A Month Later:

It was really late in the night and I was staring a bit blearily at the computer. I wasn’t sure what had given me the idea to start a blog about spelling but here I was, staring at a skeleton of a website, toggling around with colors, fonts, themes, layouts, everything. I was tossing ideas around my head debating what exactly I would be writing about.

How should I start, should I be writing about roots, languages, I mean there’s so much stuff. It then it struck me, the one question and its many variations that so many people had asked me throughout my years as a speller.

“So, why do you do spelling. It’s just a bunch of words that you’re probably never even going to use. I mean there’s autocorrect if you don’t know how to spell a word.”

Well, first of all, I’m definitely a foodie, and knowing those words has kept me from stumbling over names of some of my favorite dishes. Roots, words, language patterns all help me when I’m Also, autocorrect is so buggy most of the time and just because it’s there does not mean you have to use it. I mean, if you’ve learned how to bike, you don’t keep the training wheels on just because they exist.

“What’s the secret to memorizing all of those words? Do you just look at them over and over until you know them by heart? That’s so boring.”

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I definitely did not memorize that many words. Of course, there are the really weird ones that nobody really gets and that you absolutely have to know. The only other things I’ve ever memorized were language patterns and roots, which were total lifesavers.

Words have always been quite enchanting. They’re completely made up but once they’ve entered a language they take on a life of their own, becoming completely new entities that take on any purpose people want them to. English as a language has become particularly adept at utilizing and incorporating ideas from other languages while at least attempting to preserve its original sounds.