The Sneakiest Spelling Sting from High School Days

RDNE Stock project

Get ready to laugh over the great spelling quiz prank my English teacher pulled on all us clueless students who thought spelling was a piece of cake! Spoiler - we were dead wrong!

Picture a noisy classroom with teens who would rather chat than take vocabulary quizzes any day – shocker, I know! So when Mr. Noroom announced we’d have a 10 word dictation test the very next day, excited chatter exploded guessing what rotten tricky spellings he had planned! These were part of what made high school days unforgettable.

Some students imagined crazy impossible words to make brains melt. A few loud big heads even bragged they’d study fat dictionaries cover-to-cover overnight to show off word smarts. But really, they just wasted energy as we’d soon learn!

My gossipy friend Mary also imagined tongue-twisting spellings like "knaidel" and "oongaquoa.” Meanwhile, the class loudmouth Praise did not stop bragging about crushing the test after studying every word ever printed in fat dictionaries overnight. We all giggled, knowing she was just a bag of hot air who would run out of steam fast!

When the big test arrived, nerves and curiosity filled the air as we grabbed pens and paper awaiting Mr. Noroom’s first spell-breaker. He stepped up with the most serious face ever. “Number one...cat.” Weird looks bounced around. By “car” and “tree” every eye was puzzling over this baby stuff!

But we wrote each dumb, easy word down, now cocksure that ace-ing this baby test would be no sweat. I mean...come on – cat?? Too simple!

Still, minds raced to imagine what the big plot twist might be!
In our minds we imagined that the last word would be some Welsh village name with 47 consonants crammed together!

All the words turned out to be simple words. Finally, we all submitted to him.

However, smiling Mr. Noroom handed back failing marks all around – loud anger exploded!! Especially from the few big egos who’d announced spelling scholarship futures!

While madness grew, Mr. Noroom’s grin said it all...not one student had put the period punctuation he’d read out loud! This sneaky twist tested assumptions more than spelling! We all sighed realizing we'd jumped too fast.

Face-palms all around! Groans and sighs filled the room. His sly punctuation trick tested assumptions rather than spelling trivia! Once more he schooled students on thinking critically, not jumping to conclusions.

We all groaned at his awful joke, but the message sank in. Our teacher had creatively schooled us on not making assumptions, no matter how easy something seems.

We assumed spelling common words like "cat" and "tree" would be a piece of cake without bothering to listen for the punctuation he read out. Well played, Mr. Noroom!

As he happily floated out the door, we all laughed at being so tricked by his cleverness! His sneaky lesson on listening right for the win stuck for life! One My favorite funny school memory ever!

Now every time I start to assume something is easy-peasy without thinking it through, my inner voice shouts “Don’t ASSUME or you’ll disgrace yourself!" Talk about a hilarious life lesson courtesy of the crafty Mr. Noroom and his epic spelling test fakeout!

Till this day, I always make sure to add the punctuation 'period' mark at the end of any word I am spelling so that I won't fall for such a prank again.