In the battle against senility, I've managed to smoothly and correctly spell "pyrolysis."

[NNadir]

I don't know why, but for the last several years, whenever I go to spell the word "pyrolysis," I find myself typing pyrrolysis, pyrollysis, pyrrollysis, etc.

I've noticed that in the last several months, I'm spelling the word correctly every time.

When I was a kid, I thought I was a candidate for spelling bee competitions. The invention of the computer disabused me of that notion, but now, near the end of my life, I've managed to correctly spell, every time, this word, which I run across several times a week, sometimes, like today, ten or twelve times in a single day.

[soothsayer]

1. I too was an excellent speller until spellcheck turned me into a lazy slob

It’s sad.

[bottomofthehill]

2. I am glad you spelled it right

Although you could have gone with any spelling you wanted. I did not have any idea what it is.

[bottomofthehill]

3. And now that I have looked it up

Hopefully I will not need to use it unless referring to my compost pile.

[3catwoman3]

7. I had t look it up, too.

Always good to expand my vocabulary.

[3catwoman3]

4. What do you do that you run across this word...

...so frequently?

[ret5hd]

5. OBVIOUSLY an arsonist...DUH!

[NNadir]

6. I think about ways to stop, even reverse, climate change. n/t.

[ret5hd]

11. Oh...uhhhm...well...i take it back then.

[Ocelot II]

8. Great. Now you can take on "syzygy."

[rsdsharp]

9. I have yet to ever spell (double checks) pyrolysis.

Well, except for right now, but that doesn’t really count.

Does it?

[NNadir]

10. It counts. You have successfully spelled it and made far few errors than I have made.

You'd have to go along way to match me in number of misspellings of the word.

I must have made this error thousands of times.

[rsdsharp]

12. I will never threaten your record, as I have never had a

need to use that word, let alone spell it.

[NNadir]

14. Thank you. I don't hold many records, so I'm glad this one is secure. n/t.

[littlemissmartypants]

13. I am so spelling impaired that I spent most of my replies to essay exams

Scribbling through the words that I couldn't spell correctly. The technique worked so well, I was never required or motivated to learn how to spell the scribbled words. I attribute my success to the redundancy inherent in the English language. I remain a woefully inadequate speller and I am completely unashamed of my my use of this compensatory technique.

Congrats on your spelling success, NNadir. Thanks for the post.

❤

[eppur_se_muova]

15. Hmmm ... but was it at the cost of forgetting how to spell "pyrrole" ?

If so, your victory is ... pyrrhic.

German chemists left us a bit of a mess:
pyridine: one r
pyrroline: two rs

Even the experts make mistakes: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287338624_Pyrridazinoindoles_synthesis_and_properties
and https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=pyrollusite&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi02qe605vwAhXKbc0KHfFuDiwQvgUoAXoECAEQMg&biw=1002&bih=626

[NNadir]

16. Possibly this is the source of my life long errors.

It may well come at that cost. I don't do much organic synthesis these days, and that particular heterocycle seldom garners a structure I see in mass spec, unless in an indole in a tryptophan or a tryptophan mimetic, so I'm fairly safe.

No one ever accused Germans of consistent or reliable spelling.