To determine if I was anomalous, I only got one hit on The Google for "she was a little chap," vs. Is there any evidence that, as Twain suggests, that spelling is a "natural gift" independent of general fluency? It wouldn't surprise me to find substantial evidence for "heritability" of spelling, but this could be taken as evidence against the value of " heritability " as a technically-defined concept.
Since Twain was a humorist, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that he was using it as in 2. George W: I don't know about evidence in the scientifically acceptable sense, but I have long observed that many intelligent, articulate, educated, fluent writers are execrable spellers, just as many people of otherwise ordinary gifts are excellent spellers.
I don't know whether it runs in families or whether the family correlations I've noticed are purely random. My son had a sixth-grade teacher, a lovely woman, quite a good writer, and an excellent teacher, who warned us at the initial parent conference of the year that she was not a good speller and we should not be surprised to see errors in notes from her.
My stepdaughter is a Yale medical student but has never been able to spell worth a darn and neither can her dad. Her brother and mother spell excellently. Perhaps his sweetheart's name began with an R? I suspect that accurate spelling, at least in my case, comes from much early reading with its concomitant corpus of sight words; as an infant I often knew how to spell a word without knowing how to pronounce it.
I don't think that good spelling and fluency are particularly linked. I have always been an excellent speller, because I have a very good visual memory. But I am not particularly "fluent" in either speech or writing — I often have to rephrase my sentences, sometimes several times. Mrs Crane was obviously of the opposite kind and she and her sister may have been dyslexic.
Perhaps the sweetheart had been chided for spelling "Febuary" corresponding to her pronunciation and he deliberately made the mistake so she would not feel bad. The very existence of spelling bees or "spelling downs" — is that kin to "play downs", as some regions say instead of "play offs"?
Again, anecdote: I have a creative and fluent sister who can't spell worth beans, and know many people who win spelling bees but can't write fluently at all. I'd have to say the two things aren't connected, though it might be easier to memorize how to spell words than learn how to write sentences using them. I've had occasion to read the letters of Theodore Roosevelt, who was a fluent writer with many books to his credit, and was at least nominally a magazine editor as well.
He was reputed to have a photographic memory. But his spelling was awful. I assume Marie-Lucie is a native French speaker as am I. It seems that most English misspellings involve vowels, which are pronounced as schwas in unaccented positions.
I think that when I read a word I unconsciously pronounce it in French and thus nail down the vowels. That might be a reason why Marie-Lucie and I are good spellers.
December 6, pm. GeorgeW Dictionary. I think I need to read this book. I'd already planned to, but this is making it more urgent. I guess I could slip this fact into conversation between now and Dec 25th. Another anecdote: I've cyber-known intelligent, well-read, well-educated native speakers of Spanish who were bad spellers in their native language.
That convinced me that some people will never spell well—but whether that's innate, and if so, whether it's hereditary, I couldn't guess. Is that how the sentence stands in the book? It seems, from context, that "allow" should be "alloy", since he is talking about poor spelling as a form of precious metal, and not as something that shouldn't be permitted.
I was an outstanding speller until nearly 40 years ago I spent two years doing missionary work in Central America and became fluent in Spanish, which is of course pronounced exactly as it is spelled.
When I returned to the States, I found I had exactly the spelling problems Jean-Pierre describes, namely schwa-vowels in unaccented positions. Still do, though I long since lost my fluency in Spanish. Dang it, I may need to jump on the Autobiography bandwagon after all.
Twain is just so damn good. Thank you for the reminder. Twain's daughter Susy — Olivia Susan Clemens — died of meningitis in , at the age of His adored wife, Livy — Olivia Langdon Clemens — died in after years of illness.
When he writes that their spelling errors are "as gold" to him, he means it. I share both Twain's gift for spelling and his disdain of it. It is trivially easy for me to spell words correctly because I find that if they are spelled any other way they "look wrong. If I am unable to say verbally how to spell something, all I need do is write down both the spellings that seem reasonable when I am thinking of the letters as sounds, creating images to compare. One of them will "look wrong," and if the other does not, then I have my correct spelling.
That said, I often and purposely choose between variant spellings those most in accord with accepted pronunciation, and between variant pronunciations those most in accord with the accepted spelling. While unwilling to embrace radical spelling reform as advocated by so many luminaries and lampooned IIRC by Twain himself, I am happy to choose among the alternatives made available by the use of others to accomplish some small part of that goal.
I'm certain you're right. The author of Tom Sawyer knew the value of taking a dive to impress his young sweetheart, as the Becky Thatcher episode will attest. I'm a good not excellent speller and I have almost no visual memory at all, certainly not enough to be able to visualize words. I spell partly by sounding things out including words like "February," and "Wednesday" which I sound out by imagining that they are pronounced differently than anyone really pronounces them. When I was young, I was astonished to learn that there are people who can read without thinking about what the words they are reading sound like; my sense today is that most people read that way and I am the oddball.
The only thing I can remember reading that discusses some of the ways in which people's minds work differently in performing tasks is one of Richard Feynman's autobiographical sketches, discussing different ways of estimating the passage of time.
One would think that some sorts of scientists would be interested in these differences, and that understanding them would be useful for teachers, who sometimes take a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction. On reflection, I suppose many people including me do sometimes pronounce the r in "February. I've long thought without any evidence that poor spellers spent a much shorter time getting to the sight reading stage, while good spellers spent a longer period reading each word phonetically.
Poor spellers have seldom looked at all the letters in most words. This would explain why so many prolific readers and excellent writers have so much trouble with spelling. Of course, it could also be a defensive conjecture if it weren't for spell-checkers, I'd be isolated from much of the world.
