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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: jbe who wrote (2591)5/23/1999 3:26:00 PM
From: David C. Burns  Read Replies (1) of 4711
 
For one thing, it fits better with the Vos Savant theory about long-term memory function: having seen a word once or twice, people with "spelling bumps" automatically remember how it ought to look on a page. (When someone asks me how to spell a word, I first write it down, to see if it "looks right".) But if you had seen the same word written differently on different occasions (as you would have had you read a lot of Middle English), your "photographic memory" might fail you, by photographing the "wrong" spelling, or too many conflicting spellings.

I think this applies to all language exposure. The more foreign languages I took, the lower my "spelling certainty factor" was. My mother received her degree in Latin and French and taught English, Latin and French for 40 years, and she used to complain that nothing "looked right" after a while.

Still, it became harder and harder to beat her at Big Boggle the more she got into crosswords and their arcane and archaic words.
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