking post!
I have a problem with “occasion” too! There was a florist near my husband’s work that had it spelled “ocassion” on their sign; I knew it was wrong but I passed by the place so many times it started to look right, and now I have to stop and think every time.
My words:
Rhythm.
Ecstasy
weird
relief
When my children first learned to write in grammar school, I was skeptical when the teacher insisted parents not correct their children’s spelling on written pieces. It’s not that the schools don’t teach kids how to spell, they just teach it separately from writing. They want the kids to concentrate on putting their thoughts together when they write. I gritted my teeth and let my kids misspell words as instructed. Several years later, my kids excel at both writing and spelling so it didn’t hurt them.
Personally, I also correct my spelling as I go along, but when I’m really churning out pages, I fell guilty, like it’s a bad habit I need to break. Spell check was invented just for that purpose.
For me it’s the word “marriage”. I always want to put the “a” before the “i”. And I have a real problem with “they’re”, “their”, and “there”, along with “your” and “you’re”. I have to run a FIND on each one of these words when my ms is finished. I wish spell check could correct usage!
I can never keep my s’s and z’s straight, which always pops up in words like surprise and realize.
I don’t know if spelling is getting worse, it just doesn’t have the importance it used to. Spelling is pure memorization, and some kids don’t do well at that (they prefer to explore, decipher, and calculate their answers.) I know when I took those exams in elementary school, I got in the 95-99th percentile of all kids in the nation for most stuff, but a whopping 60th percentile for spelling.
Then again, I once lost a spelling be on the word ‘cabbage’.
I’ve got a ton of words that trip me up. I was a victim of California’s whole language teaching craze in the 70’s and never properly learned phonics. I remember having the worst trouble with “Toward,” for some stupid reason for a long time.
I still trip up on vacuum. And certain ie words. I have some trouble getting the right vowel sound sometimes too. Independance instead of Independence for example.
I do correct as I go as the word appears in red. If I don’t practice typing it correctly, my muscle memory won’t learn it.
I’m totally with you on the word ‘occasion’, I’m even surprised I spelled that right just now without the aid of Firefox’s spellchecker. It’s one of the many words that trip me up.
We were taught spelling at school but for my whole academic, pre-university life, teachers would describe my spelling as ‘imaginative’.
I honestly believe some people can have spelling blind-spots. I have a lot but less than I did when I was younger. I don’t think the spellchecker has done anything apart from make sure that now, at least, things ought to be spelled right and if they’re not, the mistake is glaring.
Glamorous. Which I don’t have to spell too often, but I’ve never gotten on the first try. (How many Ms? e-r or o-r? Gaaah.)
I’ve found that spell check can fix my typos, but when I misspell a word I do it so remarkably it can’t even guess what I’m trying to say and I have to look it up anyway.
English isn’t the first language I learned (I was born in Puerto Rico), so I was kind of behind when I entered Kindergarten (in New Jersey). Spelling was one of those things I always lagged a little behind, but never stopped striving to get better at. I use spell check as a tool to get better at it. I hope one day not to make the same mistakes for the rest of my life.
Words I have the worst time with are the ones with ie like shield or wield. I keep wanting to switch them to sheild and weild.
Rhyme and rhythm. Don’t know why, but I always seem to confuse them, and spell check almost always has to “automatically” fix them for me, especially rhythm.
Oh, and lullaby. I’m always wanting to put a silent “e” on the end.
So yes, spell check is a blessing, but it has made me less independent (did I spell that one right??snort)and more lazy as a writer.
Maybe it’s cause I’m almost young enough to be part of “kids these days,” but I dont wholly agree that spellcheck is to blame.
I think it’s a relaxing of standards from the top down. I’ve met many, many people older than me (can’t call them old) who admit they’re not very good spellers and who don’t want or can’t invest the time to do some memorization to be better spellers. They rely on spellcheck perhaps too heavily, but they also don’t work in a world where spelling is as crucial as it is for writers. And they don’t instill in the kids that certain things, like spelling, are that important– though it’d be hard because there’s a lot of evidence that spelling and mechanics are not likely to hold people back in the workworld.
It’s that lack of concern that’s the problem, not the tool. I think that the biggest problem facing kids these days is not that they can and do use every tool they can, but that they’re too apathetic to bother with much. Take away spellcheck, and most people won’t check themselves. Take away the car, and most people will just stay home.
Quiet and Quite for me…I mix them up every time.
Morgan
accommodation – triple check those m’s!
Also, manoeuvre – I always spell it manouevre at first
mpe
Occasion is definitely one of my problem words.
