Inktober Day 4 prompt- Spell
Polysemy is the capacity of a word/ phrase to have multiple meanings. The prompt for the day, 'spell', is, in my opinion a polysemy. As I sat down to think of the things that it motivated me to write about, I hit quite a few promising themes.
The obvious choice was, of course, the connotation of the word in the context of magic. Harry Potter, to be honest, was the first thought that came to me this morning but I dismissed it on the grounds of it being far too mainstream.
Another thing train of thought was to write about the intense 'spells of rainfall' that Chennai seems to have repeated trysts with every December. However, I'm still rather ambivalent about the way I feel when it comes to this subject. On the one hand, the month- long mini vacations we had were absolutely delightful but on the other, much heavier side, there was so much human suffering.
A third option I contemplated was penning down something about was 'spells of luck' or lack thereof. However, a couple of posts earlier (https://littleofthisandabitofthat.blogspot.com/2018/08/i-have-bad-luck.html), I rambled on quite extensively about my terrible luck so I decided to stray away from repetitive rants.
After much prodding I settled on a perhaps hackneyed take on the prompt. Perhaps the only more hackneyed/ cliched device to employ is to begin an article with 'The Oxford Dictionary defines......'. This is an opening I have grown to detest over the years and have made a conscious effort to avoid. Having said that, let me dive right in without beating around the bush any further.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been terrible with spelling. My mother would to take painful efforts to improve my competencies, so much so that she used to dictate difficult words and make me practice writing them out in a notebook every day. I detested this exercise back then, because it seemed pointless as I never had any intentions to write things on my own. Consequently, I did not feel the need to know my spellings. As far as the six year old in me was concerned, there did not seem to be any necessity for my vocabulary to be broader than the scope of my English syllabus in school. And in any case, marks weren't deducted in tests for spelling errors so I found the daily exercise with my mother quite annoying.
However, I realised the importance of appropriately spelling words when I was seven and in the excitement of putting together a few sentences of my own, thoroughly misused the words 'their', 'they're' and 'there' the result of which was understandably rather comical. When my mother subsequently explained to me the atrocities of what I had done, I remember being so mind-blown that I think that was the beginning of the vicious Grammar Nazi that I am today.
Over the years, sadly, my spelling hasn't improved all that much.. It was pretty strong during my middle and high school years-, largely because I had to write essays, arguments and stories quite often on paper; without the aid of my guardian angel - the spellcheck feature on Microsoft Word. Post these years, however, especially in the past few months the degradation has been severe.
Given all that I've said for the time being, you would think that I adore the autocorrect feature on my mobile phone. However, it does not get further from the truth than that. Quite often, (also mildly attributed to the many, many typos I make while texting rapidly) autocorrect is unable to recognise the word I'm trying to spell out and has no suggestions to offer; or, suggests something absolutely bizarre. In all my indignation I disable the feature from time to time but the consequences are far worse and I end up enabling the ridiculous feature anyway.
My under par competencies when it comes to spelling, however, are rather ironic because my vocabulary is of a respectable standard. I attribute this solely to all the PG Wodehouse novels I've read, with a dictionary at arms length to refer to at least five times with every flip of a page.
Hence, as I say down to write today, I made up my mind to improve. For a start, I tried writing this piece without referring to the dictionary to check for spellings but When I was eventually done and proof- read the paper, the spelling errors amounted to a grand total of 10.
Clearly, I have miles to go before I sleep.
No wait, I mean spell. Goddamn autocorrect. Hmph.
The obvious choice was, of course, the connotation of the word in the context of magic. Harry Potter, to be honest, was the first thought that came to me this morning but I dismissed it on the grounds of it being far too mainstream.
Another thing train of thought was to write about the intense 'spells of rainfall' that Chennai seems to have repeated trysts with every December. However, I'm still rather ambivalent about the way I feel when it comes to this subject. On the one hand, the month- long mini vacations we had were absolutely delightful but on the other, much heavier side, there was so much human suffering.
A third option I contemplated was penning down something about was 'spells of luck' or lack thereof. However, a couple of posts earlier (https://littleofthisandabitofthat.blogspot.com/2018/08/i-have-bad-luck.html), I rambled on quite extensively about my terrible luck so I decided to stray away from repetitive rants.
After much prodding I settled on a perhaps hackneyed take on the prompt. Perhaps the only more hackneyed/ cliched device to employ is to begin an article with 'The Oxford Dictionary defines......'. This is an opening I have grown to detest over the years and have made a conscious effort to avoid. Having said that, let me dive right in without beating around the bush any further.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been terrible with spelling. My mother would to take painful efforts to improve my competencies, so much so that she used to dictate difficult words and make me practice writing them out in a notebook every day. I detested this exercise back then, because it seemed pointless as I never had any intentions to write things on my own. Consequently, I did not feel the need to know my spellings. As far as the six year old in me was concerned, there did not seem to be any necessity for my vocabulary to be broader than the scope of my English syllabus in school. And in any case, marks weren't deducted in tests for spelling errors so I found the daily exercise with my mother quite annoying.
However, I realised the importance of appropriately spelling words when I was seven and in the excitement of putting together a few sentences of my own, thoroughly misused the words 'their', 'they're' and 'there' the result of which was understandably rather comical. When my mother subsequently explained to me the atrocities of what I had done, I remember being so mind-blown that I think that was the beginning of the vicious Grammar Nazi that I am today.
Over the years, sadly, my spelling hasn't improved all that much.. It was pretty strong during my middle and high school years-, largely because I had to write essays, arguments and stories quite often on paper; without the aid of my guardian angel - the spellcheck feature on Microsoft Word. Post these years, however, especially in the past few months the degradation has been severe.
Given all that I've said for the time being, you would think that I adore the autocorrect feature on my mobile phone. However, it does not get further from the truth than that. Quite often, (also mildly attributed to the many, many typos I make while texting rapidly) autocorrect is unable to recognise the word I'm trying to spell out and has no suggestions to offer; or, suggests something absolutely bizarre. In all my indignation I disable the feature from time to time but the consequences are far worse and I end up enabling the ridiculous feature anyway.
My under par competencies when it comes to spelling, however, are rather ironic because my vocabulary is of a respectable standard. I attribute this solely to all the PG Wodehouse novels I've read, with a dictionary at arms length to refer to at least five times with every flip of a page.
Hence, as I say down to write today, I made up my mind to improve. For a start, I tried writing this piece without referring to the dictionary to check for spellings but When I was eventually done and proof- read the paper, the spelling errors amounted to a grand total of 10.
Clearly, I have miles to go before I sleep.
No wait, I mean spell. Goddamn autocorrect. Hmph.
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ReplyDeleteDude, amazing. It's like a telemetry log of a brain revealed in the most appealing manner!
ReplyDeleteHahaha thanks a ton ! I have no idea how I’m seeing this comment only now !! Idk how it completely slipped by me !!
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