Spelling, Susan Eder

THE GOOD AND THE BAD SPELLING

Canadian pronunciation is just a general guideline to help guide us in how we say our words. However pronunciation is not as important as spelling. Words are pronounced different depending on the local area's dialect. When a word is not pronounced the way we say it ourselves, we can usually figure out what the word is suppose to be. But not with spelling. If a word is spelled wrong it may not be so easy for us to figure out what the word is suppose to be. Sometimes though words can still be read if the letters are all mixed up as long as the first and the last letters are right. This is because we read sentences word for word, not letter for letter.

The use of word processing programs is a common practise. But to rely on spell check is not foolproof. A spell checker may know the spelling of words, but does not recognize words that may be spelled right, but in are in the wrong context. It doesn't recognize the difference between words like to, too, and two. Or words like sea and see. It is a good idea to start with spell check to get rid of any obvious misspelled words. After that one must proofread to make sure all the correct spellings are actually the words one wants to use.

Canadian and American spellings sometimes differ. Canadians use the "ou" in words such as in labour and vigour. Canadians use "re" in words such as in theatre and centre. Other Canadian spelling preferences include the words "license and licence". The spelling license is a verb as in "I licensed my car". The spelling "licence" is a noun as in "I received a new licence plate". One of the most often misspelled words "its." Use the contraction "it's" to mean it is, and use "its" to indicate possession.

Special care should be taken with words that sound alike, but are spelled different. Words such as "allude, elude, illusion", carat, caret, carrot, karat", "naval, navel", and "stationary, stationery" are often misspelled. These words may sound alike, but they have different meanings. When the wrong word is used the sentence takes on a different meaning or is not understood at all. Care should be taken to use correct words in our text.

The English language is constantly changing. A good dictionary can help keep up with current usage. New terms often come with the advance of technology. Terms such as Internet, Blog and Twitter are not in the dictionaries of 20 years ago, but can be found today. Another word usage change that occurs is the compound word. First a word will start out as two words such as copy edit. Then those words become hyphenated such as in copy-edit. Finally the hyphen is dropped as the word becomes one compound word such as in copyedit. If words did not change we would still be using Old English.

Dale Boyd wrote a good list of correctly spelled words along with their correctly spelled alternatives.

Note: Image from "The Whole Nine Yards"