Are you this way?

Are you good with numbers? I know people who are brilliant in many ways, but tend to have a bigger gift on one side or the other…they can either spell or are good with numbers. I can spell, but suck at math! I’m sure that I’ve made an error in this post…I always do!

Yeah, to an extent. I like having to think but I had some really crappy math teachers in high school. I’m good with literature, science, and psychology. Random. I know.

I’ve always been a good speller, but sometimes I run across a word that I’m not sure of. I keep a dictionary here on my desk to help me out every now & then. It amazes me how people don’t know how to use some words in a sentence. Like to, two & too. They’re, their & there. I mail with someone who just slaughters these words as to their meaning.

@jb- Yeah i’m not bad about that. I sometimes do it when I’m typing really fast. That’s my problem, I type over 100 wpm so I get a little carried away. My fingers move faster than my brain at times.

I can’t spell at all, but I hardly ever spell something incorrectly without noticing it. I’ll know I’ve spelled it wrong, but I’ll write a list of different ways I think it might be spelled, but I can never get it right.

I have usually an intuitive feeling when I misspell a word. But then to find the right spelling is interesting. I had some trouble with camouflage and geshundeit gesundheit (Richardhenry helped me there. I wasn’t close enough to use my online dictionary.)

What surprises me is that some phokes type fonetically so as to make their Qs or As almost incomprehensible. And the punctuation that seems to be used as decoration or design only…

honey, you and i are in the same boat!

@j: hoo u callin’ hunny?

GEEZE! Take out the second perhaps. Sorry guys, I’ve been sick. My brain just isn’t working!

Typos and dys-spellia are two entirely different phenomena.
One is about finger hurry.
The other is about never having gotten attached to impeccability early on.
My theory of good spellers is that they were insecure children of narcissistic mothers; we (ahem) comforted ourselves by always being correct.
Later in life, of course, all this good spelling makes people like us (ahem) deeply confident and joyful. And good with cats.

@ susanc. GA. Way to explain it. Although I’m not sure that is always applicable. I was good at spelling in elementary and middle school, it wasn’t until high school that I fell behind.
edit: not even behind really… More like I became average.

Susan; We call them, here in the East, PLU, there are so many of us. My younger brother was (ahem) a good speller, my sis is a perfect cook and artist and gardener; I yam what I yam. More than theory, according to my psychiatrist, with whom I discussed narcissistic mothers impeccability often.

I was always a good speller in school but I think it’s because I was interested in words, wanting to be a writer and such. Then came legal drinking age. I since have lost some brain cells and find myself forgetting words I have known for many, many years.

@krose1223: I would say spelling and math are more related than you let on. Spelling involves a similar type of thinking as math. It’s not like…being creative, or that “other side of the brain”* stuff. I am excellent with both because I am the “left-brained” analytical type. They’re both the attention-to-detail type rather than the big-picture type.

* As a neuroscience person, I am not a proponent of the largely mythical “right-brained/left-brained” nonsense. However, the functions that are (for the most part) incorrectly associated with the different sides of the brain do have related thought processes, so I am comparing the analytical to the creative.

Generally, I’m a great speller, but I fat finger things when I type. :-/

Spelling has always been a strong point for me (I was the Spelling Bee champion in the 8th grade) but I’ll run into an occasional word that will trip me up. For that reason and because I read so many books with the odd word now and again that I don’t know, I have an electronic dictionary to help me out.

I agree with GoS. I’m strong in math as well as spelling because I’m left brained and, therefore, analytical, but for reference and security, I keep dictionary.com as an application on my Iphone. @Bluefreedom: I was spelling bee champ in 8th grade as well!! and now I attend a residential math and science based high school…. go figure, lol

It also depends on what you read… I’m a terribly anal speller and I credit that for having to slog through a great deal of technical articles for work and school and having started a job that require me to interact in a corporate environment early in life.

You may want to try more esoteric reading that forces you to the dictionary more…? NYTimes, The Morning News, Foreign Affairs, The Economist are some good and interesting ones but depends on your taste.

@asmonet, lurve for “fat finger things when I type”. What are those things called?
Neologisms? where you make up words as you go, words that are immediately
meaningful? So fun.
@Gail: thanks for the family analysis, doesn’t surprise me one bit. What is PLU? Youth wants to know.

@Susan: P eople L ike U s. Si jeunesse savait..

I am exactly like you. If you search for spelling the chances are good I asked the question and/or commented on it.

I will say that taking part in fluther has really helped.

1. I have been writing a whole lot more so I have been noticing patterns in my habits.

2. No one lets you get away with it here.

3. Everyone is very generous when it comes to helping you work on it.

@gail, particular love for you and all other PLU. And jeunesse, smart as they are, ne sait pas comme nous, mon amie.
@bri, that is generous, too. I also notice, because I care about this audience, that my writing is sometimes awful and try to edit it back to bearable lengths and widths. And
fairness.

@ susanc – um, don’t look now but there was a ton of misspellings in that sentence.

“ne sait pas comme nous, mon amie.” I mean, come on, did you even read that?

:-)

I have to disagree slightly with gail here. You used an ellipsis in your example of punctuation for decoration. I am a heavy user of the ellipsis, but that’s because I type the way I would speak. How to explain without you being able to hear me speak? Let me see: If I’m going to use a comma, there is a distinct difference in the way I deliver the end of the word before it. If I am pausing to think, or typing-in-thought so to speak, I use the ellipsis. I also tend to use lots of phrases that “hang” instad of having a definite ending, and employ the ellipsis at the end. Again, in speech, you can clearly tell that I’ve left the sentence hanging.

So then I should ask at this point, since I’ve probably over-analyzed your statement, if you disagree with the ellipsis completely? Some people do, and others, like I, think it’s a valuable tool to add a more personal expression to type.

I’m an ellipsis lover, too.

No, Poof. I love the ellipse and was not using it as an example of bad punctuation. I was talking about all the odd, commas, periods or lack therein. and random aphostrophe’s. I also like to let things hang…

I sometimes get self-conscious about the amount of commas I use, I wonder if anyone notices. I place them anywhere there would be a pause in my speech, not necessarily a new thought. My teacher always said that was fine, but I still wonder.:p

See? There’s one in almost every sentence!

I think that it’s characteristic of most of us Flutherers to type like we talk for the simple explanation that the responses we provide are answers we would give in an actual conversation; therefore, we try to imitate this in our text- i.e. ellipses, emoticons, excessive commas, etc… :)

@gail: Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying.

@Sloane; speak for yourself, I implore you. There is the subset of writers here who write both clearly and conversationally.

@Gail: I’m sorry I offended you. But when I said most I didn’t mean all.