Misspellings, mispellings, miss pellings
Here’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. Not sure why I can’t just let them go; I think it’s just my nature, good or bad. I was a pretty decent speller growing up and did well in the school competitions (although it peeves me to no end that I never won a title of any sort). Even today, there are some (what I consider to be) basic words that I have to look up to make sure that I’m getting them down correctly. Or at the very least, I have to type them two ways to know which one is the correct one.
Example? Weird. Or wierd. Nope, it’s weird. The i-before-e-except-after-c rule doesn’t apply. Isn’t that weird?
So what bothers me enough to write an entry on it are those misspellings that I see frequently, some from people who have multiple degrees and make — I’m guessing — six times more money than I do (sniff) and some from average Joes and Normal Nancys. ’Cause there are SO MANY average and normal folks running around, right? Yeah, sure. You let me know when you meet just one.
And what’s perhaps worse than seeing misspellings in other people’s writing is finding out that I’ve been misspelling something my entire life, thinking it was just fine and dandy. So I try to remain vigilant in my journey. But by all means, folks, if you see something from me that ain’t right, please tell me. As Arlo sings it (17:37), “I’m [still] not proud.”
Anyway, here is a list of words that I often see misspelled (followed by how they are misspelled):
Accommodate (accomodate, acommodate)
A lot (alot)
Amateur (amature)
Apparent (apparant)
Barbecue (barbeque)
Broccoli (brocolli)
Calendar (calender)
Cannot (can not)
Cantaloupe (cantelope)
Carburetor (carborator)
Caribbean (Carribean)
Cartilage (cartillage)
Cemetery (cematery)
Chili (chile)
Collectible (collectable)
Committed (commited)
Congratulations (congradulations)
Copyright (copywrite, copywright)
Daiquiri (daquiri)
Defendant (defendent)
Definite (definate)
Desperate (despirate)
Disappear (dissappear)
Ecstasy (extasy)
Embarrass (embarass)
Exhilarate (exilarate)
Existence (existance)
Fourth (forth)
Gauge (guage, gage)
Government (goverment)
Grammar (grammer — ha!)
Grateful (greatful)
Gray (grey)
Guarantee (gaurantee)
Handkerchief (hankerchief)
Harass (harrass)
Health care (healthcare)
Independent (independant)
Indispensable (indispensible)
Inoculate (innoculate — I would’ve missed this in the spelling bee)
Irresistible (irresistable)
Its (it’s)
Jeweler (jeweller)
Judgment (judgement)
Kernel (colonel)
Knowledge (knowlege)
Led (lead)
Leisure (liesure)
Liaison (liason)
License (licence, lisense)
Lieutenant (leutenant)
Lightning (lightening)
Maneuver (manuever)
Marshmallow (marshmellow — just learned this one a few years ago)
Medieval (medeival — I always look this sucker up)
Memento (momento)
Minuscule (miniscule)
Mischievous (mischeivous, mischievious, mischevious)
Misspell (mispell — aha!)
Nauseous (nauseus)
Neighbor (nieghbor, neighbour)
Noticeable (noticable)
Occurrence (ocurrence, occurence)
Parliament (parlament)
Pastime (passtime, pasttime)
Perseverance (perserverance, perseverence)
Personnel (personel, personnell, personell)
Pigeon (pidgeon)
Playwright (playwrite)
Plenitude (plentitude)
Possession (posession)
Precede (presede)
Preferable (preferrable)
Principal (principle)
Principle (principal)
Privilege (priviledge)
Pronunciation (pronounciation)
Publicly (publically)
Questionnaire (questionaire, questionairre)
Raspberry (rasberry)
Recommend (reccommend)
Religious (relegious, religous)
Renowned (reknowned)
Separate (seperate; remember — there is “a rat” in separate)
Sergeant (sargeant, sargent)
Supersede (supercede)
There/Their/They’re (their/they’re/there)
Threshold (threshhold)
To/Too/Two (too/two/to)
Tomorrow (tommorrow)
Truly (truely)
Twelfth (twelvth, twelth — horrible word, really; sounds like a Welsh town)
Tyranny (tyrrany, tyrany)
Until (untill)
Vacuum (vaccuum, vaccum)
Weather (whether)
Whether (weather)
Weird (wierd — very, very weird)
Your/You’re (you’re/your)
Try entering all that data with spell-checker activated. Oy! What a mess. By the way, if you think of any others that I can add to this list, please write them in the Comments section and I can add them.
And — I’m spent. (Name that movie and you get five bonus points!)
Happy trails!
SAK
Tags: Alice's Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie, Austin Powers, banana daiquiri, Chili, daiquiri, Gold Rush Chili, Grateful Dead, Harold Pinter, misspell, misspelling, raspberry chocolate bars
As a writer misspellings probably bother me more than the average person. I absolutely can’t handle it.
The movie – Austin Powers?
You have until (untill) but you could also have till (til), if I am correct. Another good one that I came across today was respite (rest-bite).
Great blog, love it and read it every day (even when you don’t post)!
I just spotted Austin Powers as one of your tags, so now I know that my guess was correct! Bonus point for The Spy Who Shagged Me?
Bonus point awarded! (Technically, the first Austin Powers movie — “International Man of Mystery” — had the same phrase, minus the “And.” Your correct answer drives home the point that it’s all in the details.)
There should be a footnote for “Its (it’s),” since if an object is in the possession of something, that isn’t a person, then it’s its object.
This is so funny! I never really thought about how Twelfth was spelt, until today. I spelled it as “Twelvth”, and it got picked up in the spell check. I had no idea why this was happening, so I changed it from U.S. English to U.K. English spell check. And it still said it was wrong! I learned ordinal numbers more than 25 years ago, and I never knew that Twelfth was spelled with an “f”. Unbelievable!
I compared it to “Fifth”, and realized it’s the same rule. “ve” in the cardinal number leads to “fth” in the ordinal number. But I think that the “l” in twelve makes it tricky. If you say “Fiv” and “Fif”, it sounds different. But if you say “Twelv” and “Twelf”, they sound almost the same. Do you agree?
I do agree! And I stand by my first comment — twelfth is an odd duck, no matter how it’s spelled. ;o)