Spelling Solutions

The trouble for this word arises when you try to remember how many of which of its middle consonants that inoculate has. And while there is actually only one of each letter in the entire word, it came be tempting to add an extra n or c to the word to make it look better—but don't do it!

Think instead of the following fictitious mnemonic story and devices (which also has the meaning of the word inoculate built in).

The Story: The Texting Disease

In my experience, text messaging leads to poor usage and complete apathy toward the finer points of grammar and language. The abbreviations that come up can make even the grammatically thickest-skinned among us cringe. Someone needs to inoculate us all against the texting disease.

Take this, for example: just the other day, I got a text from a friend telling me that she couldn't hang out with me later that night. Her actual text? "i no c u late." There's no curing some people.

The Mnemonic

• i + no + c + u + late = inoculate
• Also note that my friend is lazy and doesn't want to type a single letter that she doesn't have to, so of course she didn't double a single letter in the word inoculate. Lazy friend = no double letters.

If you can just remember the poor grammar that my friend used to tell me she couldn't see me later (i no c u late), or if you can remember that she doesn't want to type a single letter she doesn't have to (so no double letters), you should be all set to spell inoculate!

This little devil of a word needs a mnemonic device pretty badly.

The difficulty with fluorescent comes in remembering the silent letters in it—both the uo combination and the sc combination.

My hope is that you'll find this mnemonic story and device as ludicrously memorable as I do.

The Story: A Sick Gold Nugget

We all know that when you're sick it can be challenging to smell very well. Imagine how hard it would be for a sick gold nugget that can't smell. A flu has come upon its ore, and now it can't detect any scent at all. String the words together and you get fluorescent.

The Mnemonic

Flu + ore + scent = fluorescent

Just remember that sick (with the flu) gold nugget (ore) that can't smell (scent), and you shouldn't have any trouble remembering how to spell fluorescent.

For this word, the difficulty comes in remembering that ecstasy ends with -sy, not with -cy.

I've created the following mnemonic story and devices to help.

The Story: Stacey's Ecstasy

Not everyone is a good speller, you know. Especially a little girl named Stacey who I recently heard about. Normally she fails (or almost fails) her spelling tests by just a few questions. So imagine Stacey's ecstasy as she runs home, spelling test in hand, to tell her parents that she just got one C on her weekly spelling test, and all because the word ecstasy is Stacey's word—it's her anagram.

The Mnemonic

• The word Stacey's is an anagram of ecstasy. (An anagram contains all the letters of one word but rearranged in a different order to form a new word.) If you forget how to spell the word ecstasy, but can remember the anagram, you can rearrange the letters to come up with the correct way to spell it.
• It's also helpful to remember Stacey's grade on the spelling test: she received one C on her test—but just one. Similarly, you can remember that ecstasy has just one c in it. Once you've used up the c in spelling the beginning of the word, you must use a different letter (an s) to spell the end of the word.