There's a Word I Can't Spell

If I can sound old for a minute, I grew up at a time when texts didn't auto-correct and we actually had to remember how words were spelled.  I don't know why I'm using texts as the example when the following story has nothing to do with that, but hang with me.

Right out of college I applied for a job at the University of Texas.  At the time, and probably still, in order to apply for any roles there, you had to have typing and spelling test scores on file.  This was in a transitional time on the internet, so instead of taking these tests online, you had to go to a physical location where someone administered these tests to you.  Of course I say the transitional internet thing but for all I know this is still how the University administers these tests.

The typing test was relatively straight forward: a paragraph of text is displayed at the top of the screen with a large text box beneath it.  In the text box you copy the text and the computer measures how long it takes you and how many mistakes you made.  This test was relatively unexciting save for that they let me do a practice round and then the real test which was a different block of text.  My real test turned out to be dialog between two yokels speaking in an ambiguous southern dialect.  This may have slowed me some, but was otherwise fine.

My frustration came with the spelling test which was the lowest of low-tech affairs.  I was presented with an Excel spreadsheet containing two columns.  The first column was 100 rows of random words.  In the second column I was to enter a "y" if the word was spelled correctly and an "n" if one was spelled incorrectly.

As an aside, I've always considered myself a good speller.  I did spelling bees and shit when I was a kid.  I got called on by teachers for spelling and reading aloud so that the class could just get through dragging lessons.  I have that shit on lock.

After meticulously filling in my y's and n's I notified the administrator that I was done.  He clicked over to a second tab on the spreadsheet which had collated my score... 99/100.  I asked if he could tell me which one I got wrong and he said there's no way to tell.

For someone so confident in his spelling, this was and is devastating.  There's some word out there, and I don't know which one, that I have no idea how to spell.  As far as I can tell, it will always be a mysteree.