Spelling Tricks

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Everybody has a word that you just can’t spell right, right?

For me, the word was always ecstasy. I never could get that word right. I always put an extra C in there.

You need to stop writing love notes. Then you won’t have to use the word so often.

Good point. But, you know, how I finally figured that out was I went to the etymology of ecstasy, and it comes from standing out of something, you know, kind of being out of your mind. And so I just remembered stasis and standing, and that helped me come up with, every time, E-C-S-T-A-S-Y, ecstasy.

Very good. So etymology is going to be a device for remembering how to spell words.

Absolutely. Super.

Yeah, what are some of your budgatives?

Well, you can make your own. One of my words is occasion. I often forget whether or not there are two S’s in it and two C’s. And the fact is occasion is spelled with two C’s and one S. And the way I remember that, that it is spelled O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N, is I just have a little mantra. It’s nonsensical, but it works. Two C’s, one S. That’s it. I just say two C’s, one S. That’s it. Two C’s, one S. And you just keep saying two C’s, one S. And it almost becomes its own word because the syllables blend together. Two C’s, one S, two C’s, one S, two C’s, one S. And that’s how we spell occasion.

I thought you were going to say two C’s the occasion.

Very good. You could do that. Whatever works for you. And I find that people often come up with their own tricks. But one of the easiest ways that I found, and I think there’s some evidence to back me up on this. I’ll look for it. But one of the ways that I found that works for most people is that if you are having difficulty spelling a word, at the moment you are writing the word is not the time to teach yourself how to correctly spell it. It’s to write that word down, save it for later. When you get a few words on a piece of paper, go through them, read them aloud, spell them aloud, write them down a few times. And outside of the context of work that you have to do or schoolwork that you’re preparing, it’s going to be better. It’s going to stick better in your brain. You’re going to be more likely to remember the spellings.

I like doing it on the spot. I mean, for example, accommodate is one that drives people crazy. But if you take a minute, just a few seconds and look at it, and you think, okay, accommodate is a word that’s big enough to accommodate two Cs and two Ms.

Oh, there aren’t three Ms?

No, it’s not that accommodating. But you can do little tricks like that. I mean, people misspell cemetery, and the way to think about that is going through a spooky cemetery going ee-ee-ee all the way through. That works, right?

Very good. Beautiful. I mean, it’s goofy, but it just takes a little bit to think of that.

What are the stompers in your spelling world? What are the words that you misspell the most often? Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, and tell us about the tricks that you use to make sure that you spell them correctly. You can send an email to words@waywordradio.org.