As someone who holds a degree from a prestigious journalism school from a premier public institution of this country, someone who scored a 94% on the spelling and grammar exam that makes most j-schoolers shudder with fear, someone who once aspired to be a copy editor for a large newspaper and VERY WELL COULD HAVE, someone who staffed multiple publications and oversaw one of them while in school, someone who was awarded a top-shelf internship through the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, someone who placed a heavy emphasis on the study of English, grammar, the history of English, linguistics, and the like...
I am ashamed to admit that a couple of years and one traumatic head injury later, I could only identify 10 of the 15 misspelled words on this quiz.
Seriously. I even spent a semester studying DICTIONARIES, and I only got two-thirds right. That's a failing grade, if I recall my college days correctly. Next thing you know, I'll be messing up my subject-verb number agreement and putting all kinds of errant it's gaffes all over the place. *involuntary shudder*
I was wallowing in dejectedness when I noticed a link at the bottom of the site. "See a list of the 100 most often misspelled words" it said. And that reminded me of the enormous list of spelling words that were to be included on the S&G. (Really, that test was a beast.) And I have now resolved to find my copy of that book, or acquire a new copy, and re-learn the English language that I once loved so dearly.
Are you possibly speaking of UNC's journalism school? If so, I'm with you! That spelling and grammar examine was a bitch, but I passed first try.
ReplyDeleteYet now I find myself I constantly questioning "its" vs. "it's."
Where does the knowledge go?
Yes, I am! There's not much that I'm more proud of than that score. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it still appears on my resume. What year did you graduate?
ReplyDeleteI graduated in 2000. I guessed it was UNC because that's the only place I've heard people say "j-schoolers."
ReplyDeleteYou got me hooked on those encarta tests. I scored a 14/15 and was so pissed! I got a little neurotic trying to get a perfect score on some of the others. No luck. At least I passed the "real" spelling & grammar test.
Good for you for passing it on the first try! I took it my first semester in jschool, sophomore year, and scored a 69. I hadn't cracked a book for it, I'd just wanted to see what it was all about. WELL. I didn't like the tail-kicking so I decided to kick its tail right back. I still have all my notes from the grammar slammers. What was your sequence and who was your favorite prof? (for me, news/ed and Bill Cloud)
ReplyDeletei also got a 10 out of 15.
ReplyDelete