Job Discussion Forums

[dmb]

Certain information. There are just certain things I can never remember. I have lost count of the number of times I've had to look up the spelling of sentence/sentance or effect/affect-which one is the verb? Skimming/scanning which one is which again? Is it a psychological block on certain lexical items?

Does anyone else have these 'mental blocks'?

other totally useless information I retain. Why do I 'forget' the things I just mentioned yet remember who was number one in Feb. 1970(Edison Lighthouse with 'Love grows where my Rosemary goes') I don't even do pub quizes

[basiltherat]

yep. it comes with age. i have the same prob sometimes. i/we know which is right. it just takes time for the brain to get into gear. ive told my trainees that wen i hesitate in responding to a question, its often not that i dont know the answer but rather that my 51-year-old brain is suffering from major delays in registering the question, absorbing it and then sorting out the answer...
basil

[dmb]

I'm (only) 34!!!!!

[SueH]

If it's any consolation I also forget which way round the skimming/scanning distinction works. Terrible problems with practice/practise as well!

Unfortunately I can claim age as my excuse although I'm not quite as old as our Colchester supporter.

It's one of the reasons I never fancied programming; all those command lines and exact syntax. Give me the ambiguity of natural language any day.

[Shaman]

I sometimes have to pause for -ent vs -ant, -ence vs -ance, or -ible vs -able.

Shaman

[Aramas]

I suspect message boards have something to do with it. I'm just too lazy to check, so I let all kinds of grammatical and spelling mistakes slip through. My pet hate is -ly vs -ally.

I usually go with what looks right.

[Lanza-Armonia]

...and me being me, I get ev-r-ee-ting feck'd up!

[Snoopy]

Just remember that "ice" is a noun and "is" is a verb. Alternatively, pretend to be American, in whose language the practice/practise spellings are interchangeable.

[denise]

Are they? I don't think I've ever spelled it 'practise,' regardless of its part of speech. (And with very few exceptions, I'm a damn good speller--oooops, pardon the boasting...)

One thing that my brain just refuses to accept is the lay/lie distinction.

d

[Shonai Ben]

I am continually second guessing myself more and more now.I am checking the dictionary almost daily to make sure I spelled a word correctly.
It is very troublesome......

[Otterman Ollie]

I have a lot of trouble with all this extra knowledge that has accumalated over the decades in the old brain box and how much of it is retained since childhood . You know what I mean all that trival stuff that we remember that clogs the old personal mainframe up we keep in there to pull out whenever the need arises, my students (bless em) are stunned by my ability to recall facts n stuff from way back yet most of them have difficulty remembering what they studied the week before . Why is that ??They are children of the information age and at the click of a mouse or push of a button anything they need to know is there ,so why is their general knowledge so crap or non existant ???
Maybe our heads are full of the wrong stuff and the kids have the right idea they memorise it and then a short time later delete it . Comments !

[Snoopy]

All right, just before anyone steps in, I know that "ice" can be a verb, as in "to ice a cake". However, the mnemonic is useful.

[waxwing]

Slightly drifting off the topic, but my opinion about spelling is that your ability in this area is a direct function of how much you read as a child. If you hardly ever read books as a child, then you were learning the language orally/aurally and, as we all know, English is a b**ch when it comes to the mapping between letters and phonemes. So inevitably your spelling won't be all that hot.
To me language is a visual thing. I have to see a word before I can learn it. That's why, I think, my spelling has tended to be much better than that of my peers (until I became an English teacher, of course ).
By the way, on the practice thing. It's like this:
AmE: verb + noun are both 'practice'
BrE: verb is 'practise', noun is 'practice'
worth remembering that one!

To SueH: about programming, it's true that more rigour is needed there. But that doesn't mean there isn't flexibility, or even creativity. Perl is particularly fun in that respect..

#!/usr/bin/perl

$brillig and $toves{slithy};
for $gyre ( @wabe ) {} for $gimble ( @wabe ) {}
map { s/^.*$/mimsy/g } @borogoves
and $mome{raths} = outgrabe;

if(my $son = fork) { warn "Beware the Jabberwock!";
jaws && bite, claws && catch;
warn "Beware the Jubjub bird" and $shun,
$Bandersnatch{frumious} == 1; }else{

$_{hand} = \$sword{vorpal};
seek FOE, $manxome, (4_294_967_296 * time);
sleep ($tree{Tumtum} = $_);
while (study) { stand }

while (study($uffish)) { $_{stand} == 1; }
unless ($Jabberwock = fork) { $Jabberwock{eyes} = flame,
$Jabberwock{movement} = wiffle, $Jabberwock{location} = $wood{tulgey};
while ($coming=1) { burble }}

(1, 2), (1, 2) and through and through;
$sword{vorpal}{blade} = snicker-snack;
(kill 9, $Jabberwock), $head = (chop $Jabberwock);
sub{ return $_, $head }; }

tell $son, "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?".
"Come to my arms, my beamish boy! ".
"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! ",
$_{joy} = chortle if $son;

$brillig and $toves{slithy};
for $gyre ( @wabe ) {} for $gimble ( @wabe ) {}
map { s/^.*$/mimsy/g } @borogoves
and $mome{raths} = outgrabe;

[Dr.J]

I have two hints for remembering spellings

1) say the word as it 'should' be pronounced phonetically.

e.g. miscellaneous is read "mis kell a nee ou oos". As you write the word say this to yourself and usually it comes out ok. I usually say out loud what I am writing as I write it, or at least hear it in my head.

2) make a little mnemonic or saying/rhyme to remember, and after a while you won't need it anymore. I remember daylight savings time by the handy phrase "spring forward, fall back". But now I don't sit there recalling the phrase because I've plugged the memory gap.

I might tell these to my students one of these days...but then I'd be out of a job!

[mjed9]