Imagine You Can Spell Like a Whiz Kid?

Do you ever watch the annual National Spelling Bee? It is composed of the best spellers from grade schools around the country who spell words most of us have never heard before. These kids are phenoms to the max! The NSBee is so popular, they made a book out of it — and a movie. So how can you learn to spell as well as these youngsters? Or at least well enough to please your readers/boss/family/Internet friends?

Easy as 1-2-3! Three things you can do to improve your spelling all scream PAY ATTENTION.

1) Become aware of “root” words, other words that mean almost the same thing or are derived from a similar source. Let’s say you want to spell a word that means “able to be imagined”. Is it imaginible or imaginable? Think of a similar word, such as “imagination”. Do you see the “a” that follows the “n”? There’s your clue.

2) Be sure you pronounce the word right. Some words are mutilated in speech because we don’t all learn from the same speech source. One of our Presidents often spoke of “our gub-ment” (meaning government — three syllables.) Another President had trouble with nuclear, pronouncing it “nuc-u-lar” (as many others do). Notice how often those whiz kids ask for the pronunciation.

3) Look it up. Keep a spell-check app on your electronic carry-alls and refer to it when in doubt. After looking up a word a couple of times, it may sink into your imaginary dictionary-in-your-head.

Come on, show your moxy by paying attention to the way words are spelled. You will soon realize the benefits of being the kind of person who pays attention to details and can handle your language. That's your PAY BACK for PAYING ATTENTION.

The Magic-O Guideline

Tomato / tomatos; hero / heros; allegro / allegros; piano / pianos. No need to be bamboozled by which o-nouns are made plural with “s” and which use “es”. Simplify your writing life: adopt The Anarchist's Magic-O Guideline. Just...say...“os”. I've never met an o-noun that loses its identity with this guideline.