A useful(?) list of what some editors claim are the 100 Most Often Misspelled Words in English. I’ll admit, I have problems with double consonants: it was not so long ago that I could finally spell with any degree of confidence, the word tomorrow. And rhythm also used to kick my butt (while keeping perfect time). Feel free to share your spelling bugaboos.
Site of the Day: 100 Commonly Misspelled Words
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Comments (1-25) of 25 Add your comment
I am an English teacher and the word I worry about every time I spell it is Significant. I always replace the c with a g. Even writing it just now worried me.
Embarassed? Embarrassed? Easier to just go with ashamed, abashed, red-faced…
This isn’t actually a case of misspelling, but… I can never keep straight when to use compliment and when to use complement. Two different meanings, but haven’t figured out which is which without using a dictionary each time!
I have been seeing “rediculous” and “definately” online a lot. Although Teh Interwebz aren’t the bastion of grammatical rectitude.
I think I was eleven before I finally figured out that excited had a c in it. For years I was “exited”.
I can never remember whether certain verbs with “ing” at the end have double consonants – is it modelling or modeling? (The latter.) I usually have to rely on Spell Checker for those.
Compliment vs. complement:
The second one is about “completing” something; complementary colors complete a pleasing color scheme, people with skills that complement each other complete a good team.
And the double-consonant before -ing turns out mostly to be a Britishism. If your spelling checker were set to UK English, it would let “modelling” through and flag “modeling.”
It was also as an adult that I finally got straight the difference between further and farther: the second one, with FAR, always involves actual distance, not metaphorical distance.
Even though spelling is one of my strong points, I still have problems with embarrass, vacuum and ironically enough, misspell. My pet peeve is when people use the wrong version of their/there/they’re and your/you’re. I’ve seen teachers make this mistake and it makes me worry about the sort of education our children are receiving….
I’m somewhat of a grammar Nazi, but misspellings bother me too sometimes. The words that trouble me are words with “L” and “V” in them. For some reason, I always want to flip them. “Relevant” becomes “revelant” in my brain.
Besides the your/you’re/yore, there/their/they’re, then/than and to/too/two (yes, I’ve seen yore and two misused) mistakes, the one thing that drives me up the wall is when people pluralize with an apostrophe.
I have always been a pretty good speller, but once in a while the spelling of a word completely escapes me and I have to use spell-check. But I don’t understand spelling “definitely” as “definantly” because there isn’t a second “n” in it. Misuse of homophones drives me nuts, and like orville, it makes me crazy when people put apostrophes in pluralized words.
Not exactly a spelling mistake, but I have seen far, FAR too many people interchange ‘of’ with ‘have’. So it would be something like “I would of gotten…” And these are people where English is their mother tongue.
Anyways. Occasionally (I even had to look it up on that site now) and occurrence are ones I confuse in terms of double consonants.
I’m a grammar Nazi. I am that annoying person who will correct your spelling/grammar while reviewing your written work or in conversation. Feel free to throw heavy, inanimate objects at me…
I don’t know why, but for me it is the word “appearance”. For some reason I always try to write it as “appearence”. I’ve had that problem for as long as I can remember. (An aside, but I have to mention that I love Firefox’s automatic spell checker. It makes it so much easier for me to catch typos.)
And I have to agree with the others who hate the your/you’re and to/two/too mix-ups (among other homophone errors). I also really dislike when people mix up breath and breathe. (And I don’t quite understand it, as I would think they would be completely distinct.) For anyone who is on LiveJournal or somewhere else with icons and who is also a grammar/spelling geek, there are some hysterical icons here… http://community.livejournal.com/obsessiveicons/108998.html and here… http://community.livejournal.com/obsessiveicons/130997.html#cutid1
I have a learning disability that is verbal sphere (dyslexia is the visual version). My spelling has always been bad because of this, but I think I have insight of some people’s spelling problems. Most spelling tests whether you can see if something wrong, actual spelling is done phonetically. And if you don’t hear all parts of the word (due to accent or background noise) and you’re unsure of the rules, the word never gets ’set’ in your mind. Excellent is always hard for me because I hear ‘Egg’. I have to be careful to tell some I want a ‘conversation’ because it might come out as ‘conservation’.
I can’t remember stationary and stationery (one means to be still, the other means paper – but I have no idea which is which!).
I too get a very nervous when a teacher e-mails or sends home something that has a very simple mistake. My child should NOT be correcting his/her teacher!
Again not a spelling thing, but at the bottom of the page for misspelled words, there was a link for a list of commonly mispronounced words/phrases. And while some of the entries were real mispronunciations (nucular for nuclear and doggy-dog world for dog-eat-dog world), other ones were just pretentiously looking down on people’s accents, like athelete for athlete. As long as you know how to spell it, who cares if you add an extra breath to make the “thl” sound easier to say.
And there is nothing wrong with correcting people’s grammar in written work. If it’s formal writing it should use proper English (though I will also correct people in conversation). And as for stationary/stationery, “stationery” that you write on has an -er, just like “paper”.
I don’t have a problem with it – but at work I’m constantly seeing the word “received” written as “recieved” – bugs the crap out of me when I see it! I even received an e-mail from a major company last week that had it written incorrectly – twice!!
Too many bugaboos to list! Apostrophe abuse in plurals is a big one. Another I see a lot lately is the past tense of “lead” – lots of folks spelling it “lead” rather than “led”. Also it’s become almost universal to misspell “definite” as “definate”. I continue the fight, though. Oh and Martha, it may also depend on where you are – in Canada or UK it would be “modelling”.
I had a 5th grade teacher that hammered us week after week with the word receive. Many, many years later, I still think of her when I see someone spell it incorrectly. I am not a bad speller, but I have some sort of dyslexia and have to be careful when I type because I tend to flip letters around. Not so much when I write though. I always struggle with the word rhythm. I always forget there are two h’s. I even had to check my spelling on it here.
I have problems with effect vs. affect. I have to look it up every time to make sure that I’m using it correctly. I have numerous pet peeves, one being more grammar than spelling. In the midwest I hear, “I should’ve went…”. It angers me so much that I will correct the person – I don’t care how snobby I come across. And, if there are any spelling, punctuation and grammar erros in my post – I do apologize!
I can spell most of the words on the list. Woo! However, I’m not sure why, but “restaurant,” “rhythm” & “decision” always get me.
yep- i always had trouble with conscience. Until I broke it down into syllables: Con-Science.
Separate, vacuum, and broccoli. Or is it brocolli?
2mrow, or is it tomorrow ?
lmao *(;
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