Tag Archives: spelling

Wordplay: My Geek Is Showing

10 Replies

I failed my children by not pushing them further in studying spelling and vocabulary. One of my sons, a senior in high school, said to me that he just doesn’t know very many words. His limited repertoire made writing essays for his college applications a difficult and grueling process. Writing never came easily to him.

In contrast, I’ve always loved penning my thoughts and studying the mechanics of grammar, selecting the right words to convey my meaning. I love playing Boggle and Scrabble, and I look forward to quizzing myself with Reader’s Digest’s “Word Power.” I stop myself from giving my son too much writing advice because it’s important that he express his own thoughts in his own way. In looking back at the differences in our educations, I have an idea of why he struggles more than I do.

My elementary and junior high schools encouraged participation in spelling bees. I spent hours on rote memorization with the help of my patient mom. She read pages full of words out loud to me, one word at a time. I never once thought to ask her what the origin of an unfamiliar word was, but today’s top spelling bee contestants frequently make use of that rather sophisticated technique. If I had known there was more to studying spelling than memorization, I might not have lost first place to Kathy Trotter in the sixth grade. I didn’t know how to spell curry. Rote memorization only got me so far. Fortunately, I wasn’t competing for a college scholarship. The short-term goal was simply praise, a dictionary, and a trophy. The lifetime benefit was that I became a good speller.

KellyDeadwood-2015-11Nov-ToiletTreesList

Spelling and vocabulary matter: I had to let my son know that toiletries would be easier to pack.

Sixth grade for my children was a different experience. Their spelling words were taken from their own journal entries. The children were tested on words which they individually used in their own writing exercises. I understood the practicality of holding students responsible for using self-selected words correctly. But I wanted a bigger challenge for my kids. How would they learn new and unfamiliar words and to expand their knowledge of language?

I reminded myself that teachers aren’t solely or primarily responsible for our children’s educations. As parents, we need to instruct and guide. To complement my children’s elementary school lessons, I developed a game that I thought would challenge them and be fun for our entire family.

During one week, I randomly selected a word each day from our two-volume dictionary. By the end of the week, we all had to know how to spell the seven chosen words and combine them into one sentence. The sentence could be longer than seven words, but it had to reflect correct usage and meaning. Essentially, the family and I studied a word a day—similar in scope to what Merriam-Webster currently offers online—but my game involved the added challenge I was seeking.

So that you can see how this game worked, I’m going to borrow the seven “Word of The Day” selections which Merriam-Webster promoted from October 29 – November 4, 2015. First, we have to consider the definitions of the words. The list below is taken verbatim from www.merriam-webster.com.

Pellucid: admitting maximum passage of light without diffusion or distortion; reflecting light evenly from all surfaces; easy to understand

Underwhelm: to fail to impress or stimulate

Ebullient: boiling, agitated; having or showing liveliness and enthusiasm; exuberant

Microburst: a violent short-lived localized downdraft that creates extreme wind shears at low altitudes and is usually associated with thunderstorms

Ruddy: having a healthy reddish color; red, reddish

Confidant: one to whom secrets are entrusted; especially: an intimate friend

Trepid:  timorous, fearful

Now comes the hard part: we have to consider those definitions in anticipation of using the seven words to construct one sentence. Here’s my solution to the puzzle:

My ruddy confidant was caught in a microburst which left her so trepid that, when she couldn’t describe the situation in a pellucid manner, I was underwhelmed, despite her apparently ebullient experience.

KellyDeadwood-2015-11Nov-KellyMemeThanksgiving

If I wanted to break the rules of grammar when creating this meme, I would have written Happy Givingthanks.

.
Sadly, my kids never really enjoyed the game as much as I did, and it was quickly forgotten. But thank goodness, they now have smart phones and can share highly entertaining, often grammatically incorrect, internet memes with one another. If only people like my kids understood the rules before they broke them.

It Couldn’t Be More Personal

16 Replies

During my childhood, my grandmother taught me little lessons. I learned how to fold and crease a sheet of paper over and over until it resembled the expanding membrane of an accordion but wasn’t constrained by the edges of a musical instrument. My creation could be waved in the air to blow away summer heat. Gramma also showed me a more advanced origami technique, although she never called it that, of creating a miniature upright piano. I’ve long forgotten those more complicated steps; however, I can still make a pretty good fan.

These memories came to me while editing an article for Deadwood Writers Voices. All I needed was to know whether to italicize or put quotation marks around a TV program’s title. Hoping to confirm my suspicion on the correct usage, I looked in The Chicago Manual of Style and was distracted by something else I came across first. The reference guide said, “The name of a living person should, wherever possible, correspond to that person’s own usage.” (CMOS, section 8.3)

How silly was that statement? It reminded me of those caution labels that are printed on coffee cups: “Careful! Contents may be hot!” When buying a cup of coffee, I certainly expect it to be, and hope it will be, hot. Regarding my own name, as a living person, shouldn’t I know better than anyone else what it is and how to spell it? Of course!

So why would CMOS bother to point out the obvious? I think the book’s editors and advisory board meant to impress upon writers the importance of spelling names correctly. But it’s not as cut and dry as it appears. For example, my grandmother ended her surname in an “i.” Her brother ended his in an “o.” Gramma’s sisters threw an extra “e” in the middle somewhere. I grew up never knowing how to correctly spell my ancestors’ last name. I’m sure they each had a convincing reason for why they did things the way they did, but I can only speculate. Maybe the ending depended upon gender: an “i” for females and “o” for males?

I’ve even thought that the difference in spellings could have had something to do with a mistake in documentation. Perhaps an official incorrectly recorded my great-grandfather’s name when Grandpa immigrated to the US from Italy. That mishap could have resulted in multiple versions of the family name surviving and competing with one another. I wish I could ask one of my living relatives but none know why there was confusion in the first place.

A lesson comes to mind for us conscientious writers: we should be watching for the unique or unconventional preferences of our subjects. For instance, friends of mine are named “Lesley” and “Sheri.” Not Leslie and not Sherry. To them, anything other than the way they spell their own names is just not correct. I’d feel the same if they addressed letters to me with “Kelli” or “Kellie.” It doesn’t look right, and to me, it doesn’t feel right.

During verbal conversations, accidents happen for sure, like when my husband calls me Kathy, his sister’s name, or when I yell to one of my sons and out stumbles his brother’s name instead. There’s also forgetting someone’s name altogether. Faulty utterances like these are common and easily forgivable. In fact, it’s rare for anyone I know to point out spoken errors at all. They seem to understand and just let them go.

There’s a higher expectation placed upon writers, however. When we commit thoughts to paper, we are responsible to verify the facts being presented, to pay attention to details. Very often, the records being created are permanent, and they’re always subject to public scrutiny. A simple mistake could jeopardize credibility with an audience. Misspellings, particularly of names, make it appear that we don’t know, care about, or respect our subjects well enough. At the very least, a person’s name, like Grandpa’s, should be documented precisely as he wishes (“to correspond to that person’s own usage”). It’s important to at least that one person.