Perhaps one of the most important things regarding a language is the writing ability. I remember when I was just a toddler. My family has told me that I was not even able to articulate a single phase with proper spelling; in my native tongue, Spanish, one would need to add a plethora of accents to each phrase if necessary. A word can have a completely different meaning if you do not add an accent.

However, all of this changed when I reached the 7th grade; I literally became a grammar-obsessed person. I would research all of the grammar aspects of my language, compare them and write correctly. At that very moment, having a wondrous orthography was of paramount importance for me. I began to be kind of exasperating for some folks due to my fast-reading capability just in order to correct their mistakes intentionally and without mincing my words, albeit some would enjoy it a lot since they would laugh to me.

One day, my Spanish teacher in the 8th grade said that she would take points off if there were more than five spelling mistakes. Immediately, all of my classroom mates made a line in front of me and a friend, whose orthography was sorely good as well. We had all of their essays or whatever they were corrected in 20 minutes. I had to correct about 12 or 15 (out of a classroom of 30 students); but no lesser than 10, I think.

The next year, when I was in 9th grade I saw a minimal spelling mistake in the Spanish class presentation. I told my teacher and she said: "Oh, thank you so much. Now, you will receive one extra point". I hallucinated. That basically meant I could get extra points by pointing out the spelling mistakes made by my lovely teacher. (I really liked her, by the way). I did it quite a vast amount of times. At the end of the period a think I received 3 or 5 extra points due to this. In one exam, she set down the word «poeta» instead of the formal and preferred feminine of the word, «poetisa». A friend told her, and she, unfortunately, gave him one extra point. I am saying unfortunately because a few days after this, I carried out a research and found out that «poeta» can be used as well when talking about a female poet (https://www.rae.es/dpd/poeta). However, before the arrival of the pandemic, she said that she would stop giving extra points because of the grammar or spelling mistakes we found (IS IT "FIND" OR "FOUND"???).

One of the most memorable corrections I made was the word GUION. Oh my God, the endless dicussion. I understand why people discuss this all of the time. At the beginning, I wouldn't comprehend the rule or the reason why this word doesn't require an accent, if it's just like «camión» or «avión»! The stressed syllable is at the end and the word finishes up with an "n"! It should have an accent! Then, I explained it to myself with the accentuation rules and made a lot of sense at that moment. Since it is a monosyllable, no accent is needed! Just like dio, vio, rio, but it ends with an "n". Yet the vocable does contain a "u". This "u" is never pronounced, only produces a "soft g". If it had to be pronounced, the word would be written «güión», and, in this case, would necessitate accentuation owing to the umlaut. The «io» combination doesn't need an accent, therefore, «guion» doesn't need it, even though it has an "n" at the end.

TO BE CONTINUED...