Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The tyranny nanny

As someone who has had to work at being a good speller, I have a strong appreciation for memory aids. I came across a few misspellings while editing copy the other day and thought I'd post another installment of mnemonic devices:

tyranny: the N's are doubled, making the word similar to nanny, so think of a caretaker who's a real meanie

tenant: this word often appears incorrectly as "tenent"; think of ants moving into your house to be tenants (or don't -- maybe that's too terrible for those of you who have been visited by the carpenter variety)

memento: I think this one trips people up because it's so similar to "moment," which is what a memento memorializes; think of the "me" in "memento" and link the word to your stash of old bowling trophies