#GBE2 & #AtoZ: The Big O

Letter O is for Orthography.  For those of you unfamiliar with the word, orthography means spelling. It's a big O because to spell incorrectly is to change meaning, if ewe no what eye mean?

I may not always know the correct spelling of a word, but I can tell when something is wrong. For example, one of my students wrote a story about a girl in a  

"SATAN dress."   
Muah, hah, hah.

I envisioned fiery red flames shooting from the character's waist while devowering everyone she ventures in contact with. Definitely not school appropriate as devil horns protrude from her evil skull. 

Nada.

The little girl's story involved cute little bunnies hopping around colorful egg-filled baskets. Could she have meant satin?

The big O also stands for Oh, no!

Vaseline

You know the stuff! Petroleum jelly. Thick gooey blobs of grease that could be a fun horror movie special affect with a little red food coloring. With a name like "Petroleum jelly," one has to wonder where this stuff comes from. Is there a petroleum plant, run off from gasoline, or what?

Vaseline

Looking at Wikipedia, petroleum jelly is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons with a melting point of about 167˚. Now I don't know about you, but I never tried to melt Vaseline. I mean if you coat your logs in Vaseline then stick them in the fire, will they burn longer? Purer? Send off healing products into the air?

The article goes on to report that Vaseline is tasteless. Thank God they told me that! I was going to spread it on my toast this morning. Also, Vaseline has no known healing effects, but rather works as a Bandaid to keep germs out. What do you use Vaseline for? On second thought, I don't want to know!