I’ve noted that when I was in school I was a fabulous speller. And that as I turned pro and wrote more and more, my spelling actually got worse. Either I’ve got Fuzzy Brain Disease (what we in the Terry household call Alzheimer’s Disease) or I’m just using so many words it’s hard to keep them all straight.
I’m betting that with texting being so rampant that the next generation will have no real clue (or value for) correct spelling or punctuation.
Me, I’m a backspace and fix it girl, because a lot of my trip-up words are things the spell-check won’t catch, like typing FORM when I mean FROM.
I’m dyslexic, so for me there are so very many words I misspell chronically. It’s sad to admit that my spelling is so “creative” that even spell checker cannot help and I often have to call a friend to get me close enough for spell checker to make a stab at it.
After all these years, I’ve learned to make peace with this weakness and it just means doing more due-diligence.
To be honest, I worry more abt what texting does to inhibit kids from learning to spell than the help spell checker does–but that’s another rant.
Have a great weekend,
Theresa
For me it’s curiousity the ‘u’ doesn’t belong but, curiously has a ‘u’, it trips me up every time…
I struggle with my s’s and z’s, as well; not to mention c’s, which fall along the same lines. I remember one day when I was sitting and staring at the word “practice” and trying to figure out whether I needed an “s” or a “c.” It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to spell it, it was just this huge spelling senior moment!
I also struggle with Lieutenant, develop, and equipment, which I tend to spell Leiutenant (thank God for “i” before “e”, except after “c” !), develope, and equiptment. When I was working on a story with a Lieutenant as one of the main characters, I gave up and abbreviated after the first couple of times!
From/form and curiously/curiosity are also points of frustration. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.
“exaggerate” (and other forms)
An old, old “Peanuts” strip has Charlie Brown writing the annual letter to Santa Claus. He gets as far as “Please bring me a pair of” and stops, stumped. He has one of those rare offstage interactions with adults: “Mom! How many g’s are there in ‘goggles’?”
“Two,” his mother says.
He finishes his sentence: “ggogles.”
I think of that strip every, single, time I have to spell “exaggerate.”
Exercise-
Fairly simple, but I CANNOT remember how to spell it. It’s gotten so I’ve highlighted it in the dictionary. I always want to spell it “excersize”. Now, I don’t trust myself so I just automatically look it up when I need it. Really dumb!
I was always good at spelling, all the way through school. To this day I don’t understand why people can’t spell simple words. My typing isn’t great though. And yeah, I’m the age that has me backspacing instead of relying on nasty spellcheck.
However, as I get older (I’m 37) I find that words aren’t looking right and I second guess myself. My natural spelling ability is crumbling!
Okay, for me it’s restaurant. I never remember the correct placement for the ‘u’.
I homeschool, and you better believe we have spelling class. It’s a given that there’s a test every Friday. And the older grades get vocabulary words, too.
For me, I always found spelling fairly easy. I was such a heavy reader that my brain was used to how things were supposed to be spelled. Of course that explains why I do ‘colour’ and ‘honour’. Too many British books.
WandaV
As a kid who grew up with spell check and is mildly dyslexic, I’d like to say that spell check has been the thing that kept me from making a fool of myself more times that I can count. But didn’t help me on a single essay test — all those were pen and ink!
More than spell check, it was the method of “phonetic spelling” that did awful things for me because all vowels sounded the same to me. I learn spelling by rote and find myself on dictionary.com a dozen times a day.
Knowing how to spell the word is so much more efficient than using spell check.
Except for occur and vacuum I can never remember which of these words is the one with two C’s!
I also must backspace and correct, though I’m trying to teach myself to look into space, rather than at the screen, as I compose ex nihilo, thus letting the creative words flow without restriction.
My problem are the words ending in -ise or -ice or -ize. I can never remember which is which and, since I read a lot of 19th Century British stuff, I’m thoroughly confused between what’s British and American practice, and what’s archaic versus modern. Is it “exercize” or “exercise”? Defense or defence? And when?
Best Regards,
DAT
I’m a backspacer. I make lots of mistakes in my typing (probably going too fast), but when I take a typing test, I still usually come out at 99.8% accuracy. I guess I have a really fast backspacing pinky. 🙂
I bemoan the state of spelling these days, too. My husband is so intimidated by spelling that he rarely writes anything, and calls me from work to ask how to spell things. (I still love him dearly, though!)
We all have trouble words, though. “Sentence” was one of mine, until I started homeschooling my kids. Nothing like that to help/force you to finally learn those words that “get” you! The others that occasionally bother me are also “an” or “en” words.
