There’s an old saying “Show me a designer than can spell and I’ll show you a liar”. Ok, I may have just made it up but there’s some truth in it. I’ve a hunch that many people in the visual arts gravitate towards it because the academic focus of schools just doesn’t work for them. Maybe it’s mild autism. Put bluntly, some people just don’t do academia very well and they can hide in the arts, where logic and being precise aren’t vital.

Personally, I write a lot and enjoy it. My spelling is what I’d describe as ‘ok’. My punctuation is ‘ok’ too (even if I do use too many ellipses and exclamations). But then again, I’m a coder too so I’m hardly a good test case. I do however notice the same traits in myself and others. I get by, mostly thanks to my friend the ‘wiggly red underline’ that helpfully plays dead under words it mistrusts. It seems my wiggle is American but I’ve learnt to ignore my wiggle at times. You can’t see it, but there’s one under ‘learnt’. According to Dictionary.com, it’s only a UK term. Apparently it will leave if I use ‘learned’, which does irritate somewhat. Anyway, I digress.^

There is no logic to why some words just don’t stick. Simple words like ‘vehicle’ or ‘label’ can cause trouble for me yet other humdingers seem easy. The upshot is that I have to resort to some fairly silly techniques and mental gymnastics to help me remember some of my nemesis words. It basically boiled down to not grasping the basic building blocks like when to use ‘elly’ ‘illy’ ‘ley’ and ‘ly’.^

Here are a few (and I know my wiggle is going to go nuts on this one);

• Label – I always forget so I imagine a bell ringing to remind me. Not lable.
• Restaurant – Somewhere I can have a rest then rant about the bad service. Not restraunt or restrant.
• Receipt – the classic “I before E except after C”
• Weird – the usual “I before E except after C” goes weird for this one. Not wierd.
• Michael – Imagine Mikhail Gorbachev saying it “Mik – A – il”. A comes first when it’s a man’s name. Not Micheal.
• Amend – if I put too many ‘m’s in, I’ll have to amend it. Not ammend.

Those are just a few. Others around me do the same and I’m sure there must be some equally weird techniques out there.

I’m keen to collect them so drop me a comment if you have any that help you out…

^