You have to know a word, before you spell it

This is the time of year when schools whittle down their lists of spellers to the very, very best for the big, district or state spelling bees. We had spelling bees all the way through elementary school and into junior high school too. I always enjoyed them because I’m a better-than-average speller. However, there was one very embarrassing spelling bee incident I had. It was my turn, and the word was “bombastic.” I had never heard of the word before. The sentence the teacher used to show me which word she meant was useless. I made her repeat the word several times, but for some reason, it sounded like gibberish. I thought I would just sound it out phonetically, so I spelled b-o-m-b-a-s-t-a-r-d. There’s no such word, of course. But if you look at it closely, you will see why the teacher cracked up laughing and the rest of the class went into hysterics. It took a long time for the hilarity to subside. Luckily the teacher wasn’t mad at me. She knew I couldn’t figure out what word she was saying. The lesson here, folks is, read, read, read, so words will be at least familiar. If you don’t know exactly how to spell them, use a dictionary or spellcheck.