Tuesday, April 5, 2011

I Still Suck At Spelling


I’ve mentioned this before.

Yesterday, someone commented (anonymously—come on!) that I spelled June Cleaver’s name wrong. Yeah, I did. Because I suck at spelling.

Fellow nitpickers, I’m sorry for letting you down in this, but I can’t be a spelling critic. Stories, continuity, appropriateness, yes. But I’m a bad speller. I admit it. My blog is part of who I am, so I left the misspelling up. 

Spell check, although a wondrous help for me, can’t point out the names I’ve spelled incorrectly but not “wrong,” and it doesn’t always catch when I use “do” instead of “due.” This is where proofreading is invaluable, but as repeated readings of my WIP have shown, I still miss a lot of them—usually the same ones, too.

There are going to be more, I’m sure. I'm embarrassed when people point them out, but don't let that stop you (really, my feelings are my problems; I'm not pushing responsibility for them onto anyone else). I wouldn't be a good writer (or honest nitpicker) if I didn't allow for my own work to be criticized. So go ahead and tell me when I'm wrong! But I would appreciate it if it wasn't done anonymously. I'm not going to get into a big fight with you and insist you're looking at the wrong edition of my work.

Good night and good luck.

13 comments:

  1. Well this is just such a disappointment, JE. *sigh*

    lol... j'l... so you can't spell, no biggie. I'm the type-o queen!!

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  2. I also wonder why people comment anonymously when there's no need. Don't let it bother you too much.

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  3. LOL. I get typing too fast and suddenly my "the" is a "too", or my "his" is a "he". Even accidentally typed "tablecloth" for
    "tabernacle" once. =)

    It's nice to know you're not the only one who makes ridiculous mistakes, and that most writers understand and can laugh at themselves when accidents happen.

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  4. Even great spellers post errors sometimes. No biggie. Whoever is bothered by it needs to relax! LOL. :-)

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  5. It wasn't me.

    Such things happen. I know I've made plenty of mistakes. (Typos, not spelling. I'm a good speller most of the time.)

    I don't bother to comment to correct others, unless it's a glaring error of fact. But then it has to annoy me so much that I have to speak up (and usually by that time, someone else has caught the mistake and commented).

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  6. Don't sweat it. Try your best. We'll just laugh at you when you get it wrong, and you can laugh at us when you get published. :)

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  7. Words slip by me all too frequently also. I never even noticed you spelled June Cleaver's name wrong and who cares anyway...She was the bane of many a woman's life with her perfect hair, pearls and high heels!

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  8. When I was a 5th grade teacher, I used to spell words wrong on the white board all the time. My students would call me out on them and I would say that I was just testing them to make sure they were paying attention. =)

    Don't worry about a spelling mistake or two, no matter what a commenter said!

    (By the way, you knew how to spell anonymously, which is more than I can say for myself! So good job!!!)

    Erin @ Quitting My Day Job

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  9. We all make those mistakes from time to time, don't we?

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  10. Well, JE. I applaud you for being truthful about your spelling. I really try and go over everything several times before publishing posts or comments, but even then, very often something can still slip by. I try and not allow it to become a big distraction when someone else's post has an issue.
    We have to double and triple check our writing, do we really have to have an editor go over our comments and posts, too??
    Have a good one,

    -Jimmy

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  11. The longer you read things on the internet, the worse your spelling will get. True story. :/

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  12. Weren't me neither. I think it's pretty funny that they commented anonymously - perhaps some other author's responses to criticism have left them scared! ;-)

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  13. I am the worst speller in the world. We should form a club. I rely on spell check for just about everything.

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Please validate me.