It took me years to sort out my laundry. No matter how many times I was told, I simply could not remember how to spell words like ‘necessary’. In the end, a simple notion of recalling the line ‘one collar and two socks’ did the trick. However, the thought of trying to remember such ditties for every difficult word in the English language begins to sound a little awkward – to say the least! So, in addition to following some of the guidelines offered in this chapter, I suggest you also invest in a dictionary. Ah! But not any old dictionary: a simple spelling dictionary as used in schools. They don’t provide definitions but they do divide words into simple components.

In the meantime, this chapter will help with hundreds of the most commonly confused words.