DO YOU SPELL IT THIS WAY OR THAT WAY?
Pick the correctly-spelled words below:
Worshiped, worshipped
Traveler, traveller
Cigaret, cigarette
Mantel, mantle
Color, colour
Employe, employee
THE ANSWER: all these words are spelled correctly.
SPELLCHECK IS GREAT, BUT IT’S OFTEN INCORRECT
It takes owning several unabridged dictionaries to determine whether something is spelled correctly. Googling doesn’t help much, since it is wrong about half the words listed above.
What’s a wordperson to do?
As my second-grade teacher, Sadie Logan, always insisted: WE NEVER GUESS. WE LOOK IT UP!
Ain’t writing and reading fun?
Do you have a list of correctly-spelled-but-off-putting words? Let me know what you come up with.
We have dozens of dictionaries of every shape and size and year and edition at Reed Books, and we’re always amazed at how each differs from the other.
The quest is endless.
The quest is the pleasure
© 2009 Jim Reed