Rodent Spelling: My Downfall

So, yesterday I composed a 600 word piece about a specific type of hampster cage, to be used on a UK pet supplies website.  Very professionally fulfilling, as you can imagine.  I felt it was pretty good- pretty damn good, actually, considering I was going to get paid a measly three dollars for my efforts.  I was perturbed, therefore, a few hours later when I got an email notification that the client had sent my article back for revision.
Great.  Here I am, a burgeoning freelance writer working for pennies, and my work is still getting rejected.
I went to check the commentary for the article and turns out, the client thought my article was very good.  The problem, apparently, lay in the fact that I had "mispelled" hamster as 'hampster' throughout the article, and they wanted me to correct it.

"Stupid Brits, can't spell hampster right," I thought.  I quickly changed all incidences of the rodent spelling in question and resubmitted.

It wasn't until I went to write this post that I found out that it is I, in fact, that is in the wrong.  I did a google search and checked Wiki and was pretty embarrassed to discover that 'hamster' is, in fact, the correct spelling.  Oops!

No harm done, I guess.  I'm just surprised to realize that I've been spelling hamster wrong my whole life.  Guess you learn something new every day . . .

{Originally published October 29th, 2008 on my Wordpress blog}