James Bryant... my spellling (sic)

SPELLING has never come easily to me and when I was young I struggled to get to grips with it. I remember having to read to the headmaster at primary school before assembly. I was about eight. The books I read where lower than my year and this embarrassed me. I covered them in a white paper cover so that the other kids on the bus and at school didn't see what I was reading.

I read to my parents most evenings as they tried to improve my reading which, as times, was difficult and a bit like pulling teeth. I've never read Beatrix Potter since!

When I first started work in 1973, I bought a little blank book to enter any difficult words in and also used it to record new words that I came across. I still have the book and continue to use it.

Below is a list of ten common misspelled words in English that I want to share with you:

 

CORRECT SPELLING
WRONG SPELLING
liaise
liase (ok in America)
accommodation
accomodation
separate
seperate
definitely
definately
supersede
supercede
embarrass
embarass
receive
recieve
minuscule
miniscule
pronunciation
pronounciation
ecstasy
ecstacy
  

  

A tip that has proved useful to me over the years is to make a sentence out of the first letters from the word that you have difficulty in spelling. Let me give you an example, take the difficult word:

ISOSCELES

The sentence that I always remember is

I Saw Our Sherpas Climb Everest Last Easter Sunday


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