What words are people apt to misspell?
What words do you always miss?
Dictate these words to the best speller you know and see how she does: larynx, minuscule, guttural, definitely, indispensable, supersede, sacrilegious, rhythm, judgment, bellwether, disinterred.
Check out this list of the top 100 misspelled words here. 
0 Responses
I can’t agree with all of them! They may be right in America, but not everywhere else! ‘Licence’ is the correct spelling outside of the US. The article mentions some non-American examples, but they forgot about ‘licence’. And it’s not just in Britain – it’s almost every other English speaking country (like mine).
The ‘t’ on the ends of words (learnt, for example) is an American tendency. Everywhere else the preferred spelling is with an ‘ed’ (learned), though both are considered correct.
Thank goodness they didn’t go into ‘realise’, ‘travelling’ and all of those.
This kind of thing used to drive me crazy when I was teaching in Asian countries. These days the American domination of the internet is confusing a lot of people. There’s so much American spelling out there people don’t know what’s right in their own countries. Z is replacing S a la America, and the double L and the letter U are being dropped from so many words.
The things that really annoy me often have nothing to do with country of origin though. ‘A lot’ written as ‘alot’, for example (and sometimes even as ‘allot’ – a completely different expression!). Your/you’re, who’s/whose, their/there/they’re. I also hate it when people refer to others as ‘that’ or even ‘it’ instead of ‘who/whom’.
Ugh. I could go on all day, but I’d better stop now!
I have those pet peeves, too! “Alright” instead of “all right” makes me insane.
Ditto “alot.” I’ve seen both used in printed books. Maybe that makes me old-school. Or perhaps just old. 🙂
I laughed about “a lot.” In the late 1950s I was publicly humiliated in the 5th grade over my misspelling of that phrase. I do spell it correctly now.
I can’t agree with all of them! They may be right in America, but not everywhere else! ‘Licence’ is the correct spelling outside of the US. The article mentions some non-American examples, but they forgot about ‘licence’. And it’s not just in Britain – it’s almost every other English speaking country (like mine).
The ‘t’ on the ends of words (learnt, for example) is an American tendency. Everywhere else the preferred spelling is with an ‘ed’ (learned), though both are considered correct.
Thank goodness they didn’t go into ‘realise’, ‘travelling’ and all of those.
This kind of thing used to drive me crazy when I was teaching in Asian countries. These days the American domination of the internet is confusing a lot of people. There’s so much American spelling out there people don’t know what’s right in their own countries. Z is replacing S a la America, and the double L and the letter U are being dropped from so many words.
The things that really annoy me often have nothing to do with country of origin though. ‘A lot’ written as ‘alot’, for example (and sometimes even as ‘allot’ – a completely different expression!). Your/you’re, who’s/whose, their/there/they’re. I also hate it when people refer to others as ‘that’ or even ‘it’ instead of ‘who/whom’.
Ugh. I could go on all day, but I’d better stop now!
I have those pet peeves, too! “Alright” instead of “all right” makes me insane.
Ditto “alot.” I’ve seen both used in printed books. Maybe that makes me old-school. Or perhaps just old. 🙂
I laughed about “a lot.” In the late 1950s I was publicly humiliated in the 5th grade over my misspelling of that phrase. I do spell it correctly now.