M Saunders Language Autobiography

Introduction:


What we did was wright a paper on the way people talk and ways our selfs talk.  At first I had a hard time thinking of a topic.  One way to communicate is by writing so I decided to wright about that.  I have seen the different ways people speak and how big of an impact it has on society.

Language Autobiography:

Language Autobiography
Merrik Saunders

I am about the worst speller you will ever meet.  I can mess up the simplest words or the hardest words.  Any way I try, I can’t get it.  If I ask you how to spell something they’ll just say back sound it out.  Ok I’ll sound it out.  Now I spell the word wrong and the teacher would get angry with me.  When I was younger nobody would tell me how to spell a word.  They would tell me to look it up or sound it out.  Seeing that I can’t spell, none of that will help me out.

Well first thing’s first, this is a sentence from my fifth grade paper and what happens when people see it.  “My faverit tipe of wepons are sords and dagers.  I lik the older wons becas they put mor mening and art into it.”  Dang it I did it again.  The teacher told me to sound the words out and I got this.  Now proof time, kids pass around your stories.  Of course the teacher picks me to go first.  I pass it to some one and they try to read it.  “I can’t read this,” the kid said.  Then he passed it up to the teacher.  She began to read over it.  “Merrik this is terrible!  This spelling is just atrocious,” the teacher said.  Instead of yelling at me why didn’t the teacher try and help me out.  The English language has a lot of tricks and imperfections.  Some people might pronounce other things differently.  Sounding out a word could actually change some of the sounds.  There are still disputes about the sound of a word.  Words like water, tomato, potato, and bagel.  Even just stressing one letter could mess up the whole word. Another thing is that limited spelling could not always get the point across.  What I mean by that is having to switch a word you don’t know for another.  I was sending a email and this is what it said “Alright thanks for your help with the stuff (what was supposed to be hear instead of stuff is the word supplies but since I was younger I didn’t know how to spell it).  One of the minor examples of this scenario.  This was before spell check was good.  But people will not understand the full existent of what a person is trying to say if they have to keep on switching words around.  Angry is a good word but it doesn’t mean the same as furious.

One of the things that I really don’t get is the silent letters.  One of the reasons I believe I spell bad is that there are a lot of unpronounced words.  Things like sword and island.  No body says sword they say sord.  The only thing wrong with sord is it’s missing the w.  There are so many words that have random letters that don’t really need to be there.  How is any one going to spell right with all these hidden letters.  Back when I had real trouble with this I decided to try and say everything how it’s spelled.  In 6th grade is when I tried it.  When a teacher and I were just talking about how life was.  “How are you Merrik,” the teacher said.

“I’m good.  Just a bit tired”
“Not much sleep?”
“Yeah I couldn’t sleep last night”(at this moment I said night pronouncing the gh)
“What? You didn’t say it right”
Then I explained what I was trying to do.  That was the first person I tried it out on.  I knew that most people wouldn’t get what I was saying.  Only like one or two people got it right away.
        Now it gets to more why this matters to me.  One of the ways to communicate is to write.  You won’t see the person or see their expressions for what they write on the paper.  If there are a bunch of spelling mistakes what would they think of the person who wrote it?  It couldn’t be a good assumption especially for something important like a job or school.  I used to get made fun of because I couldn’t spell.  It wasn’t the craziest thing but still didn’t mean I like it.  I could be the best at what I do but if on the application has a bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes on it my chances of getting it could be lowered.  This paper alone I’ve spelled a lot of the words wrong.  This to most people is just a small thing but in the back of ones mind it could tip the scales just enough to change the outcome.
        The spelling has gotten much better but it still is a struggle some of the time.  I’ll just have to work harder than most people.  I am really thankful for spell check.  I don’t think this paper would have been even close to correct spelling without it.  Hopefully I just get better with practice.  Well that’s the story of the bad speller.

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