Can You Survive Without the Spell Checker?

8 top tips to improve your spelling

1. Right word at the wrong time.

Check for correct words in the wrong context. These are simply typos, but as you write a real word, the spell checker will not highlight it. It is especially hard to spot mistakes in short words when proof reading because we tend to skip over them, so check a document by putting a pen on each word when you read through it.

The sorts of things to look for:

fro when you meant for

bit when you meant but

form when you meant from

ever when you meant even

and that classic,

pubic when you meant public

2. Know the difference between commonly confused words.

Examples: affect and effect, complimentary and complementary, continuous and continual, council and counsel, etc.

3. Watch out for homophones, words that sound the same but are spelt differently. Examples of these: ‘too’, ‘to’, and ‘two’, ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’, ‘where’, ‘we’re’ and ‘wear’.

4. Pay extra attention to unusual spellings. Some examples:

Peoples’ names like Giulia, Vyvyan, Britney, Beauchamp (pronounced Beecham)

Foreign words, for example, schadenfreude,

Specialist jargon, for example, medical terms such as antihypertensive, psittacosis,

Trade names such as company names or products that are made-up words, for example: synoquin, neurofen, Diageo,

Place names like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. (And this is only the third-longest place name in the world-there are towns in New Zealand and Thailand with longer names!) Even relatively ordinary names like Towcester can be confusing because their pronunciation is completely misleading.

People do get upset when you misspell their name, or worse use the wrong gender of the name! Check you have the right version of Leslie and Lesley, Vivian, Vivien and Vivienne, Cook or Cooke, Francis and Frances.

5. Know your contractions so you get the apostrophes right.

You’re and your, who’s and whose, they’re and there, it’s and its. If you can restate the sentence using the words ‘is’ or ‘are’, (you are, who is, they are, it is) then you have a contraction and need an apostrophe.

6. Exercise your Inner Geek.

Learn a bit about the origins of English and you will learn groups of unusual spellings, such as:

• -sci- in words about knowing or thinking (science, conscious, prescient)
• psych- in words about the mind (psychology, psychiatry, psychic)
• phys- in words about the body (physiology, physical, physicist)

7. Use all your senses.

People who are better at spelling treat it as a visual skill – they have an image of what the word should look like. If your visual memory is not that great but you have a good ear, beat out the rhythm as you spell a word.

8. Play the odds.

If you learn a few spelling rules, then you can take a gamble on the version more likely to be correct.

The complete rule about ‘i before e’ actually goes like this:

“I” before “E,”

Except after “C,”

Or when sounded like “A”

As in “neighbour” and “weigh.”

Except “seize” and “seizure,”

And also “leisure,”

“Weird,” “height.” and “either,”

“Forfeit” and “neither.”

Another example: does a word have -able or -ible on the end? If the word comes from Latin, and if you don’t get a proper word when you drop the ending, it’s more likely to be -ible: audible, credible, legible. Otherwise it’s more likely to end in -able. There are exceptions: you have to decide if you’re feeling lucky!

Editor recommends.

A common problem for poor spellers is when they are told to ‘Look it up!’ How do you look it up if you don’t know how to spell it?

The spelling dictionary (for example, DK Pockets Spelling Dictionary) lists over 45,000 words in a legible font, just giving the correct spelling. Brief definitions are included for words where there are two different spellings and meanings. This is not meant to function as a standard dictionary of definitions, but is a huge aid to checking a word quickly for the right spelling.

If this article has whetted your appetite for word origins, consider an etymological dictionary. The more academic ones are quite expensive, but a more reasonable and very informative option is The Oxford Dictionary of World Histories.