I don’t know if anyone’s noticed (please say you’ve noticed!),
but I have taken quite a long blog hiatus—the longest since I began blogging. I
have been traveling, celebrating the holidays, celebrating MY BIRTHDAY, drinking
too much alcohol and watching movies. In fact, I think I watched more movies this
past week than I did all year: I saw Lincoln,
Parental Guidance, Les
Misérables and Django.
They were all great, but if I had to choose my favorite, it
would be Django. I really appreciate
the way Quentin Tarantino promoted accurate spelling. I hope I am not spoiling
the movie too much for you by revealing that when Django introduced himself he
made it a point to let the other person know how to spell his name by
emphasizing that the D is silent.
It’s really great to see spelling awareness demonstrated on the
big screen. I hope other screenwriters follow suit. In fact, maybe they can
even slip in some spelling lessons.
For example, the next time someone remakes the movie The Addams Family, the daughter
Wednesday should introduce herself by saying, “My name is Wednesday. The D sounds like it is placed after the N, but it actually comes before.” Then, finally, the word Wednesday can enjoy some time off of the most commonly misspelled
words list.
According to one list, one of the most commonly misspelled words
is indispensable.
Therefore, if I were to write a script, I would include the
following dialogue to provide the public with a subtle spelling lesson:
“I don’t think you realize how indispensable Laura is to our
mission. She’s as indispensable to our mission as the letter A is to the word indispensable.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Most people spell indispensable
i-n-d-i-s-p-e-n-s-i-b-l-e.
However, if they’d just remember that it contains the word able at the end, their mission to spell the word correctly would
never fail.”
“I understand. I’ll locate Laura immediately!”
16 comments:
My name is Tonja with a J - but it's prounced like Tonya. If you spell it with a Y it doesn't bother me. If you pronounce it with the J sound instead of Y, I get it. If you spell or prounce it 'Tanja' like tangerine, it's a declaration of war.
My husband has a Greek name with four syllables. I didn't change my name when I got married.
I know you're talking about common words that everyone should be able to spell, not names. But the J thing touches a nerve. :)
I was wondering if you've been off hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Happy belated birthday, and wasn't Les Mis awesome??? You were missed-
Jenny, is that really you? my name, the late phoenix, has a double thing going for it with the p that sounds like "ffff" and the fact that the p is also silent, which overrides the first thing and it ends up sounding like nothing. thus, you're left with the late hoenix, which is embarrassing, 'cause...y'know...talkin' 'bout 'hos...
Jenny-
Maybe we can have spelling lessons added to the script of the next Schwarzenegger movie...
"Ahl bee bach!"
"I do not mean that "A-L" will be back, but that "I will" be back."
"And I do not mean that I will be a classical composer ("B-A-C-H"), but that I will return."
LC
I think that sadly the spelling lessons have to be a bit more subtle than that. Though it certainly would be fun. As per usual I find it hard to believe some of the mistakes people make. Schoolchildren spell it at least once a week (Wednesday that is), do they really let it go uncorrected so much?
That's some riveting dialogue there. I hardly noticed the spelling lesson you so subtly snuck in there.
Happy birthday and Happy New Year! Hope you're back to more regular blogging.
I was wondering when your next post would come along!
Spelling mistakes irk me, particularly when they are blatantly obvious ones!
Duncan In Kuantan
Glad you're back!
One of the rivers here in Texas is the Pedernales. We pronounce it Pur-den-a-lis.
I noticed you were gone. What? You dont know who I am? Serves me right for not posting. And not following. I'll fix the follow thing right now.
Love the Addams Family reference. Takes me back, and I can just see Wednesday saying that :-)
Dean
Http://leftcoastguy.com
Hey, Jenny. Happy New Year to you.
You and I must have been drinking the same water or something. Instead of attaching myself to my laptop during these two weeks off that I had from work, I actually watched quite a few movies, too. We just saw Lincoln yesterday and thought it was very good. We also saw Les Miserables and can't stop talking about it. We also saw Jack Reacher and The Hobbit. We watched a lot of films at home as well, but I can't list them. I'd end up having to confess to sitting with my wife for Magic Mike... Damn! I knew I was going to do that.
-Jimmy
Welcome back, I sort of noticed your disappearance?
Also, Django was a great movie. I think it's my favorite one by Tarantino.
welcome back.. Happy Birthday..When was it???
Happy birthday and welcome back, your wit was missed, Ms Missed.
How could someone so young even HAVE birthdays?
Welcome back; happy birthday and happy new year. I love to sit a spell and read about those indispensable spelling lessons.
Because my husband's been in the hospital (most of the year) we're SO FAR behind in watching good movies. I did in-fact go and see Les Misérables (by the way, did you cry while watching it? I wept the whole time) without him but only because he is not interested in watching it. Too much musical theater as a child (his parents met doing theater and his dad was a drama teacher) so you can imagine how many shows of Grease he's sat through. We are looking forward to watching Django with a D.
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