Spelling Tips 3

More spelling tips

Spelling mistakes, misspellings, and commonly misspelt words. These are the things you have to be on your guard against if you really want to make a good first impression. And first impressions are important, even if only for the simple reason that you never get a second chance to make one.

It’s not that hard to detect spelling mistakes and correct them before it’s too late, but too often people don’t even bother. It’s as though spelling correctly is a dying art. Whether or not that’s the case, it’s a fact that you will be judged on the way you present written material. Unfair, maybe, true all the same. You owe it to yourself to make sure it’s as free of spelling mistakes and glaring errors as you can make it.

RHYTHM MAKES YOUR TWO HIPS MOVE - One of the cleverest little spelling tips!

RHYTHM HELPS YOUR TWO HIPS MOVE

Okay, let’s get to it and take a look at a few more spelling tips:

rhythm – for such a small word this creates major problems for lots of people. Incidentally, ‘rhythms’ is probably the longest word that can be made in English without using a single vowel. Looking for a way to remember how to spell it? Just remember that …

Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move!

parallel– has two parallel lines in the middle

possession– owns all the S’s!

reservoir – somewhere to reserve water

separate– commonly misspelt with an ‘e’ in the middle, where there should be an ‘a’. You could use this little mnemonic: think of telling your pa you’ve seen a rat, “See, Pa, Rat!”

lieutenant – an officer in lieu of a tenant
In British English this is pronounced lef-tenant, in American English it’s pronounced loo-tenant, but that’s another story.

It's NECESSARY to have Coffee with 2 sugars! One of the spelling tips on this page

It’s NECESSARY to have Coffee with 2 sugars!

receive– this one is easy (ECE) to remember! just focus on those three letters before you write the word and you won’t go wrong.

necessary– one coffee, two sugars (one ‘c’, two ‘s’s)

dessert – You know dessert needs two s’s because you always insist on a second helping!

desert– on the other hand, this desert’s far more sparsely populated (with s’s). Actually, there is a third distinction …

deserts– (meaning getting what’s coming to you, whether good or bad, as in ‘your just deserts‘). This one is spelled the same as those excessively arid areas of the world, but pronounced differently – the stress is on the the second syllable (like that dessert you have after the main course).

vacuum– strange that it has no ‘w’, and yet it has a double ‘u’.

weird– you’ll remember how to spell it if you remember, WE are all a bit WEird!

lightning, hindrance, perseverance – a few words that have a letter ‘missing’

maintenance– to maintain something, you tend to its maintenance

eighth – eight letters into the alphabet, we come to ‘h’ – put them together and you have eighth!

committee – I feel a bit odd on this committee, amid three couples

conscience – conscience dictates that I CONnect with SCIENCE

courtesy– the way you should behave, as though you’re at the COURT of a king

skiing – the two ski poles/skis/skiers (whichever image you have in mind) are in the middle of the word

Oh-oh, it's the Pharaoh! One of the useful little spelling tips

Oh-oh, it’s the Pharaoh!

business– actually means busy-ness (but don’t spell it that way, or like this: buisness!)

pharaoh– ends with the ‘oh’ sound, as in the spoken word

friend– meet your friend on FRI(day), at the END of the week

beautiful– such a beautiful word, needs only one ‘l’ (it’s also wonderful … also with one ‘l’). It might help to remember that it comes directly from the French, beau, meaning just about the same thing.

siege– under siege, you can end up right on the ‘EGE’

bureau– one of the most mercilessly mangled words of all – if you remember that UR in there, with a BEAU, that might help

grateful – nothing ‘great’ about it, the word comes from ‘gratify’

inoculate– an inoculation puts something in, and that’s how it starts (in…) – no double letter at the beginning

Sematary, Stephen King's spelling of cemetery!

You’re not Stephen King, are you? No? So let’s keep to CEMETERY, huh? Oh you ARE Stephen King? Hi Steve, love your stuff!! Little tip though … you’re spelling could do with a bit of attention. Just sayin’ 😉

memento– reMEMber how to spell memento

cemetery– E’s all the way! Easy to remember (and you’re only allowed to spell it sematary if you’re Stephen King!)

misspell– it would be a shame to misspell this one! Just make sure it has two double letters (ss,ll)

dumbbell – think of it as two words connected (just like the weights on the dumbbell bar), that way you won’t leave out the second ‘b’

consensus – this word has three S’s (I’ve just checked, i.e. taken a census – oops, that type of census only has two S’s!)

lightning– strikes so fast it hasn’t time to carry the ‘e’ that lightening has (that’s when something gets made lighter)

Spot spelling mistakes – improve your vocabulary

Try to become more aware of mistakes when you see them – it’ll help you improve your own spelling, and improve your vocabulary too. And, of course, take note of the spelling tips above. Spelling tips like these might seem picky, or a bit odd, but as long as they help clarify a few things for you they’re well worth noting.

I’ve noticed TV news channels, who presumably should know better, making glaring spelling mistakes almost every day, not to mention grammatical mistakes that would shame a nine-year old. It would be nice if I was exaggerating, but sadly that’s not the case. I see these mistakes literally almost daily, and if someone just paid attention to a few spelling tips most of them could be easily avoided.

Maybe I’m being ultra-critical (okay, I am!), but when a news channel leaves a really atrocious spelling mistake scrolling across the screen every few seconds for half an hour or more I do begin to wonder if there is anybody in the editorial department or the control room who can actually spell (or is bothered to keep an eye on the monitors). Hardly gives a good impression, does it?

So if you’ve never really thought about it before, I guess you can see how improving your spelling can help you create a better impression (or at least prevent you from making a bad one).

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