For me, it is embarrass. It was the only word I spelled wrong out of 100 on a college test. It always bugged me that I didn’t get a perfect score. It’s been years since that test, but 2 r’s, 2 r’s always ring in my mind when I use the word.
I was a good speller in school, but that was in Australia. I’ve lived in the U.S. for years but still have difficulty with spelling especially if I’m “in the moment in my writing” strange how we flip back to earlier learning in those cases.
One that always trips me up is canceled, I put in an extra ‘l’.
But, I keep my coffee at my right hand and dictionary at my left, so I’m good.
I’m actually a pretty good speller, though do get tripped up on occasion with things. When I write however, I’m constantly rereading. I like to edit as I go along so I can keep the follow-up editing to a minimum when drafts are done. I also don’t like the little red lines that show up and have to fix whatever it is before I can move on.
JDuncan
I have trouble spelling, I do use the spellcheck, but I hate those red lines! I alwyas backspace and try to fix the word because leaving the lines drives me nutty.
My pinkie can backspace so fast you wouldn’t believe! My worst word is opportunity.
But, when I’m on a writing roll? It seems the more I write, the more I make really, really, stupid spelling errors. Like, hear and here, there and their, etc. It’s not like I don’t know the difference!
Occur, occurred. I can spell the first one, usually, but I try to spell occurred “occured,” for which I get a nice red line. Now, many years ago this would have made sense to me- occured should sound like awk-cure-d- but I thought for sure there were a couple weird words that didn’t double up on r’s in past tense, and since this had two c’s before it looked weird to put two r’s in. That’s the only big one I can think of that zings me.
Oh, and a silly Spelling Bee story. In 2nd grade or so, for some reason when I was told to spell door I sounded it out, thought of another word with “dore” in it- “adore” – and spelled it that way. I was so angry when I realized my mistake, not that I disagreed with the staff or anything. We all stayed to watch and there was a word I really wouldn’t have gotten anyway, so that made me feel better. I was a really good speller otherwise, so I was steamed until then.
One a geeky linguistic side note, for some reason the plural of dominatrix came up in conversation, and I rendered it dominatrices. We then proceeded to squabble about whether or not that was right in English, regardless of whether it was right in Latin.
Happy parsing,
Matt
Definitely always trips me up. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out how to spell it, so couldn’t even find it in a dictionary. I do the same thing you do and backspace if I’ve misspelled a word.
I backspace and correct as well – I did all the essay- and thesis-writing for my UG degree on manual terminals with no spellchecker, and the habit stayed with me.
Particular bugbears:
weird
commemorate
the plural of anything that ends in -key (donkey, monkey) – I *always* stop, think, then go for ‘donkies’. D’oh.
I’ve always been an anal speller. I have a long list of pet peeves regarding manufactured signage in stores that have bad spelling.
I was in an adult spelling be a couple of months ago, and one of the words I had to really think about was ‘reticule’.
I loved Ronsanne Rosannadanna. My hair looks like hers today as a matter of fact!
Most of the time I just get my fingers tangled up on the keyboard.
Occasion used to give me problems, too, but my mom cured me (I’ll share her secret, Jessica).
All words with double letters give me trouble, especially embarrass and exaggerate (already mentioned here).
In a purely unscientific study, I’ve observed that good spellers tend to think good spelling is a necessity, and poor spellers downplay its importance ;-).
Aside from being a chronic homophone abuser, there are words I have a tough time with and occasion used to be one of them. But here’s a trick that will help: Always remember the hard “c” and sound it out “oc ca sion.” That will fix you, guaranteed.
My bugaboo words are:
epitome
epiphany
I’ve always been one of those weird kids that could spell anthropomorphic in fourth grade, but couldn’t spell something as simple as “which,” or “girl”
I traveled a lot as a child, which is one of the reasons writing starting appealing to me. And I’ve been too some schools that would sit me up front of a computer to test my ‘reading abilities’ and then question like “Would you prefer to ride a bike or rollerblade in the summer?” would come up. And you actually answered the question.
According to those results I was in a second grade reading level and the school wouldn’t let me read anything higher than that. A few months later, I moved to a different school, where they had me read passages from different grade level books, would test me on my understanding of what I read, and how fast I read it. I was in fourth grade and reading above an eighth grade reading level.
I also think schools are too busy “teaching to the test” and figure that if it’s not on the test they don’t have to worry about it. Unfortunately, spelling isn’t on those tests, so it suffers.
