Pselling

English is a difficult language to write. Or so they say, and so it seems. When reading, say, comments to blogs or other messages people write quickly, you find interesting mistakes. There are the occasional spelling errors but also things like using 'their' instead of 'there' and 'one' instead of 'won'. They do sound the same, so the slip is understandable. But somehow I can't imagine making those kinds of mistakes. I do make loads of others, prepositions are difficult, for instance, but I'd never mix 'their' and 'there'. I tend to mix 'it's' and 'its', because the use of apostrophe is slightly illogical there.

Perhaps it's because I've had to use so much energy to learn English, as it is my second language, and so I've needed to focus on these issues. Or perhaps it is due to being attentive to spelling and correctness in written language in general. Lately I've also become more aware of the differences in British and American English. I always knew they were different, but I never used to remember which way around it was. Color vs. colour? Gas vs. petrol? Aluminum vs. aluminium? It is all logical, the version that looks more like it reads is the American one. The one that seems to have extra letters is the British, or correct version. :-)

I know I shouldn't feel this strongly about this, but I do. I don't like American spelling. First of all, the excessive use of 'z' bugs me. It somehow looks so 80's and so fake. Synthesizers, maximizing your amazing hairdos and synchronizing with the beats. Or beatz. In Britain, it's OK to spell these with the much softer and more composed 's', except 'amazing', which is so American that you shouldn't use it anyway. And is it just me, or is 'colour' more vivid and vibrant than 'color'?

I have one specific problem with spelling in English. I can't write down words that someone is spelling to me letter by letter. That's mostly because the vowel names are so different from the actual sounds. For example, if someone wants me to write down 'a', they say [ei]. So, in Finnish ears using two different vowels, either of which is the one they mean. Complicated. And for 'e' they say [ii] and for 'i' they say [ai]. At least in this one the right vowel makes an appearance, but not as the first sound. The easiest way to confuse me, though, and this works with numbers as well as letters, is to use the prefix "double" to "save time" when there are two same digits or letters back to back. This is weird, and it always throws me off. So, someone called "Wooll" would be spelled "double-u double-ou double-el". Huh?

Just say "ou ou" or "el el" if you want me to understand it. Or if your phone number is 0777 558 622, it should be "zero seven seven seven five five eight six two two", and not "ou triple seven double five eight six double two". In case of "triple seven" you admittedly save one word, but you have to utter as many words to say "double five" as you need for "five five", and the latter is even shorter. And this is not even taking into account the inevitable fact that if you use the first one you'll need to repeat it to me at least twice. These "double this double that" constructions are often used in company phone numbers, because they thing they are easier to remember. So they say these very quickly in radio ads. If I'd ever need a conservatory (not conservatoire, BTW), I'd know from their ad campaign in the local radio which company makes the best ones, but would never be able to find them, because their phone number is double this double that.