I think everyone has one (or more) of those words that they just can’t spell.
No matter how hard you try, you always find yourself checking with the dictionary.
My word is ‘separate’ or ‘seperate’…no separate. (I had to look it up)
I have tried and tried to ‘remember’ the correct spelling but I am constantly second guessing myself and I can never remember which direction I second guessed last time.
Does anyone have an idea or a mnemonic for how I can quash this annoyance?
Does anyone care to expose their own spelling silver bullet?
Maybe blief can help.
Ask blief.
blief 
oddly enough one of the words that just kill me is… believe and the whole i before e thing…logically I know how it goes, but my eye just won’t accept it.
with separate… how I would remind myself is the vowels… the e’s bookend the a’s…hope that helps 🙂
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I don’t have any magical advice, separate is one of my worst ones too, so undoubtedly it is genetic! If you can just naturally remember the e goes on the end, then remember the middle says “a rat”.
Another one that kept me in a quandry for years was, desert (the Sahara or others) or dessert (chocolate cake, etc.) finally I realized that dessert (chocolate cake, etc.) was excess ive– it had two s’s. Desserts are excessive and so is the spelling of dessert.
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Hey, William, you beat me to it! “Believe” is one of the first ones on which I had troubles. The way I always remember it is that I watched my 3rd grade teacher write it on the black board and as she wrote it the letters B-E-L-I-E appeared and I sounded out “belly” in anticipation of what the word might be. I always remember that and as a result, don’t mispell “believe” of “belief” — (or “Blief”)!
As for general ways to remember correct spelling, I keep a photographic memory of the way in which a word looks. Thus, if it doesn’t “look” right, then I try the other way and (except in those cases where my file of photographic memories fail!!) usually get it right.
My biggest problem is with “i before e, except … “. Ironically, my Mother’s maiden name, Zierlein, is one of the hardest for me to keep straight. I use the “looks right” method for it and I have to change my first effort about half the time!
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Separate is a good day of golfing:
Se(e) par, ate.
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my worst has been exercise
used to always write excercise
now I say it like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons and it helps: eggggsercise!
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Grumpy G, I’m the same way with the “does it look right” method. I will spell it out and then determine what looks right. If all else fails, I resort to Google and their “define” function (usually it will suggest the correct spelling if I have it wrong).
“Separate” has always been a funny one though as have these three:
conscience
conscientious
conscious
I never really learned mnemonic devices for spelling until later in life. What a concept =P
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Mine’s receive. 😛
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affect and effect…still have to look them up! I can never remember which one means which thing. It’s never the spelling on these but the definitions that confuse me.
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Ensure and insure can be tricky too
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Gaurd or guard – why not just gard?! I also have a hard time with some latin words from work, but that is an entirely different argument.
Tom
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Tom! Shame! Latin is spelled, “L-a-t-i-n”. It is capitalized because it is derived from the name of a country or nation. Like English or French.
Or were you trying to emulate t. s. eliot? Ha! ha!
Grumpy G
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Oh oh! I just thought of a word! “Cancelled” Lots of people I work with spell it “canceled” (one “l”) but I always thought it was spelled with two (??)
I still spell it with two because it looks better to me that way.
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Exercise is my worst too, but not for the spelling! And, many people who occasionally write to me have trouble with ‘definitely’. They write definately, which definitely drives me nuts!!!
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