If you've ever had trouble with spelling, it probably won't surprise you to learn that the verb spell shares the same origins as its noun counterpart--the kind of spell witches use to turn people into salamanders.

With the crazy way the English language has evolved, it often feels like you need magical powers just to spell things right.

Why, for example, do we spell something pronounced like coff as cough? Why does the same ough ending sound entirely different in the word through? Would you be better off if you simply threw your dictionary through a window? Why does it so often take separate spellings to convey the same sound?

It's no wonder so many people say they can't spell.

But before I reveal some of the secrets I learned during my competitive spelling days, it's important to understand why it's so tricky. Our language may be 85 percent phonetic, according to Marilyn vos Savant, who holds the world's record for high IQ. She's someone I'm not going to argue with. But that means 15 percent of the words aren't phonetic, and are therefore tough to spell.

What's more, English is a giant language. It's hard to count how many words there are, because some are variants of a single word, while others are no longer in use. But one major dictionary has records for 171,476 words that haven't fallen by the proverbial wayside. The Web site Wordorigins.com reports that an educated person knows about 20,000 words, and uses 2,000 a week.

This is a lot to learn how to spell correctly.

And we do have to learn.

A spell checker today won't catch it if you typed through when you meant threw. But a human reading what you wrote will, and will most likely throw away what you have written.

We often think people are dumb if they can't spell. This is entirely untrue--very intelligent people can be bad spellers. Spelling is a learned skill, not an innate human one. I know a person who has published more than a dozen books, but can't spell very well at all. She makes up for this by having great ideas.

Spelling tricks are worth learning, if only for the importance some segments of our society give to perfect spelling. In every article you read on résumés, for example, you'll find some sniffy human resources manager saying, "I just throw it out if there's a spelling error."

I think this is nuts, particularly when the job doesn't require spelling. Still, in the world outside my own head, people judge each other all the time on spelling, which is why I've gathered up three "starter spelling tips" below. Before you jump into those, though, you might like to learn why English is so tough to spell.