How Do You Spell That?

Antenna. A-N-T-E-N-N-A. Antenna.
Facilitate. F-A-C-I-L-I-T-A-T-E. Facilitate.
Thorough. T-H-O-R-O-U-G-H. Thorough.

I never mind that people ask me to spell things. To be completely honest, I hardly even notice. It's an involuntary reaction. When someone asks, "How do you spell . . . ?" I automatically respond. I never think between the query and the response. I just spell.

I've never known how these situations arise so often. Every job I've had since I first started working has been filled with momentary orthographical queries. And it's not those open situations where five people are standing around and one aimlessly asks, "Hey! Does anyone know how to spell 'chromosome'?" No, it's usually a quiet aside directed specifically at me. I'm not sure how people get the impression that I'm a walking, talking dictionary or that maybe I'm the Ken Jennings of spelling bees. Most people don't even know what my major is. And I never go around correcting people's grammar or, certainly, not their spelling. Yet there's this persistent phenomenon that wherever I go, people ask me to spell things.

I don't even always know the answer. Plenty of times I have to go look it up and get back to you. "Receive" gets me almost every time. And "reversible" used to give me a head turn. I have tricks to remember the tricky ones. Reversible? Ends with and "ible" cause if you reversed the word the "i" would still look right. Opposable? Ends with an "able" cause opposability makes your thumb able to face your fingers. Occasion? Always two "c"s and one "s" cause an occasion never calls for two "s"s. Judgment? No "e" cause there is no "judge" in judgment. 

But those aren't things anyone ever knows. I don't sit there and tell them why I know it's spelled P-R-E-V-A-R-I-C-A-T-E. I don't tell people I spend my spare time looking up the history of the word "effervescent" or ponder the usage of "vet" as a verb. So why do they ask me to spell stuff all the time? For all they know, I might tell them something completely wrong. I am not a certified spelling expert! And your computer comes equipped with spellcheck in almost every program! It's not always right. But most people don't know that! Common experience leads people to rely on computers much more than the coworker on graves who has had very little sleep. Yet there I am spelling "inebriated" at four in the morning. 

Now, I must reiterate that it doesn't bother me that people seem to think my life is an impromptu spelling bee. I merely find it curious that such a specific behavior is so universal among the people with whom I associate. The reason for it is just mysterious to me. It's as though a balloon artist traveled to Antarctica and, without telling anyone his occupation, was handed a kit and asked to make a balloon penguin. How do they know!?! Beats me. No matter. I'm going to embrace it. In fact, I'm thinking of having a business card made up:

Maile

Orthographist

And the back side will read

I lost every spelling bee I ever entered.