A Few Words I Have Never, Ever Spelled Correctly

I hate these words so much

“Dictionary” by Stock Catalog

I’ve been a professional writer for over 25 years, and a blogger for almost twenty years. I’ve written millions and millions of words.

So you’d think I’d be very good at spelling, yes? Mostly, I am! Generally, when I’m writing I blast along at 100 WPM without giving much thought to proper spelling.

With a few notable exceptions.

The following words utterly torment me. I never, ever spell them correctly the first time.

I hate them with all my being. There are morbidly interesting reasons why I unfailingly misspell them, but this does not reduce how much I hate them.

They are …

Aficionado

This word is the worst.

Ironically, I use it a lot, because I’m often writing about subcultures that have a lot of ardent fans.

So why do I misspell it? Weirdly, because I seem to be unable to correctly pronounce it. When I write I often subvocalize the words I’m using; it’s part of how I focus on the tempo of sentences and paragraphs…