Because I'm Indian, many people assume I'm good at spelling. After all, six of the last 10 winners of the National Spelling Bee are of Indian descent and three of them are now making millions on the PSA (Professional Spelling Association) tour.
Unfortunately, I'm a terrible speller. It's a good thing I can do a spell-check on my computer or I'd really embrace myself.
Spelling is a good skill to have - and not just for writers. If you can't spell words correctly, your boss might give you a peace of his mind. And as a result, you won't have any piece of mind.
Spelling is particularly important in certain professions. If you're a tattoo artist, for example, it's a good idea to know how to spell because - and I'm going out on a limb here - few of your customers will be former spelling bee champions. Customers can get quite angry when they discover they have a permanent misspelling on their posterior.
Customer: "You idiot! Look what you wrote: 'My hart belongs to Tommy.'"
Tattoo artist (scratching head): "What's wrong with that?"
Customer: "It's supposed to be Tammy!"
Tattoo artist: "No problem, dude. I'll just change the O to an A. It won't look too bad."
Customer: "Okay, man. And I'll do the same with your check - change the 0 to an A. It won't look too bad."
It can be expensive to remove tattoos, so if you're considering one, make sure you go to a good tattoo parlor, not one that claims to have the "best artits in town."
The same goes for sign painters. You don't want to be the laughing stock of your neighborhood, even if misspellings can make some signs more effective, such as the one that a property owner put on his gate: "Warning: Trespassers will be prostituted."
A misspelling can hurt a business, confusing or even scaring potential customers. And yet you can find hundreds of misspellings on business signs - and that's in New York City alone. Wherever you live, just look around and you're likely to spot signs like these:
At a carpet warehouse: "Ask us about our low installation rats." (No thanks. We've already complained to the city about all the road dents.)
At a limousine rental business: "We make you feel impotent." (Better bring those pills along.)
At a furniture store: "All our sofas are now on clarance." (Poor Clarance! Someone call 911.)
At an Indian restaurant: "We appreciate our costumers." (Especially the ones dressed like Gandhi.)
At an electrolysis office: "No appointment necessary. Open to the pubic." (Sorry, but mine doesn't read. You'll have to invest in a pubic-address system.)
Some of the worst spellers - aside from teen-agers on the Net - are people holding signs at public demonstrations. A couple of years ago, during a Martin Luther King Day march in Corpus Christi, Texas, a woman waved a sign that said "I have a draem." That didn't look too bad, actually, compared to the sign beside her, carried by a man who appeared to have raided the local liquor store: "I have de rum."
BYLINE:
Melvin Durai is a Manitoba-based writer and humorist. A native of India, he grew up in Zambia and has lived in North America since the early 1980s. Read his humor blog at http://www.Nshima.com Write to him at comments@melvindurai.com.
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