A Five-Second Spelling Lesson

What was the word I misspelled yesterday?

I wrote, “Last weak.”

It should have been “week”, as in, “He works eight days a week.”

But if you don’t eat for a few days, you’ll start to feel weak: you’ll have no strength. .

Some of you thought I misspelled “benefitted.”

And, in fact, my spellcheck underlined it.

But I looked it up

This is one of the few English words that has more than one correct spelling.

It’s the same with:

• kidnapped and kidnaped
• worshiped and worshipped
• focussed and focused
• travelled and traveled
• canceled and cancelled
• marvelous and marvellous
• fuelled and fueled

Both spellings are correct.

Wouldn’t it be great if all English words gave you two options?

SPELLING LESSON

Read.

According to research, avid readers are better spellers.

That makes sense to me.

Your memory for patterns is stronger than your memory for rules and exceptions.

So when you write, “avid readers are beter spelers” it doesn’t look right.

Your visual memory tells you something is wrong.

But that only comes from reading a lot.

Or using spellcheck.