As most of you know, I am homeschooled. As some of you might not know, I am also a leader in Awana. About a year ago, one of the fourth-grade girls asked me what grade I was in. As I was telling her that I was a sophomore (otherwise known as a 10th grader, to those of you who get confused with the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior stuff like I do), another little girl interrupted me to “explain” my homeschool situation.
“Well, she WOULD be in 10th grade, if she was in school. But she’s homsechooled, so…”
“Excuse me,” I interjected. “Homeschoolers have grades just like public school kids do. If I went to Aurora High School, I would still be in 10th grade, just like I am now. Where I’m at doesn’t make a difference.”
She looked surprised.
Some homeschoolers are pretty touchy about their education, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I was not offended when the little girl told me I wasn’t ACTUALLY in 10th grade. To be honest, I found it quite funny. But really, when you think about it, that’s the impression that many people have of homeschoolers. (And to be honest — again — some of them have good reasons for why they think so.)
I mean, we’re the people who have horribl speling, makes a mess of sentence structure, or don’t know where to put our commas, and apostrophe’s. I mean; come on, some people think we don’t even know how to use semicolons. And, of course, we’re well known as the people who can’t put “there, they’re, and their” in the right places. Really, though, how hard can it be?
I want to go over their where there using they’re Wii.
See, it’s not that hard.
😛 🙂 😛 🙂
Thankfully I’m just joking.
I want to go over there where they’re using their Wii.
Or there’s always the problem of finding the right places for “it’s” and “its”, “were” and “where”, “capitol” and “capital”, “loose” and “lose”, “since” and “sense”, “your” and “you’re”, “affect” and “effect”,
Is “ain’t” a word?
Why isn’t it possible to spell “can’t” without an apostrophe?
Is the long hand on the clock the “minute hand” or “minuet hand”? Does it really matter?
Why does a homeschooler have to know how to spell, anyway?
Well, you know what?
Just for the record, I’ve seen plenty of public-school people (as well as adults!) who can’t spell. I’m not trying to point fingers or anything, but I’m sure you all know that most of us, homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers, need to work a little harder on our grammar.
I had a difficult time with “affect” and “effect” before I finally googled the difference between the two words. (And unfortunately, I still have trouble even after studying it. Every time I want to use one of those words, I have to go online to figure out which one is which.) Then there’s the capital/capitol thing. Grr, why can’t both meanings be spelled the same way? One of my worst problems is using “loose” and lose” correctly. I almost always get it wrong. I am capable of getting it right, but I just never stop to think about it…which is the thing. Most of us never stop to think about what we’re saying.
Believe me, I have a lot of work to do on my grammar, too.
Do you want to know something that [I think] is destroying teenagers’ ability to spell? (Since we’re already on the subject…)
Texting.
One of my cousins wore a shirt that said something like, “i ♥ 2 txt.”
It took me forever to figure out what it meant.
And all of those abbreviations like BTW, TTYL, PTL, TMI, LOL…
Now don’t think that I’m against abbreviations. I use LOL, FB (for Facebook), TTYL, and BTW. Abbreviations can be a good thing. (Although I’m getting discouraged trying to write “abbreviations” over and over again. Why isn’t “abbreviations” abbreviated?)
I remember watching a girl’s flying fingers as she texted, marveling at how quickly she responded to each message she got. That is, until I found out that to write a sentence that originally might be ten words, you only have to insert numbers and a few letters here and there, and VIOLA! Your sentence is now a quarter of an inch long. (Now again, I’m not against texting! I do it myself. But I do think that is one reason why many kids can’t spell worth beens. I mean, beans.)
And do you know what else? (Hehe…) Kids aren’t the only ones that have horrible spelling or bad grammar…
↑ “Wrold Famuos” or “World Famous”? (Notice that it’s not just the “wrold” that’s spelled wrong…”famuos” is too. ↑
↑ Comguadulatioms? Comgwads to you, too. 😀 ↑
↑ Click her to visit our website 🙂 ↑
Would you like a handy cape?
↑ Thanks, but even if I needed fashion decor, I wouldn’t want the inferior solution. ↑
↑ I’m not sure I’d want to send a child to whatever college they’re advertising. ↑
Watch out for using commas, too.
For instance, if I find inspiration in cooking my family and my dog, you can tell, for one thing, that I missed one or two commas in there, and, for another thing, that I must be sick, because I hate cooking.
And, just for good measure, I’ll give you a few pictures of translating gone bad.
↑ Dear Customers! The restaurant administration is not responsible for the personal staff left unattended. ↑
↑ I love the Apple Wapple 😛 (I think it’s supposed to be “waffle”.) ↑
↑ I’m not sure about you, but an elevator in China doesn’t seem that convenient to me. ↑
All that to say…
Spelling is a virtue.
P.S. Spell-check thinks “ain’t” is a word.