Puzzle Description:

When I was a kid, I kept spelling "area" as "aria." I think I was in the fourth grade before I finally grasped the right spelling.

#1: Norma Dee (norm0908) on Oct 2, 2025

I was furiously typing a paper in high school that was due and did not notice that I had transposed Juan to Jaun on the whole report. Since it was a paper about him he was mentioned a lot. The teacher's assistant marked me down for every time it was spelled wrong. I got a very low score.

Very clever drawing of a word difficult to illustrate more specifically than just with notes, Wombat. (I'm assuming it's Brunnhilde and not a big bow in her hair?)

Norma, you and I are, ahem, seasoned enough that typing in high school meant literally pounding the keys on a clunky typewriter, not skimming over a keyboard. Sometimes our fingers went off in their own direction with little input from our brains, and the muscle memory from one mis-type could mean it happened over and over again. I never made a spelling mistake when I was writing by hand in elementary school, but in high school I typed 'teh' instead of 'the' at least half the time. And if we even noticed it before handing it in, correcting it or any other typed error in those days was a whole production, not a simple backspace.

Not naming names, but one among us here has often typed 'trail' instead of 'trial' in trial and error. It doesn't seem at all like a spelling mistake or a misunderstanding, so I expect that it's probably another pesky muscle memory.

Lollipop, do you remember those typo erasers that looked like a pencil with a brush on one end? Correcting typos was a real art. Especially if there were carbon copies.

I'm glad you figured out the difference between aria and area. Love the way you portrayed it through puzzle making. Nice.

I hate when I made typing mistakes back then. Yes, I'm also from the "pound the keys with no correction tape" era. I feel for both of you. Before I was old enough to take typing lessons, I had to type up a 13 page report. The teacher was very adamant about no mistakes and no white out. I still remember getting all the way to the bottom of one page only to make a mistake on the last line. I think I cried.

I remember the crying.

I worked typing invoices for a hardware store in Tempe, AZ and ASU was their biggest customer. I had to deliver the invoices in person on a certain schedule to a man whose last name was Swearingin. I was rushing out to deliver a batch and looked down at what I had typed and I had typed the cover page to the attention of Mr. Swearubgub.

Completely understandable, Norma, an honest if hilarious mistake.

I remember both the erasers, which often either tore the paper or created streaks, and the correction tape. There was no point trying to correct a typo unless you were still on the top half of the page, because if you tried to roll the platen down from near the bottom to move the typo higher up, the paper would get misaligned, especially if there were carbon copies. There was no chance you'd get a correction key strike in exactly the right position. I don't remember crying, but I'm pretty sure it's why I first allowed myself to swear out loud. I never got to use the revolutionary new Liquid Paper and Wite-Out because they weren't available in Canada until the late 1960s, by which time I was already done with university. Since my work was still manual I no longer had a reason to type.

In the office where I worked we were like kittens with new toys. We had those electric typewriters with the balls and carbon tape. When the boss gave us each some correction paper we all just sat testing it over and over with a lot of wows being said. It was revolutionary taking something so difficult and making it so simple.

When I take notes, I almost always spell "behind" as "behing," because that -ing just flows out of my pen.

Yes, this is meant to be Brunnhilde -- I'm sure there are others on this site who could have done a better drawing, but it's good to see I was at least able to get the point across. :)

I'm loving these stories, everyone!

Awesome!

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