[Xenalyte]

do you ever wonder if maybe spelling bee success might not be the best guide to the quality of someone's education?

It was a fairly accurate predictor of mine.

[Wright is right!]

The ability to spell correctly is closely associated with a large vocabulary - and Dr. Johnson O'Connor (see above post re: aptitudes) has found that there is an absolute correlation between vocabulary and career earnings.

However, as I've noted, there is a difference between the ability to spell well and to perform well at spelling bees. To perform well at spelling bees requires an aptitude not related to spelling at all, but related to mental vision.

Michael

[babble-on]

Hey, thanks for responding to my post after a pause of only 347 days. I've been waiting here without food or water for someone to ping me back on that.

I think basically there are good spellers and bad spellers. I have always been a good speller, but it was never something that was taught to me. Once I've seen a word once, like Radisson, for example, I always spell it right after that. But its not a function of the quality of school that I went to, nor is the fact that my father can't spell at all a function of his overall intelligence or the quality of his schools.

To me, its more about having - or not having - an aptitude or knack in very specific, but not all that important, realm.