Owning up to spelling mistakes and why every day is a school day
Acurious mind and an openness to amazement at what a new day can bring are key elements in the living of a full life. I was in London last weekend to attend the Master’s graduation of daughter number one.
At a lovely ceremony in the Barbican Centre, the president of City, University of London treated the gathering to an entertaining and unorthodox address infused with wisdom.
Among the nuggets of good advice he offered his audience was to leave behind the papers and dissertations they had completed on their way to graduation and free themselves to learn more and to keep learning.
Know-alls spend their lives defending themselves and their body of knowledge.
Rather than welcoming new knowledge as an opportunity they will experience it as a threat, especially if it means having to dismount slowly from a high horse.
I was reminded of a few incidents when, as a writer who sometimes fancies his ability, I came tumbling from the saddle of my own high horse.
The incidents I refer to exposed embarrassing weaknesses in my proficiency in English and my general knowledge but afforded me opportunities to improve both. Funnily enough they were all associated with the stage.
On one occasion I was involved in sourcing costumes for a production and in a text to the cast suggested that an appropriate rig-out for one of the characters might include riding boots and ‘jollipers’.
I had meant ‘jodhpurs’ but had never seen the word written down and so I spelled it as it sounded to me.
Perhaps I thought ‘jolliper’ was a very horsey word like ‘tally-ho’. However, I realised my mistake when a text correcting my mad spelling appeared on the group text.
I wanted to crawl under a stone with the shame of it, and I do admit to lying low for a few days with a chronic dose of impostor syndrome.
Eventually I convinced myself to take my mistake on the chin. As part of a self-designed rehabilitation process, I researched the word and discovered that it refers to a traditional Indian wearable called the ‘churidar’, which is tight around the calf of the leg and loose at the hips, ideal for riding.
The current version is called after the Indian state of Jodhpur and is still worn at traditional Jodhpuri weddings. Every day is a school day.
My next literary faux pas also involved a text and a play. I sent out a message inviting friends and neighbours
to come see do my ‘thesbian’ thing in the latest local production.
A text in the group-chat suggested that perhaps I might have meant ‘thespian’. I crawled back under the stone — not only was my spelling dodgy but my knowledge of Greek culture was even dodgier.
The disgrace of it, I had spent a
lifetime thinking thespians were thesbians.
Using research as my rehab I found out the word owes its origins to Thespis, a 6th-century Greek dramatist. Until he came along, Greek drama was performed by choruses and he was the first to write for individual actors who dialogued with the chorus.
Thespis performed the individual parts in his own plays and eventually the chorus became defunct and individual actors became the thing.
He was also the inventor of tragedy — and isn’t it well I know it — the spelling or misspelling of his name’s derivative had near tragic consequences for my reputation as it punctured my literary armour.
But, as Leonard Cohen might say, the crack let the light in. Every day is a school day.
The third incident happened during rehearsals for a play set in a cas
tle where in my role I had to shout instructions to my fellow players to secure the place by raising the drawbridge and lowering the portcullis.
I kept getting the instructions backwards, which, if they were followed in real life, would have resulted in a disaster of Trojan Horse proportions. I kept calling the portcullis the ‘portocculis’, not having a clue what it was. From my rusty Latin I presumed it meant the door for the eyes.
Anyway, when a teenage actor corrected my pronunciation, I just about managed to hide the hissiness of my fit at his insolence.
I went home to do my research, intent on correcting the whippersnapper at rehearsals the following night.
I found out he was right — portcullis is the word, and it refers to the lattice-like gate that is lowered to seal mediaeval fortifications. Every day is a school day.
‘I crawled back under the stone — not only was my spelling dodgy but my knowledge of Greek culture was even dodgier’