[Anonymouse]

My General Rule of English Spelling:

For words whose pronunciation is different from the spelling, if it looks wrong it's right, and vice versa.

FYI, I got an A for my AEB English ('O' Level equivalent, but harder), and consider myself an excellent speller (if there is such a word!). This is in spite of 5 years of pretty much continual warnings that if my handwriting didn't improve before the exam, my paper would be thrown in the bin. The general opinion of it was that it looked like the trail of a spider with too many legs that'd fallen into an inkwell and wandered over the page after drinking far too much of whatever spiders drink on a night out.

It didn't improve. It couldn't (and hasn't in the 30+ years since). I tried everything, I really did. I still got an A. Go figure.