Words I Can't Spell

My friend Melissa might remember that great day in Mrs. Cope's 5th grade class when a few selected kids of Pepperell Elementary School (for those of you who are not natives to the Opelika/Auburn, Alabama area, that's where the Outback Steakhouse is now) got to travel uptown to Martin (which might be called Northside now, but who even knows...anyway, it's the school by the Monkey Park...tell me they still call the park that name...) ANYWAY, I'm losing momentum here. The bottom line is that we got to go participate in a district wide Spelling Bee. I was the 48th kid to spell a word that day and the word was carpenter. I spelled it like this: C-A-R-P-E-N-T-A-R. I became a Christian not long after that. I think I had to make it up to Jesus somehow.

Spelling has gotten easier over the years. I love that there's the red line of the computer that suggests what I'm trying to spell might be wrong. There's also Google which is my preferred method of spell check. But all this computer assistance has also made me doubt myself a lot more in actual handwriting. Yes, I still hand write. I love nothing more than blank pages and pens and letters. I love writing letters. At least, I love them when I don't make a spelling mistake. And please understand, I am not referring to grammar mistakes, only spelling mistakes. For those of you who consider yourselves my friends and are STILL messing up you're and your...we need to talk about this. No seriously...let's talk about it right now. I'm a teacher, I have to address it.

I try not to do this to my friends because even though I love being right and I love smart people, we all mess up sometimes and I never want to assume that you don't know. Oh and also, I want friends. But this little text messaging pic below is soooo perfectly what I find myself wanting to do sometimes. Seriously, if I haven't corrected you on this, you can just know that you have gotten a total pass and I really really must love you.

If you can replace it with "you are" then it's you're. 

The best phrase I've seen to remember this: 

Grammar: The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit. 

See...the shit belongs to you. You don't want to be it. Your is possessive. It MUST own something. Your mom. Your house. Your right to think I am completely obnoxious for stopping to make this point on a pop-culture blog. You're probably right. (See what I did there?) 

Also, one more thing, so you know it's not you, it's me. When I see this mistake on legit blogs or online mags or anywhere that someone is getting paid to write, I seriously lose my shit. I have been known to reply via Twitter to places that make these mistakes with the simple phrase, "You hired an idiot, and yet I can't find a job..." By the way, that's about the most passive aggressive you'll ever see me, but it's really hard to watch such a simple errors being made and not be able to do anything about it. Kinda like watching Auburn football this season. 

Ok...now that that's been dealt with...here are some of the words/names that I frequently spell wrong. Please know I Googled EVERY SINGLE ONE to double check before writing them.

While she barely deserves to have her name spelled correctly, Scarlett Johansson is one I can never get right. I think her nickname is ScarJo, but I want to call her Boobs McWhore. Either one works I think.

Apparently I have been spelling Courteney Cox as Courtney forever. This came to me as I edited a post last night with her name in it. As I write this the suggested red line is under the correct spelling...just saying. I did finally realize that Jennifer Aniston is not Anniston, so that's progress.

Business. Where in my brain did this word try to become buisness? There's an SNL skit from a few years ago about this word in a Spelling Bee. I've attached the video, though it's not great quality. Anyway, it's one of my favorite! If you are ever around me and my friend Julie for more than...oh, a day, you will hear us use lines from this. It's funny because it's true!

The words guard, guarantee, and pretty much anything else with a gua combination...guava, guacamole, nope...no, it's just those two...that have me second guessing myself every time. The u and a have gotten reversed in my head.

Gwenyth gets me every time. In fact, her name and many others are on this quiz that I just took. I am ashamed to tell you that I got 8 wrong out of 15.

And pretty much any word with more than one set of double letters in it is going to give me fits. Except for Mississippi. I got that one. But Massachusetts...I can't spell it OR say it without cussing a little at the end.

Am I totally alone on these? 

What's your go-to method of Spell Check? 

Did I make an ironic mistake during my your/you're rant?