For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill asks us about a word we have to look up. She says, “We all have words we can never spell. Use one of yours in your post and let that word drive your stream of consciousness wherever it goes.”
I used to be an excellent speller in my younger days. But then, as I got older, my brain started to shrink and has now apparently exceeded its maximum word capacity, requiring it to run some diagnostics and to perform a raw data purge. As a result, words that I used to absolutely know how to spell without doubt or hesitation, are sending me 404 Error – Word Not Found messages, forcing me to go to either Google or to dictionary.com figure out how to correctly spell the damn word.
The most recent example of this inability to spell a word that I’ve correctly spelled countless times was the word “aficionado.” I was actually writing an email to my brother-in-law when I typed that word — or at least what I thought was the correct way to spell that word — and that pesky squiggly red line appeared under the word I had typed, a sure sign that my email app was telling me I wasn’t spelling it correctly.
I had typed “officianado.” Then I removed the second “f” and the resulting spelling, “oficianado,” still had that squiggly red line under it. Dammit.
I went to Google and did a search on “oficianado” and this is what I saw:
Of-fucking-course! It’s “aficionado” with an “a” and not an “o” at the beginning. And it’s “cionado” and not “cianado.”
I knew that! Or I used to know that, anyway.
This, That, and the Other 
More and more times I need the help of the dictionary on my computer. Oh well, I guess it’s the same for many of us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Same here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love my apple products and their built in ‘look up’ feature but it does require words be spelled correctly. Thankfully they also feature the ‘replace’ feature.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it’s autocorrect killing us. I used to be a good speller too and now I find myself spelling phonetically. Embarrassing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And occasionally autocorrect chooses a “correction” that is incorrect.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Somehow it is reassuring to know I’m not alone in this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Been there, done that. Not with aficionado, but other words – not using the correct vowel or consonant. It must happen to everyone because how in the world could we possibly keep the contents of a dictionary in our heads forever?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, I’ve no doubt that it happens to all of us, at least upon occasion.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You ever notice that if you are familiar with a word, have spelled it dozens of times over your lifespan, and are confident in using it NOW, and that irritating error thing comes up, that the harder you try to spell your once common word, the odder it looks on the page? I had trouble with ‘aluminum” (yes that’s spelled correctly now) the other day. It just plain looked WRONG, even though logically it was the correct spelling. At least we can laugh at our little spelling faux pas (see/ IS that spelled correctly? My computer says yes) now and nobody can take us to task for doing it wrong if we do!
LikeLiked by 3 people
🤔 Hmm. Did the Block Editor stress you so much that it affected your ability to spell simple words? I truly hope that is not the case, Fandango.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No, not so much the block editor as it is my block head! 😏
LikeLiked by 2 people
Google has saved me more than a few times when I had no earthly idea why spellcheck was rejecting my words. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Me, too!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My brain is in the Error 404 mode, but not for spelling, more remembering people’s names and book titles. Grrr, getting older is a PITA sometimes!
LikeLiked by 2 people
If we think about all the information and memories we have crammed into our minds, it is a wonder we can write at all. Just remembering passwords alone takes up half my brain I swear!
LikeLiked by 2 people