The Times Spelling Bee

If you’ve ever dreamt of being an author or poet but were disheartened because you don’t have the necessary – or is it neccessary? – spelling skills, don’t give up just yet.

It may reassure you to know that perfect spelling is not always a prerequisite for literary success, as The Times discovered after putting some of Britain’s most prominent novelists to the test. There has been a renewal of interest in spelling, coinciding with the introduction of the country’s first national spelling bee championship.

Schools across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are being invited by The Times to put forward a team of three pupils aged between 11 and 12 (plus a reserve) to compete in live spelling contests with other schools up and down the country, culminating in the Grand Final in June 2009.

We harassed (with only one “r”, please note) some of the leading lights of English literature, including Jilly Cooper and Fay Weldon, with 18 commonly misspelt words, and found that they are as prone to orthographic slip-ups as the rest of us.

The evidence suggests that Cooper, the author of romantic novels such as Riders and Wicked!, must have driven her copy editor to despair. She scored 11 out of 18 – and failed to realise that harassed had only one “r”.

However, as the creator of the notorious lothario Rupert Campbell-Black, it was no surprise that she knew to spell ecstasy with an “s” and not a “c”.

“I’ll be terrible,” she laughed, before taking the test. Afterwards a chastened Cooper said that spellcheckers “were a little before my time”.

Michael Morpurgo, the founder and eventual holder of the Children’s Laureate title, also subjected himself to the challenge. He successfully negotiated the oft-ignored “a” in separately, but will be red-faced to have forgotten the second “r” in embarrassed. Ah, the irony. He scored 12 out of 18. “That’s what spellcheckers are for,” he said.

Middle of the class was Val McDermid, the author of the Kate Brannigan series of crime novels. Speaking to The Times from the clamour of the York Lesbian Arts Festival, McDermid achieved a respectable 15 out of 18.

Many of those taking the test were caught out by the unpredictability and inconsistency of English spelling, with its rogue double “r’, unsounded “i” and silent “b”. The top-of-the-class award goes to the prolific novelist Fay Weldon, who scored 17 out of 18.

Her only mistake was one repeated by every single person who took the test. To see if you can outstrip all our authors and get it right, see question 10 in our spelling test.

Writers’ wrongs

Jilly Cooper 11/18
Misspellings
millenium, liaision, accomodation, dessicate, occurence, cemetary, innoculate

Michael Morpurgo 12/18
Misspellings
embarassed, millenium, seperately, dessicate, occurence, innoculate

Val McDermid 15/18
Misspellings
dessicate, occurence, harrassed

Fay Weldon 17/18
Misspelling
dessicate

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