June 12, 2006--Contest Results!

“Chuck’s Daughter” is the winner of the first annual Behind the (New York) Times Blog Contest. There were in fact 30 words misspelled in the contest blog, “SEPARATE,” if you include the title—just as she says below while disingenuously dissing her competitive spirit, which I suspect is thankfully quite keen:

“It is my love of a lunch out, rather than any competitive drive, which propels me to say that there 30 total (if one is supposed to include the title). If the title is not included, then 29.”

The check for $75 dollars will be in the mail to her as soon as I get back from Spain—which if today is typical of life here could be never.

By separate (spelled correctly) email I received the following from someone I know who lives in France. He did fine, putting aside his cheap swipes at my grammar, except when making the fatal mistake of insisting that his spelling for the Jewish dumpling, knaydl is correct (and mind you he is not Jewish) as opposed to my spelling which is—I may have been a failure in Mrs. Greenberg’s Spelling Bees but I know my knaydls from my knishes.

And as you will see below, he also doesn't know from agita.

Also, what kind of lunch will $75 buy you in France? Bupkis, another Yiddish word meaning "nothing." For that reason alone he doesn’t deserve to win!

But judge for yourself—here’s his email:

I won't get into grammar, but by my count there are thirty-one spellingmistakes, and--it must be said--two "typos" (to give the benefit of the doubt). I'm not sure what current teaching practices are today, but you might be able to get away with say 27 mistakes, as there are four repetitions on which you were consistent.

1 "Seperate" (Separate)
2 "seperated" (separated)
3 "Speling" (Spelling)
4 "misspeled" (misspelled; plus the first of two regretful typos, the missing "to" in the phrase "to return to")
5 + 6 "procede" and "acknowldged" (proceed; acknowledged)
7 + 8 "persue" and "nieghbor" (pursue; neighbor)
9 "speler" (speller)
10 "triumphent" (triumphant, plus the second, strange prepositional blunder, "to" in place of "the," I suppose)
11 "unleeshed" (unleashed)
12 "Speling" (Spelling, again)
13 + 14 "aggiter" and "ammeliorate" (agitation?; ameliorate)
15 "stuned" (stunned)
16 "Hawaian" (Hawaiian)
17 "ressusitation" (resuscitation)
18 "knaydl" (knaidel, I think, although from German I remember "kneydel")
19 + 20 "largly" and "rationalisation" (largely; rationalization)
21 + 22 "corecting" and "speling" (correcting; spelling, yet again)
23 "progresive" (progressive)
24 "educater" (educator)
25 "speling" (spelling, a third time)
26 + 27 "surogate" and "corectness" (surrogate; correctness)
28 "disipline" (discipline)
29 "consol" (console)
30 + 31 "Churchil" and "speler" (Churchill; speller, again)

Good idea. 250 postings I think entitles you to a few spelling mistakes, intentional or not.

And I need to point out that the worst answer came from Speedyfixit who said there were 274 spelling errors. Can you imagine what kind of shape he must be in? Though he claims to be “dyslexics”—which of course he misspelled!