A child asked me to spell a word for them at school ... and I couldn't!

[roisin]

This is beyond my experience: I've simply never heard this word before. At an army camp I think it's the equivalent of a common room at a boarding school. It's pronounced naffy.

NAAFI - it's an acronym

It's NAAFI, I think. An acronym.

Message withdrawn

my aged parent sometimes calls Tescos the NAAFI

Thank you!

In my defence I should mention that I was able to point out to the same child that "our" is not spelled "are" and "some think" does not exist in English, and others similar.

But I think he would have been more impressed if I'd heard of NAAFI. I'll have to look him out tomorrow.

found a spelling from teacher in ds1's book

Granta Issimo

it's actually Gran Turismo

pmsl iota!!

LOL

you should hear some i come across.
Asian names, Asian words for which there aren't translations, English words pronounced by Chinese studenst who have been learning English for 2 days!!! oral work is hard enough but written work is mind-blowing.
btw...how do you spell ta-hor???

town hall of course

There is one like "vereer" in one of Gervase Phinn's books. Angelic small girl asks how you spell "sex". He flaps a bit but teacher is busy, so he has to help; goes to see what on earth she is writing about and it turns out the word she wants is "insects"

I was once asked to spell the names of about 5 Pokemon characters. Not having children myself at the time, not only could I not spell the names, but I'd never even heard of Pokemon !