What author Andy Weir got wrong about this particular word
What author Andy Weir got wrong about this particular word
Every week on “Make Me Smart” we ask an expert, celebrity, author or other prominent figure: “What’s something you thought you knew but later found out you were wrong about?” It’s called the Make Me Smart question.
This week, Andy Weir, the New York Times bestselling author of the novels “The Martian” and “Artemis,” tells us how his father enlightened him with a spelling lesson.
Something I once thought I knew that I found out I was hilariously wrong about was how to spell the word “eyesore.” This is around the time I was 15 or 16 years old. And I was reading the comics in front of my dad, and in one of the comics, the guy said, “Something, something, that’s an eyesore.“ And I looked at it and I said, “Hmm, what is he saying here? What is this word?” Dad looked at it. He said, “It’s ‘eyesore.'” And I’m like, “Well, that’s not how ‘eyesore’ is spelled.” He’s like, “Yeah it is. It’s E-Y-E-S-O-R-E. ‘Eyesore,’ like it makes your eyes sore to look at.” I was like, “Oh, I never even realized that that’s what it meant.” And Dad’s like, “I want to know how you thought ‘eyesore’ was spelled” and I said, “I thought it was spelled I-C-O-R.” And Dad said, “Well, that spells ‘icur.'” That was a fun little embarrassing moment for me, and that’s how I learned how to spell “eyesore.“
You can share your answer to the Make Me Smart question by leaving us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email a voice memo to makemesmart@marketplace.org.
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