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In English Comedy/Crime movie The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Cynthia & Nicolas have talk about some plan in their car:

Nicolas: Don't worry. I got all the i's dotted and all the t's crossed.

Cynthia: Jimmy's got his own way of spelling.

What does mean by "own way of spelling" means?

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  • I think that means Jimmy does not follow the normal and legitimate system of spelling. He has his own way of spelling which may or may not be similar to the normal spellings in English.
    – Cardinal
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 11:01
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    In addition, I think "spelling" is being used as an extended metaphor. Nicolas says he's dotted all his i's and crossed all his t's, meaning that he's taken proper care of everything, but Cynthia is extending that metaphor to point out that Jimmy uses a different set of rules.
    – stangdon
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 11:32
  • Since it seemed to be popular, I've made my comment into an answer.
    – stangdon
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 20:38

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Cynthia is making an extended metaphor based on Nicolas' comment. Nicolas says that he's dotted all his i's and crossed all his t's, meaning that he's taken proper care of everything, that he has carefully done everything necessary.

Cynthia is then playing on the "writing" metaphor to point out that Jimmy uses a different set of rules: it won't matter if Nicolas has dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's if Jimmy spells things differently, which is extending the metaphor to mean "It won't matter if you've prepared everything carefully if Jimmy doesn't obey the same rules that you do."

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