As crocuses and daffodils emerge from winter, some of us may choose to keep a garden journal. Be as careful with your spelling as you are with your seedlings. Here are a few forget-me-nots for perennially misspelling green-thumbs.
aerate: When loosening your soil so your plants’ roots can breathe, you may think you are “airating”. But the correct spelling has its roots in Latin.
perennial: Flowers that die each winter are annuals. If they come back for a second year or more, they are perennials. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the vowel change (from a to e as the third letter) is due to a Latin phonetic law that states that in the “unaccented and closed radical syllable of the second element of compound words,” the original a becomes e. How obvious!
chlorophyll: This is a spelling champion’s nightmare, with a second h and o and two additional ls. It describes the green substance in plant cells that uses solar energy to make food.
deadheading: This verb, which defines the act of pinching off wilted flower blooms, is one word and requires no hyphen.
drip line/Topsoil: The compound noun “drip line” remains two words while the compound noun “topsoil” collapses into one. It’s as mysterious as Mother Nature herself.
humus: The organic matter that comes from decaying leaves should not be confused (especially at mealtime) with “hummus,” a Middle Eastern food made from garbanzo beans.
peat moss: Neither “peet moss” nor “pete moss”, this is soil consisting of decaying plants.
pistil: It has nothing to do with guns (pistols), but is rather the seed-bearing (female) organ of a flower, made up of the ovary, stigma and style.
pH: This measures the acid/alkaline level of soil. It is an abbreviation for “power of hydrogen.” The H is capitalized because it is standard to capitalize element symbols.
Now let’s got our hands dirty!
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegiecenterlex.org) and author of “FatherLoss” and “VoiceMale.” The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Chethik at neil@ carnegiecenterlex.org or 859-254-4175.