Month: January 2013

Sometimes we just have to accept that we’re going to make mistakes. The good news is that we can fix them.

What I love about Meredith Esham, Fauve Holihan, Daryl Smith O’Hare and Laurie Parker is that they love me regardless of my flaws. I love them right back. And I am so very grateful for the friendship, good laughs and wise words we shared recently. These amazing ladies inspired today’s ChanteSez, and they inspire me in general.

Back to today’s tip.

Rather than stress out about the errors you repeatedly make, create a hit list with their correct counterparts.

Here’s a list of a few common errors. (The correct spelling is listed first, when applicable.)

• Quite vs. quiet: You may very well mean a lower noise volume (quiet), but reread your sentence to make sure you’ve spelled it properly. Spell-check won’t catch this one!
• Spigot vs. spicket: Gotta love regional dialect, and the misspellings that result from it. Despite many in the South pronouncing it “spicket,” the correct spelling is “spigot.”
• Judgment vs. judgement: I’m told that even first-year law students constantly get this wrong.
• Separate vs. seprate: Again, blame the way this word is spoken for how it’s often misspelled.
• Cemetery vs. cemetary: Ditto!