A good friend pointed out a particular pet peeve of his concerning my website. Apparently I have repeatedly misspelled a word. The word is lose. I have been spelling it as loose. I know, I know, why doesn’t WunderKraut look at a dictionary? Well, I am lazy. Deal with it. All my life I have suffered from not being able to spell correctly. I remember taking those achievement tests while in elementary and middle school and scoring higher than high school level in all the subjects but spelling. In that subject, I would routinely score at a third grade level. Sad, but true.

I have learned to compensate for this “handicap” by doing a few simple things:

1) I NEVER handwrite anything - The obvious reason being that my spelling ability is at a third grade level, but also because my penmanship has been likened to the scribbling of a caveman. Actually, if I take the time, I can write legibly. I am an engineer and as such, I print everything and in all caps. I gave up cursive writing so long ago that I have no idea how to write anything but my name that way. Even that can be a challenge. WunderWife claims my poor penmanship can be traced to the way I hold my pen. For a mental picture think of a small child fisting a pen in his meaty little hands then say something like: WunderKraut write now. Very caveman-ish.

2) I tend to keep a blank Word document up at all times. By the end of the day, there will be a list of words that I could not figure out how to spell. Spell check rocks! But it does have a serious downside: i.e. loose vs lose.

Play the following game with me, just to humor me and to drive WunderWife mad. Say the following words out loud:
Lice
Mice
Mace
Choose
Chose
Late
Like
Loot
Lose - Ah, but you pronounced it luz didn’t you? Why isn’t it like chose or all the other words that have a silent e in them?
Loose - Here you pronounced it us. But why not like choose or loot?

I have said before and I will say it again: The English language makes no sense to me!!!! That is another good one for you: since, sense, or cense. Which is it? Or how about this oldie but a goodie: i before e except after c or when sounding as “ay” in neighbor or weigh. And on rainy days in March or when there is a full moon or whenever someone decides they want to change things. Arg! WunderWife is a teacher and told me that all you have to do is follow the rules and you can spell anything. I would have called her a liar, but I was unsure of how to spell it. Rules? Are you kidding me? They are more like suggestions, if even that. A rule is the Pythagorean Theorem.

Ok, I have beaten this horse long enough. I have now changed all the relevant looses to lose. Is everyone happy now?