ragani

I know some people who seem to have a natural talent for spelling (

devonapple's wife, for example), but I am not one of them (I miss about half of these). In second grade I was tested above average in everything but spelling (for which I was only at a second grade level). My little (half) sister has the same problem, which seems to confound our family since our father does not. Both my older (half) brother and

abditus have poor spelling as bad as mine with the added challenge of dyslexia. I especially get tripped-up on things like when to use a double letter, and all those silly silent letters, and of course, vowels. I try to follow all those rules, but then they are broken and I am supposed to remember all of those exceptions!

I consider myself a linguaphile and especially love obscure words with very specific meanings. It is not that I don't like words, just that things like spelling are historically flawed, so, I can be very testy about my poor spelling. Last Christmas I vehemently defended my sister and I for misspelling the name of a disease during a game of categories (especially since my uncle who was on our team did not bother to suggest anything better either in spelling or category). My family seemed surprised by my reaction, but I contend that it is unfair to tease us because we do not have the talent/skill to spell. I mean really, do I tease people are who not confident artists? And if I did, would it be considered as acceptable as it is to tease those who are not confident spellers?

Of course because I am not confident in my spelling I often second guess myself. When I was 10, a classmate confidently corrected my spelling of the word than saying that it was with an e not an a. Although I was suspect of my spelling skills, I was fairly certain that I had correctly spelled the word because I was sure I had seen a teacher spell it that way. The classmate insisted that there was no word spelled than and that I should spell it then. This left me feeling confused and frustrated, and later annoyed because it turns out, of course, that there is a word spelled than as well as then. That incident obviously left an impression, and is a reminder how confusing spelling can be for me. Sometimes I still have to stop to figure out which one is the correct version to use, and a small part of me cringes when I use than for fear that I am using it when I mean then.

While trying to help

abditus find the correct spelling of the French word for those little snack foods served before a main dish, I came across a very handy list.

Not only was it able to clarify the hors d’oeuvres quandry I was able to review the than/then issue I had back when I was 10, as well as discovered I was not as wrong about the use of towards as I thought (based on so many spell-checkers correcting me) I was. Oh, and one that has been bugging me in LJ and IM has finally been sorted out. Yay!

Check it out and see if you can excise your own spelling and/or grammar ghosts. There is even a non-errors section of things people are incorrectly correcting. And by the way, it is OK or O.K. although okay is also OK. I am sure I will find many more as I review.

edit: to fix okay per noirem