The CHAT thread

[giraffe]

irrevelevent

irrelavent

Stop competing for freestyle speller of the year you two!

[SparkOut]

irrevelevent is my new favourite word!

[giraffe]

Hard to pronounce though!

[fernando]

irrevelevent

Surely that's gotta win it. ( I want this freestyle spelling title and all the fame that comes with it.)

[giraffe]

Clvrlad is the reigning champion. You'll have some trouble beating him.

[clvrlad]

lol freestyle spelling......


hmmm why does that want me to make some word puzzles.....

[clvrlad]

i object my spelling is allways accurate

its not consistant but allways accurate

[giraffe]

accurate

did you mean accident -prone?

[clvrlad]

look giraff

im going to have to create some freestyle spelling puzzles now......

[kingsley]

I have a friend at school who is possibly one of the worst spellers there is. She can't spell 'parents' ('parets' usually), or 'green' and even has trouble spelling 'the' or 'and' occasionally. Apart from that she is an intelligent teenager!

[giraffe]

clvrlads a clever lad. Spelling and intelligence don't equate.

[clvrlad]

why thank you giraffe

[Bunnylump]

My brother's a graduate, in a senior management job (i.e. not thick like his sister), and his spelling is so bad that he has been known to spell his own name wrong.

Anyway, what's all this about not having bought the mag yet? It'll take you about a year to catch up. You need to get your skates on!

I'm loving the idea of a freestyle spelling puzzle, Clvrlad!

[MBH]

Ah Spelling - one of my favourite bug-bears

When I was at school, my handwriting was so bad that nobody noticed how terrible my spelling was. Since 'English' is thought of as Reading, Writing, and Spelling, nobody understood how I could have such a wide vocabulary, and use it correctly in unreadable writing, yet not be able to spell.

My argument always was that my mind worked quicker than my hands - which tried to race to catch up giving bad letter formation and letters mixed from the current word and the next.

I have a friend at school who is possibly one of the worst spellers there is. She can't spell 'parents' ('parets' usually), or 'green' and even has trouble spelling 'the' or 'and' occasionally. Apart from that she is an intelligent teenager!

This girl might have similar problems depending on what situation the spelling is poor. Handwriting, typing, speaking the spelling out loud. Since I learned to type propely I can now get my words down a lot faster (and clearer) than handwriting - so I should NOW do a lot better at school.

I'm still regularly tripped up by vowel sounds and double letters. My argument is that Maths has rules... real rules that can be applied anywhere. Learning simple multiplication, then long multiplication, means I can multiply galactic distances by the speed of light using exactly the same rule.

Spellings need to be INDIVIUALLY memorised. Rules don't work if there are exceptions. After all "I before E except after C" is just WEIRD!!

If a car is ABLE to CONVERT from having a roof to being open-topped, how the heck did it become a convertIble?

It can be supposedly 'simple' words that catch you out. I once wrote a truck management system for a haulage company, and on all screens and all reports I had VEHICLE spelled perfectly... large embarrasment when the boss came to do a system test and pointed out that on every screen and every report I made reference to the FULE usage

I still get into fights with people who treat a lack of spelling skill to be as bad as a lack of reading or writing. I point out to them that if I can't read and understand the instructions for operating a chainsaw, then I'll chop a body part off. If I've got to leave some jobs half-done and can't write a note to accuratly tell the next person what needs doing to finish the jos off then damage can be done. But if I decide that a PLANE that flies through the AIR is an AIROPLANE then someone reading it will understand what I'm trying to say

Thanks to tricks and tips - some from my puzzling friends - I can now spell Diarrhoea when I need to... but only because of memory I've typed this quickly, and don't really want anyone to go through and mark it for me

[Bunnylump]

I work a lot with kids who have Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia etc.). Of course all spelling rules are fallible (not fallable) but the way to look at it is that they work for 80% of the time, and that's a lot better than none of the time! I'm not the best speller in the World, but hey! they think I'm brilliant!

Everthing is relative. You're clever with computers, I'm an amateur. Don't lose any sleep over the odd spelling!!

[clvrlad]

well strictly speaking i am dyslexic
which is a pain in the arse for my job lol

a quick run down
for example today i packed 6 "runs" each run has approx 18 shops that need paper and magazines this morning pretty simple
however
weve just packed
now & new
tv choice & tv quick
darligton north echoes & south west durham north echoes
etc...
lol the last pack consisted of the star, sport, express and teesside mail (wed allready packed the yorkshire mail)

to get the gear i need to pack i need to read totals of a page reading the right row

then to pack them for each parcel we make up (which are all limited in weight so we i did pack 4 parcels for some shops)
i have to read the computer screen telling me what needs to be in that parcel whilst remembering that tonight the express is in 72's(6 turns which were in 12's) the star is in 90's (30's) mail in 72's(24's) sport in 80's (20's)
and that the star, express and mail all had the same advert on the back....
now dont forget the self employed drivers have target times to be loaded and leaving the warehouse and times to arrive at the shops so they are rushing you to finish quickly

and people wonder why mistakes happen

[Laura]

Crikey! That sounds horribly complicated!

A friend of mine is an obsessive compulsive perfectionist, and dyslexic. It drives her mad!!!

And another annoyance of mine. Why are the terms for different conditions always the most difficult for the people who have those conditions? How many dyslexics can spell dyslexic? How many people with a lisp can actually say 'lisp' without lithping!!!! You'd think that the people who come up with the term would think about that before they name it!!!

[giraffe]

I spell instinctively, I don't remember learning many rules, I'm just fortunate that I know when a word looks right. I'm useless when I type though. My fingers don't seem to be connected to my brain. If a word has a double letter in it I usually end up with the wrong letter doubled.

However I remember our English teacher at school confidently telling us the i before e except after c rule, and that while there are exceptions like WEIRD and THEIR there are no exceptions when the C is in. So any word that has I and E after the C is always EI. A girl put her hand up and said "What about SCIENCE?" She was Greek and had learned English as her second language, so had clearly learnt it all as rules and exceptions. The teacher was a bit red faced to say the least.

[gill216]

Our teacher extended that rule and it does seem to work, I before E except after C when the sound is ee.

[SparkOut]

I remember my junior school teacher going on and on about the "incomplete" I before E rule and how the "whole" rule is:

I before E, except after E, when pronounced EE so (although there probably are some obscure exceptions there even so) I'm with you Gill.