When I was young and learning to spell, I shared Alan Gunn's approach mentally sounding out all the letters; in my day we were taught phonics. Some time later I found myself with Ray Dillinger's ability misspelled words "look wrong" to me. I wonder if that's a normal developmental change. December 7, am. I'm also a good speller who relies on the "looks wrong" gut-feeling, to the extent of sometimes writing down two versions to see which I prefer. It's all very visual, isn't it?
I still find AmE spellings "look wrong". I'm sure BrE spellings look wrong to AmE users. It's not as if I haven't seen plenty of AmE spellings over the years, which makes me think that their inherent "wrongness" was wired into me at an early age.
What I do remember is learning to read later than others but then being able to do it very well. I became a voracious reader and encountered many words before I ever heard them: the term "sonofabitch" was not bandied around much in the UK Home Counties in the mid-sixties so I mentally rhymed the middle with 'sofa' and didn't get what it meant at all. For me words "are" their written form.
Maybe that's it. There could also be an element of memorization. Attempts at fonetik spelin kud leed won doun the rawng path. I, too, am a very good speller because I am good at remembering the shape of a word, and I am frankly rather surprised that anyone tries to spell English words by ear.
It seems like a recipe for disaster, given how flexible English rules of spelling are. JMM, I have always thought the opposite. I don't remember ever sounding out words, although I suppose I did, and in fact I distinctly remember sitting in first grade and listening to some kid beside me sounding out words and wondering why they were doing that.
Even now, in my 30s, I occasionally find myself trying to use a word and discovering that I don't have a pronunciation for it. Not just that I have a wrong pronunciation for it, because I had never heard it pronounced, but that I had never tried, even in my own head, to pronounce it.
It's a misconception in these discussions that English spelling is completely or largely arbitrary. There are many arbitrary elements to English spelling—probably more than for any other language—but the majority of it is still systematic. That should be kept in mind in theories that link good spelling to good memory. To the extent that memory plays a role, I have my doubts that it has to do with visual memory. I'm a great speller, and I also have a powerful memory when it comes to things like learning speeches by heart or quickly memorizing passwords or combinations, but I don't remember faces very well, I'm not a particularly good artist, and I'm terrible with maps physical or mental.
Somebody mentioned that Teddy Roosevelt was reported to have a photographic memory yet was a poor speller, and that makes sense. Not sure why.. It just never took me anyplace. Rebecca wrote: "I simply don't enjoy his books. I have read more than the two that I listed in the original post, but I just don't find him as funny as other authors. He and Joseph Conrad wrote the two books that Gregg wrote: "It's hard not to like a writer who said: "Imagine you're an idiot.
Now imagine you're a member of Congress. But wait. I repeat myself. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin.
Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. I just like the morbid comment. Oct 23, PM. Mark wrote: "No way.
It just cracks me up thanks. Francene quoted Twain: "I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen Absolutely hilarious! Nov 19, PM. Opinions are funny things. I agree with Ernest Hemingway, Huck Finn is the greatest American novel ever, which is saying a lot, considering it has about the lousiest ending you could imagine.
Hemingway says so too, he recommends you stop reading it when Tom Sawyer arrives. Tom is unlikeable in his own book and even more obnoxious in Huck's book. I am a big fan of James Fennimore Cooper and was initially outraged at Twain's disparaging Cooper, until I got laughing so hard I couldn't stop. Nov 21, PM. I know what you mean.
Huck takes maturity and time to appreciate like many works of art. I began to understand it. Twain is quintessentially American--very Midwestern mixed with a lot of Southern, add a dash of the West, a nod to the Eastern establishment and a lot of fun in Europe and elsewhere, then you have a happy American, which Twain was. David Lemons. Nov 23, AM. I was enthralled when I first read Huck Finn in middle school twenty-six years ago, and I was enthralled when I re-read it for the umpteenth time last week.
I guess I "get it" if there are folks who don't like Twain, but I'm glad I'm not one of 'em. I never tire of reading from the works of Mark Twain. He was so prolific that hardly a topic escapes some comment of his. I find it amazing that he has remained relevant to today's issues. Much of what is popular in today's Usanian society I find to be generally worthless, particularly celebrities.
But as this trash garners so much interest I'm not surprised that some people don't like Twain. Check my profile and personal web site for a clue into my involvement with Twain's works. Sorry for the rant but I'm still on my first cup of coffee. Here's Mark Twain on baseball, pretty entertaining, even if you don't like baseball. Nov 24, PM. I just love these little proclamations, when my first introduction to someone is a statement they've made which is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that they're a fucking idiot.
Nov 25, AM. Anakalia84 wrote: "Rob wrote: "I was surprised in reading Huck Finn that I did think it dragged I actually much prefered Tom Sawyer as it was just plain fun and made me laugh a few times and the ending interpreted But Mark Twain? I enjoy his accessibility and gentle, non judgemental humour. Dec 29, PM. You're all a bunch of morons. If you want to know Twain's greatness, read his essay 50 years before the Holocaust called "Concerning The Jews".
Jan 08, PM. His books will then make more sense to you. Then you will know why so many people believe it to be the great American novel, one that can be read and understood as a child's book or as a philosophical adult book at the same time. It seems that if Rebecca is not alone in her dislike of Twain, then she at least has very little company. I love both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. They are two of my favourites of all time. Jan 27, AM. I disliked Tom Sawyer personally.
He's an unpleasant little brat with absolutely no idea where to draw the line. There is a quote attributed to Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, and others that says a person who finds misspelled words when reading is a person without imagination. The tradition held by the family who donated the pass was that its bearer was buying supplies for a wedding back home in Robertson County.
There would be no air-conditioning and a home might have been the setting. For a working class woman, there would have been only a couple of everyday dresses, so the wedding would hopefully have meant a new dress. Brides did not usually wear white during those days. A heavy, dark fabric would have been the fashion.
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