I think learning too spell is very important. Its true that a spell chequer will ketch any words that are miss spelled, but they won’t due much for homonyms. Their are a few egg samples I can think off.
I’m also a backspacer. I cannot stand having any lines on the screen telling me I made a MISTAKE.
My evil words have already been mentioned:
occurred
embarrassed
exercise
I usually self-correct when the red lines show up. Sometimes it takes me two or three tries to get it right, but figuring it out on my own helps me get it right for the next time. Interesting post. Just a month or two ago, I had this same conversation with someone.
Those little red squiggles made me a better speller because I instantly recognized that the word was spelled wrong, and backspaced and retyped it until it was right. But then, my high school class was the last class to learn to type on typewriters.
SEPARATELY. I am just determined to spell it “SEPERATELY.” And don’t even get me started on MAINTENANCE, which I will try to spell “MAINTAINANCE,” “MAINTANENCE,” and whatever other varieties I can come up with before spell-check is happy.
I have the same issues with occasion. Not mention other forms of it. And Lightning, which I always type first as lightening. And words that end in l when I want to add an -ly. Sigh. I correct them as I go. I do not hardly use spell check because frankly I write fantasy and get tired of spell check telling me my names and places and everything else is spelled wrong.
Your post made me so happy because I never can spell the word occasion without the little red line appearing under it. I always throw in an extra ‘s’. I even did it just now even though I saw the correct spelling in your post just a few seconds ago.
There are a few others that trouble me, but none to the level of occasion or occasionally.
Are people worse spellers now than before because of the “evil red underline”? I would have to say that they are because of amateur writings that friends have passed off to me for my opinion. I feel bad when I tell them that I can’t even get into the characters/story because of the horrible spelling and grammar.
Emporer. Or Emperor. Whichever it is! I have to always look that one up. 🙂
Ugh. I always work with the spell-checker OFF on my computer because the grammar function is so terrible. I’m a very good speller, so if I’m uncertain of a word, I’ll check it individually, but I never rely on the thing, and for important documents (like manuscripts!) I’ll run the checker at the end to catch words I subconsciously mistyped, but on the whole I don’t need the feature.
I don’t always backspace because it ruins the flow, but when I hit the end of a sentence or paragraph I’ll go back and try to fix it on my own rather than spell checking. I get asked so often how to spell things that I try to know the answers 🙂
Verbally, I always screw up double letters. In writing and typing, I generally add e’s and s’s to the end of everything. 🙂
I learned how to type on a computer…and any time I had something wrong, I would backspace all the way back up to the problem and re-type. It ingrained a lot of things into my head early.
I also had an English teacher for a mother who would correct me all the time while speaking.
I do believe most people suffer in spelling and grammar because of tools meant to “help” us.
Most of my issues are usually with words which have inconsistent duplicates of consonants (normally c and s), such as the example you gave. I have a tough time remembering whether a word has 1 c, 2 s or 2 c, 1s or 2 c, 2 s. Ugh.
Yeah, I’m a backspacer. I can’t help it.
I don’t text-message because the bad spelling gives me hives.
I turn the spell-checker off on my computer, because I can’t stand the sight of those red lines–especially when I KNOW that I haven’t misspelled that word. YOU ARE WRONG, SPELL-CHECK! That word exists.
So, yeah, I’m a little OCD.
The only word that trips me up is Caribbean. I always want to add the extra “R.” Once I spell it that way, I can see that it’s wrong, but I always get it wrong the first time.
I always misspell the word “weird”. I’ll always spell it “wierd”.
I am a backspacer. I have to fix my boo boos immediately or they distract me from continuing further.
While typing, if I make a mistake in spelling I immediately go back and fix it. I know when I’ve hit the wrong keys, usually in haste. If I’m unsure of how to spell a word I check my trusty Oxford Thesaurus.
I’m fix the spelling as I go person. Backspace is my favorite key. LOL I’ll be typing along and see that I misspelled a word three words back and backspace all the way even though the other words are spelled right. Then I laugh at myself for doing twice the work.
My spelling horrors: misspelled and vacuum.
Fun blog.
I check as I write also, to include grammar and sensibility. It makes turning out the first draft dreadfully slow, but saves revision time later. At least that’s what I tell myself.
When it comes to spelling I tend towards questioning the correct spelling. I’ll linger on words I know I’ve typed correctly and wonder, “Who thought of that?”.
Chris
Spell checkers are making me a better speller. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be writing stuff with errors that I’m oblivious to.
It is auto-correct that makes us bad spellers because it lets us type words incorrectly and fixes them without us realizing the mistake.
