I made a comment years ago that one of our favorite things to do every year is to read local student submitted letters. One year that meant the awesomely hilarious instructions on cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving. Usually it's second graders' letters to Santa.
One of the things I love about these letters is the workout it gives my brain (and the English language) trying to decipher creative spelling of everyday words. Sure, creative spellings technically are misspellings, but there is something that feels enlightening about reading a word that has been just butchered, and being able to completely understand how a student was able to take a word they know how to pronounce, and break it down into the letters that somehow can make the right sound, while still being wildly misspelled.
I am going to share a few of my favrits (see what I did there?).
- Cucese: Single serving sweet baked goods given to Santa with milk.
- Rele: The opposite of fake.
- Stuft: As in stuft animal.
- Ben: Past tense of “to be."
- Woch: to look at or observe attentively over a period of time. Also an accessory worn on the wrist that tells time.
- Teevee: Short for Television.
- fone: Short for phone, even shorter for telephone.
- Decerate: To make something look more attractive by adding extra items or images to it.
- Cyewt: Opposite of ugly.
- Citin: A baby version of a cat. (I know, technically this one doesn't work. Sue me.)
- Dall: small model of a human figure used as a child's toy.
- Swich: A type of lever, also the name of Nintendo's newest console.
- Pepole: A collective noun for human beings.
- Wut: As in who, wut, when, where and why.
- Gluvs: Clothing worn on your hands.
- Mony: Like cash.
- Flawr: Seed bearing part of the plant. Usually has colorful petals.
- Huverbord: A board that hovers.
- Beter: As in “good, beter, best.”
- Nise: As in friendly or kind.
- Shert: A piece of clothing worn on the upper half of your body.
- Naber: The person who lives next door.
- Minits: A unit of time composed of 60 second increments.
- Swet: Moisture extruded through the pores of the skin.
- Gess: estimate or suppose something without sufficient information to be sure of being correct.
- Defenetly: Absolutely.
- Bote: A vessel used in water.
- Sanduls: A light shoe with open straps attaching it to the foot.
- Thanc: To express gratitude.
- Alerjic: An immune response.
It can be rele hard to gess wut they are trying to rite wen they misspell things, but if you swich into second grade mode you have a beter understanding. These young pepole have brains that are like blooming flawrs so it mite take a minit to lern how they rite. If you are a parent and have to rede wish lists spelled like this it might be a good idea to take a few minits, turn off the teevee, mute the fone and eat some cucese while you figure out what kinds of dalls, rele citins, woches, stuft animuls, sherts or other things your kids want. If you can't read everything, don't swet it. We're in the same bote. Their spelling will defenetly get beter. Just think of these misspellings as cyewt decerations on a writing assignment.
Thanc you for reading. Have a merry Chrismis. And be sure to check out our Holiday Greetings section featuring area second graders' letters to Santa in this week's Echo Journal.
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