"Spelling doesn't matter." Those words were spoken to me by my daughter, Kendall, a grade 10 honours student, I was driving her to school, where, on that particular morning, she would be challenging one of the several midterm exams stemming from the mind blowing courses she had chosen. Based on her statement one would think that she was mentally preparing to recite the periodic table for chemistry or maybe the Pythagorean Theorem for geometry.
You remember Pythagorean, right? It's that simple concept we all learned in high school that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. "Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten?" is likely what you are saying to yourself. Or not.
You see, this blog is not just a hilarious free read that recounts the adventures and misadventures of daily life, as seen through my eyes, This blog attempts, sometimes not very well, to teach you something useful. The real lesson of today's story, as you unglaze your Pythagorean weary eyes, is: Spelling Doesn't Matter - the Kendall Theorem.
I am no genius, so I took to Google to learn what exactly a theorem may be. It turns out that a theorem is a rule or law, especially one expressed by an equation or formula. Therefore, in order for the Kendall Theorem to have merit she would have to produce actual proof that "spelling doesn't matter". I, at first, doubted my elder daughter's latent genius. Genetics were against her and her assertion. Her grandmother, great aunt, aunt, and aunt-in-law are all teachers and devoted preachers of the religion of grammar and syntax. Her mother, a natural "knower" of all, has recently taken to writing down any new words that she comes upon and then learning all about their meaning and origin. Of late, I hardly understand half of what she is saying to me and that is only the half that I happen to hear.
I may be Kendall's saving grace. Not only has Mother Nature both blessed and cursed me with being follically-challenged, she has gifted me with being grammatically-challenged as well. (I looked follically up in the dictionary and I still don't know if I spelled it correctly! Is it even a word?) I've made a few spelling boo boos over the years and my loving wife is always more than willing to remind me, and everyone else, just what they were. So the package of goodies one gets for attending a kid's birthday party is a loot bag and not a loop bag. Big deal! So artwork painted on a wall is a mural and not a muriel. My apologies to all of ladies named Muriel but they do sound very similar.
It seems Urban dictionaries can justify just about any variation of a word's spelling. I feel for my friends, the Zhang's, who recently moved to Newfoundland from China. What am I supposed to tell Yuhua when he asks me to explain when to use and how to spell a word such as: sight/site/cite? Here's what I will say: "It's easy Yuhua, just apply the Kendall Theorem."
I am not sure her theorem can be disproved. I doubt that even Einstein, who had great follicles by the way, would dare challenge the Kendall Theorem. The evidence is irrefutable.
Fact #1: Kendall's grade for the midterm she wrote just prior to uttering the now famous "spelling doesn't matter"? It was a 93.
Fact #2: The course for which Kendall wrote her midterm that morning? You guessed it - Englsih. ;-)
As her father I can sincerely declare that I am very proud of Kendall. There aren't too many teenagers who can say that they have a theorem named after them. In addition to being brilliant, I can rest easy knowing that Kendall will also become fabuously rich. She will make her fortune from royalties after the Kendall Theorem adorns millions of loop bags and muriels.
