Thursday, January 3, 2008

Kang-er-oodort: An Important New Years Resolution

I’m embarrassed to admit that without spell checker I’d be a mess. My mother was always a stickler for spelling while my father used to begin romantic letters to her with, “To my darling angle”.

Unfortunately, I have followed more in my father’s footsteps than in my mother’s. I am always improving but I am amazed at how often spell check keeps highlighting the same words that I have persistently spelled wrong. You would think I’d learn after a while.

A word that has been particularly challenging for me lately is “certain”. I really don’t like the “a” before the “i”. It just seems to me that it should be “certian”. I am glad to report, however, that I have finally conquered this word and can now spell it correctly most of the time without spell check.

Most embarrassing for me has been the fact that I spelled the “kangeroo” in my screen name wrong from the very beginning. I realized this a while ago but by then I had used it enough that I didn't know how to fix it without drawing attention to my stupidity. I tried to think of some clever reason for using “er” instead of “ar” if someone should call me on it, like: “…because you’ll end up in the ER if you mess with me!”, etc. I eventually decided against that approach, since it was a bit dishonest, not to mention corny.

What surprised me the most is that no one ever pointed out the spelling error. I can only think of three reasons why that would be the case:

1) Those I have corresponded with are very kind and polite and didn't want to embarrass me.

2) They foolishly thought I had a good reason for spelling the word wrong.

3) They don’t know how to properly spell “kangaroo” either.

I like #3 the best as it makes me feel a little less stupid. In any case, I have resolved to spell the word right from now on and I want to publicly thank anyone who knew of my spelling blunder but was classy and kind enough to let it slide. For those of you who fall into the #3 category above I encourage you to admit with me that you didn't have a clue how to properly spell “kangaroo”. It may not make you fell any better, but I assure you it will make me feel better.

10 comments:

Turretinfan said...

I fall into a third category, I had draft a response (on the regeneration issue) in which I start by teasing you about the name ... but I've been too busy to finish it.

Now it is going to seem quite odd indeed if I forget to remove the below the belt punch before publishing my response (which has been about 25% done for the last 5 months).

Ah well.

Happy New Year!

Glad to see you fixed it, though I still don't much like the moniker.

-Turretinfan

kangaroodort said...

TF,

I fall into a third category, I had draft a response (on the regeneration issue) in which I start by teasing you about the name ... but I've been too busy to finish it.


Well, I guess the fact that you will need to remove the snide remarks will significantly weaken your response :) Lucky for me, being a prolific speller has little to do with developing sound theology.

Now it is going to seem quite odd indeed if I forget to remove the below the belt punch before publishing my response (which has been about 25% done for the last 5 months).

Take your time. If I respond to what you write, it may take me just as long. I just don't have the time to devote to it anymore.

Happy New Year to you too.

God Bless,
Ben

Kevin Jackson said...

Guess I would fall into #3, didn't know (or notice) how to spell Kangaroo.

I recently moved to Kennewick, WA, and had to really make an effort to learn how to spell the name of the town. Now I spell "Kennewick Man" without effort...

P.S. Go Stealers. ;)

Anonymous said...

Roos,

I'm a #3 man and proud of it! Okay, not really; but I take you both to be highly intelligent guys, so if you spelled it "er" knowing is was "ar," then I'd slip into the #2 camp.

I'm amazed at how much spellcheck misses. Ugh.

Looking forward to reading you guys in '08.

God bless you all.

Billy

kangaroodort said...

Pizza man and Billy,

Thanks for making me feel better. It is funny that I have no problem with words like hermeneutic, but couldn't get kangaroo right.

Pizza man,

Go Seehauks!!

James M. Leonard said...

No matter. The brilliance of the blog title more than makes up for the slip of spelling! It reminds people that Dort wasn't so much a Synod as it was a Kangaroo Dort!

Thanks for listing my blog.

Jim Leonard
Cambridge
http://treasuresoldandnewbiblicaltexts.blogspot.com/

Machine Gun Kelley said...

#3 for me as well...

My late father was a bona fide genuis. He owned a huge library of books and had read them all at least once. Yet, spelling was not his strong suit.

At leest I inhairited hiz bad spellin' skilz!!

LOL!!

Abigail said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Abigail said...

Kanga,

You spelt feel wrong in the last paragraph. It is not "fell" :P

Just thought you would like to know that I like to read every word you write...

God bless.

ps. Start being a Berean today!

kangaroodort said...

Wow Abigail...I wish I could say I did that on purpose :)