Jessica, I love you, soul sista. I think we were separated at birth. (Separate kinda throws me sometimes, as well. I want to put an ‘e’ in there.)
Occasion – it’s just not that hard. But I have to look it up, think about it, type it in and see if Word redlines it, EVERY time.
I saw this post and died laughing.
I am a dedicated back-spacer. More often than not, my spouse asks me how to spell something, rather than relying on the spell check function. But every once in a while, I get caught out…and it’s always something with multiple consonants, like unnecessary (I tend to forget the second ‘n’!)
‘Occasion’ is one of the ones that trips me up, too. When I type, it’s like, “Ocassion? Occasion?” Lots of words are like that, even though logically I know how to spell them and wouldn’t mess them up if I were spelling them aloud.
I’m a dedicated backspacer. It just seems lazy to leave the red squiggles. I want to fix what I did wrong so that I don’t do it again, rather than letting Word take care of it.
It’s more my typing and than my spelling that trips me up, but like you I hit backspace and fix as a I go.
After 36 years functioning as my husband’s spell checker, I’ve gotten pretty good at spelling, but I must admit, I still rely on spell check for my own writing. I correct immediately, though, when that little red line points out an error!
Eye gots know problim speling. its grmmer thet iz mi dwnfal.
When it happens, it’s the simple words that throw me completely off. I type the word, and then have to stop and think about it, and it never looks right. Ever forget how to spell how? =p It’s usually because I’m tired. The only red lines I ever see in my Word doc are the strange names I come up with (besides my own name) and foreign languages. Try writing Arabic with English letters. Weird.
I used to run a computer lab at a junior high school, and part of my job was to teach or help the teacher teach the kids how to use Word. I would walk them through everything, and the one thing I always mentioned and repeated to them was that spellcheck isn’t always correct, nor does it catch all the words because though it may look right to the computer, it may not be the correct word for the sentence. There are dictionaries on the bookshelf. Kids today rely on spellcheck too much, or they don’t care. I sponsored a writing club while at the school, and even these wonderfully talented kids couldn’t spell some of the time. The difference with them was that they cared and would make the adjustments… and pick up a dictionary. I’ve seen a lot of laziness with the kids today, my foster daughter included. I think she may very well be the worst of them. =p She proudly admits to it, too. Oy.
Occasion tripped me up recently, and since then I haven’t forgotten how to spell it. Although, I will say that I have to stop and think about words such as received. That “i before e except after c” rule doesn’t always apply. 😉 Oh, and then there’s the whole text messaging language. I think that hinders today’s youth more than anything else.
I backspace and fix the errors, as well, but it has more to do with the fact that I type too fast. =)
I usually correct myself, but if I’m on a roll, I don’t correct myself at all.
There are a lot of words that trip me up, like ‘bussiness.’ I always get confused over how many ‘s’s there are in it. There are a lot more that I notice my word processor auto-correcting, but I can’t think of them now.
It’s not that people don’t know how to spell, it’s that they CHOOSE not to spell things correctly. Like, people write ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ and so forth because it’s supposedly faster. Yeah, try telling that to me when I’m editing my rough drafts and ‘kifhlwkejr’ means some simple word, like ‘the.’
For me it’s always been ‘vacuum’. It took me years to get it right. Sometimes I trip up on ‘theatre’ and ‘theater’. Must be a latent anglo gene in me or something.
My children seem to be getting the hang of spelling quite nicely. It’s a big deal in the lower grades with weekly test and practices which include rote memorization, alphabetization and writing sentences with words from the list.
What really bugs me about spelling today, and I think it always has,is the use of ‘z’ in words like bratz and boyz. We had a sporting goods store in the town I grew up in called ‘Tom Kat’. I so wanted to change that sign! As you can see it still drives me bananas!
I confess: sheriff. I have a block. Fortunately, I don’t write it very much.
And good old spell check. I always tell the my writing workshops not to trust spell check. It’s like a friend who talks about you behind your back. Sooner or later, it will betray you publicly in the most heinous possible fashion.
I have several words, I’m sometimes tend to be a bad speller, and it’s probably because of Word. I’ve been typing on PC’s for 13 years now and I’ve come to rely on spell checker way too much.
Some of my most common ones are:
Occasion (which I’m actually better at now because I’ve made so many mistakes with it before, it’s usually “Occassion”)
Conscious (I always spell consious without the C or conscience, whcih apparently is another completely different word haha)
Sorcerer (I always want to type “Sorceror”)
Sacrifice (which again I’m starting to spell right because of all my mistakes in spelling it “Sacrafice”)
Just a few. 😀