Sweet The Small Stuff
When people
learn you’re a writer, they always assume that you have perfect grammar and expert
spelling skills. I think I’m okay with both but wouldn’t use the words perfect
or expert to refer to either. I have too many hang-ups and weird mental blocks.
For example, let's take
the words sweet and sweat. Easy to mix up when you’re typing and the
words are coming quick. They’re up there with a word like, well, their. It’s
why you learn not to trust spellcheck. However, for me, sweet and sweat are
guaranteed to be used incorrectly in the first draft, and probably somewhere in
the second too.
I don’t know
why. If nothing else I should just be able to memorize which is which, but I
can’t. I mean, okay, so sweat means to perspire and sweet means pleasing or
sugary tasting. Now, how do you spell what you do with food?
E-A-T.
You see where I’m
going with this, right?
Since my mind can’t get past that, sweet and sweat are
on now on my revision checklist. Though you still probably don’t want me to
proofread a love note to your sweaty or the card thanking your Gram Gram for
the nice sweeter.
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Addendum:
You can also add "speech" to the list of words I constantly misspell, as seen here in the comments section of +Thomas Pluck's excellent interview with +Dan O'Shea.
