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Monday, August 11, 2008

Misteak or Mistake

Well, It is Sunday and a kicked back low key day.....I didn't even make it to Walmart. There are those days when you just don't want to do much. I did manage to get the laundry done and make a pot of soup. Now I will have lunch all week.

It was pointed out that I made a couple misteaks in one of my past blogs. Well I have always been one to own up to my mistakes. Sometimes my fingers get ahead of my brain and I do tend to miss a letter or two here and there. Believe me it is not intentional. Most people can read between the lines.

I learned to read, write and spell when I was age three or four. I started school when I was five. I was far ahead of my classmates in the first grade after three days my teacher promoted me to the second grade. Every Friday afternoon we would have what was called a "spell down". The idea was to spell better than your classmates and the only one left got the weekly prize. Our room was the first thru fourth grades. All the kids would line up on stage and take turns at spelling. Of you missed you sat down. More times than one I went home with the weekly prize after I had "spell down" all the fourth graders. When you are spelling against fourth graders you don't have any short words.

I learned to spell Mississippi by M - I crooked letter, crooked letter- I - crooked letter, crooked letter - I - humpback humpback - I-. I learned to spell Geography by
reciting George Elliott's Oldest Girl Rode A Pig Home Yesterday and Arithmetic by A Rat In Tom's House Might Eat Tom's Ice Cream. You don't catch today's kids learning to spell like that.

This brings to mind another question. So what exactly is the longest word in the world? I did a little research and this is what I found. It all depends on your point of view, but here goes:

Officially the longest word is 'floccinaucinihilipilification' at 29 characters, meaning 'the act of estimating as worthless'.

Then there's 'antidisestablishmentarianism' at 28 letters, meaning 'opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England'. It is often considered the longest word as it has an actual meaning instead of being created just to be long. It seems to have occured to no one that a possible adverb formed from this word would be antidisestablishmentarianistically (34 letters). In any case the plural of it would be 29 letters long, making it just as long as the next word.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters) was made famous by the Walt Disney movie 'Mary Poppins' (1964), though it has been recorded earlier, going way back to the 1940s. Once again a joke word, it first appeared in comedy songs, of which the humour was supplied by the ridiculousness of the word. Nowadays it is used (also in a shortened version supercalifragilistic) to mean 'amazingly excellent', etc.

Unofficially the longest word is 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' at 45 characters, meaning 'a lung disease'. It was created solely for the purpose of being the longest word, however, it does appear in a few dictionaries.

There will be a spelliing contest tomorrow - stay tuned.

Today I blame my spelling misteaks on my old age... senior moments or whatever happens to pop into my head at the moment.

I sertinly hope they's no misteaks in ths hear bloggg.

That's it for Today!

3 comments:

A couple of newer paintings 2019 said...

Misteak is a mistake, lol!

Speedy said...

I sertinaly did not see any myself. You do a good job. If it were not for spell check and my secretary I would not be employeed here. Oh my I can't spell.

Speedy

Mark and Dortha said...

Oh, JJ, you make me laugh.

Thanks and Hugs,
Dortha