Spelling... Its Necessity. Its Importance.

I have always been proud of my spellings. ‘Who needs a dictionary?’, I used to think. Whenever I noticed the children at school literally memorising the words from a dictionary, right before the examination, I used to smile (snigger is probably a better word) and head to the exam hall.

But, times have changed and today, I find the need for a dictionary. But this post isn’t about dictionaries, but about spellings. Spellings improve with writing. And I mean writing without a computer.

When we write by hand, we would realise that there is only one way we can learn a word. And that is by writing it. Write a word, Wrote a word, Written a word, Writing a word. Writes a Word. Every little nuance of the word can now be at your hand, if we write it first.

Also, look up its meaning in a dictionary.

And write it down a few times. And not just that day, but tomorrow and day after too. And two to three days after too. That way, it would stay in your head.

Write a mail using that particular word or words. Write it on your story, an essay, a report or even your blog.

See that a few people read it, and they might find mistakes, which you could have missed.

Also, read up as much as you possibly can. Newspapers, books, advertisements, magazines, anything with good spelling.

Go back to your school books, which teach you how a word can be spelt. See, if you can find a few rules of writing.

Make a list of your commonly misspelled words.

Read with a pencil. Mark whatever you need, and look it up.

Also, read as much as you can. You cannot possibly be a good speller, if you are not a reader.

Finally, use mnemonics. There’s a MnM in mnemonic, too.

English is a funny language. But where would we be without it? Best of luck… And use the spell check and notice if you have got everything right!

PS: And  finally, get my spelling right! It's Sruti Not Shruti or even Shruthi. :P