SoCS

SoCS – Where’s the Dictionary?

Maggie

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you every week by Linda Hill. Check out her blog for the rules and the contribution of other bloggers.

This week’s prompt:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “a word you have to look up.” We all have words we can never spell. Use one of yours in your post and let that word drive your stream of consciousness where ever it goes. Have fun!

You know that old adage “use it or lose it”? Well, folks grammar and spelling falls into that category. When I was working my skills were a lot sharper – and perhaps my mind was, too. I find I misspell a lot more words now than I once did.

When I started as a ghost blogger, I worked writing for many different industries. A dress designer, an attorney, a short sale company, a private chef, a body builder, an adoption agency, a mental health professional, and several artists. The first rule I had to ‘unlearn’ was typing two spaces at the end of a sentence. It throws spacing and alignment on the website off. The second thing I had to learn was to also allow for some grammatical errors and some misspellings. “Think about how people type their questions into Google. Those weird and cumbersome phrases should appear in some of your work.” Yikes.

Small issues to some, but to me they were huge which brings me back to the actual question Linda posed. What word do I tend to misspell? MINUSCULE. It does not look spelled correctly to me. Maybe I am mispronouncing it. Wait – I will be right back.Nope. i pronounce it correctly according to Webster.

You see, the word comes from the Latin (sudden memories of my Latin teacher Mr. Boyland banging his head against the chalkboard) word minus which means ‘less”. Maybe that will help me remember how to spell it – it starts with the word minus!

I just want to plead my case a little more. Texting languages and predictive texting and auto-correct are destroying our society (Googling is, too, but that has  more to do with research than spelling but researching spelling can be done with Google so YES – the destruction of society as we know it.

I wonder if it is true we use a very minuscule part of our bein power? I wonder if I might have been a rocket scientist if I could have harnessed that power. I suppose we will never know.

17 thoughts on “SoCS – Where’s the Dictionary?”

  1. I always type that word wrong too, then have to go back and check it. Since WP removed the spellcheck facility, it does stop them underlining my non-American spellings, but it also means I have to be more careful with tricky words. ‘Millennium’ was a bad one for me, as I always wanted to spell it with one L.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. There are a few that always trip me up, Pete. I use Grammarly with some things I write to alert me to errors. I never use it for blogging or fiction because it would drive me insane.

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  3. I’ve actually gotten better at spelling and grammar (judging by the decreasing number of mistakes my wife finds) since I retired. Perhaps that’s because I was in a technical field where acronyms and computer scripts ruled the day as opposed to English.,

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  4. My spelling has gotten worse, too, although I seem to be able to catch mistakes just as well as I always could. Strange to have the need to add misspellings to posts! I’ve always found that sloppy….

    Enjoy this beautiful fall day!

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    1. It was hard to write with intended misspellings and grammatical mistakes. I out myself in different ways of thinking depending on what I am writing. All the rules go out the window when I write fiction.

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  6. This post has certainly be educational as well as funny. I had no idea that was how to spell, minuscule. Your Latin clue is a good one, and the image of Mr. Boyland banging his head against the chalkboard gave me a good chuckle. As far as bein power, (I just learned bein is a word!) I think we use a lot of our brain, but we’re only aware or understanding of part of what it’s doing which is a little scary. Never mind. Still in SoC mode…. Great post!

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    1. The brain thing is amazing. I love watching Brain Games on Netflix (if it is still on). I was never successful in getting anyone to watch with my same level of enthusiasm. I score high on the geek meter.

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  7. My spelling has never been good, but my grammar was ah-maz-ing, as was my handwriting. I’ve been typing on the computer and Internet since last century and my writing skills (and lack thereof) show it. On my to-do list is to correct that, and maybe I will take an online refresher course or something. I know that knowledge is still there somewhere. If I can still remember my childhood phone number, I know the rules for hyphenation are still floating in the neurons somewhere. The handwriting is a lost cause.

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  8. I got into many disagreements in elementary school over spelling such words as grey. I read many more English children’s books than American ones, and my spelling reflected that.

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