spelling mistakes

Common Misspellings: Words That Are Difficult to Spell

We love spelling in the US. We’ve even turned it into a competitive sport, but that doesn’t mean all of us know how to spell. While many of us rely on spellcheck and autocorrect, this can sometimes lead to unintended issues.

Some words are plain tricky, and even our cousins in the UK (which invented many of the tricky-to-spell words) have similar difficulties. Words that are spelled phonetically present the fewest problems. It’s the ones with strange letter combinations, silent letters and double consonants that are among the most difficult, and it’s hardly surprising that they give people headaches.

An Embarrassment in Spelling

“Embarrassment” with its double r and double s was chosen by British survey participants as the word they found most difficult to spell. I agree that it is an awkward one. I actually keep a list of words I often misspell near my computer, and I have to confess to my “embarrassment” that this word is on the list. Why do I keep a list of words I struggle to spell? So that I can learn them, of course. Everyone should have one.

For those interested, below are the rest of the UK top ten hard to spell words consists of:

Fluorescent
Accommodate
Psychiatrist
Occasionally
Necessary
Questionnaire
Mischievous
Rhythm
Minuscule

I’m happy to say only four of these are on my list, but “necessary” was only taken off it a few years ago. As a spelling exercise for our British brethren, I suggest that they write the following sentences one hundred times without spell-check or autocorrect enabled:

“I occasionally see a psychiatrist about my inability to accommodate the rhythm of necessary chores. If my home were a minuscule bit more organized, I wouldn’t blush fluorescent pink with embarrassment when my mischievous brother comes to visit.”

Admittedly, being Brits, they’d best use the British spelling for “organized.” Although most British people tolerate American spelling well, it infuriates some of them, so if you are British, use an s instead of a z.

Words Americans Struggle Spelling

Google gets asked lots of questions, and it also gets asked how to spell words. The top ten words US Internet users asked google about were:

Grey
Cancelled
Definitely
Hors d’oeuvres
Pneumonia
Appreciate
Hanukkah
Restaurant
Ninety
Niece

How did you fare with this list? I’m happy to say I only have difficulty with two of them, and hors d’oeuvres was discussed in a recent blog post, so I think I’ll remember how to spell it now.

Based on Google searches, Idaho residents were either the worst spellers or those who were the most concerned about their spelling. Whichever the reason, they asked Google the most spelling based questions.

Google also had a go at working out which words bothered people living in different states most. Some of the results are quite interesting, although what we’re to do with this knowledge remains a mystery.

For example, if you live in Hawaii, not being sure of how to spell “Pterodactyl” keeps you awake at night. On the other hand, residents of Georgia are most worried about how to spell “Pneumonia.” Those living Sunshine State know so little about bad weather that they aren’t sure how to spell “grey.” Then there are Maine residents. They want to let us know they’re fed-up, or so it would seem. Their most googled spelling question was for “frustrated.”

Can Americans Spell “Embarrassed”?

We’re not too unlike the British in our spelling vices. More than 60% of Americans can’t spell the “e-word”. Other words that confuse us include:

Liaison
Millennium
Friend
Ridiculous

The one thing we can console ourselves with is that everybody has words they’re not confident about spelling. After all, how are we supposed to know the breed of dog that’s pronounced as “Chiwawa” is actually spelled “Chihuahua?” If we were to pronounce that in the way the series of letters suggests, it would be “Chee-who-ah-who-ah”, and that’s exactly how I remember the correct spelling. Somewhere in my head, there’s a little circuit that remembers it in its phonetically pronounced form.

There’s a school of thought saying we should be given leeway to spell things logically. Before the invention of printing and the development of the first dictionaries, there were no real spelling rules. On the other side of the argument, some are pushing for even greater standardization. But since this would mean either the Brits or the Americans would have to give up their form of spelling, it seems unlikely this will ever happen.

As a final consolation, you should know that some of the greatest writers in history were very bad spellers who relied on editors to pick up their errors, so if you struggle to spell certain words, you’re in good company.

(Photo courtesy of elginwx)

How to Proofread Your Writing

For many people, one of the most difficult aspects of writing is the proofreading process. If you have been working on a paper or a writing assignment for a long period of time, it’s easy to read words into your writing that aren’t there and accidentally miss grammatical mistakes within the writing. One of the best ways to prevent this is to get someone to proofread your writing, since they look at it from a completely fresh perspective. The issue for many, however, is that there often isn’t someone around who’s willing or able to proofread your writing. If you find you often miss mistakes when proofreading and can’t get someone else to proofread it, there are a few steps you can take which will give you a better chance of catching your writing errors.

Walk Away

One of the best steps you can take when proofreading your own work is to take some time away from it, even if that is only for an hour or two. A full day or two is even better and one of the reasons you should learn to not procrastinate. When you try to proofread as soon as you finish writing, you still have it in your head what you meant to say, and this can often overwrite what’s actually on the pages. Taking some time away will allow you to read your writing with “fresh eyes” and will make it much more likely you’ll spot errors.

Listen to Your Text

If you don’t have time to walk away for a bit of time, listen to your writing instead of reading it (you can use the proofread tool available on wordcounter). Switching things up so you listen to what you wrote instead of reading it will again will make it more likely you will catch your mistakes rather than if you reread the text.

Print and Read

Another way to increase the chances of catching mistakes is to print out your writing instead of proofreading it on the computer. Trying to proofread on your computer makes it easier to miss mistakes than when you proofread with the writing physically in front of you.

Read from Bottom to Top

An effective way of proofreading which forces you to look at the writing from a different perspective is to proofread from the bottom to the top. Instead of proofreading as one would normally read the writing, start at the bottom and read towards the top. It won’t make any sense, but that’s the point. It will force you to look at the individual words written, rather than skimming over sentences.

Read It Out Loud

Another way to increase your chances of finding mistakes when proofreading is to read your writing out loud instead of silently in your mind. Reading silently increases your chances of inserting skipped words that aren’t on the paper but you meant to write. Audibly saying the words makes it much more difficult to skip over these types of mistakes.

Don’t Do Everything at Once

When you do sit down to proofread, don’t try to correct all the problems in a single read through. Instead, concentrate on a specific aspect you want to make sure is correct. For example, concentrate on word choice for the first read through. Then concentrate on finding grammatical errors and sentence structure mistakes on the second read through. For the third reading, look specifically for spelling mistakes. Yes, this means you are going to have to read through your writing several times instead of a single time, but that will also make it much more likely you’ll find all the mistakes you may have made.

Use Spellcheck and GrammarCheck

Using a spell checker can help you spot words which have been repeated, words which have reversed letters and other common spelling mistakes, but you should never rely on it as the only proofreading you do. While a spell checker is great for its specific job, it fails at a lot of other things, especially when it comes to grammar. “There” is spelled correctly, but it’s still wrong if the proper word for a sentence is “their.” A grammar check can help out with these mistakes. Both are tools which can help you find errors you may miss on your own, but they don’t replace actually rereading your writing and looking for mistakes.

Make a Proofreading Checklist

You know your weaknesses better than anyone else, and you should make a checklist of these weaknesses. This will allow you to double and triple check these areas of your writing when you proofread. If you don’t currently know your writing weaknesses, begin to pay attention to the remarks when you get assignments back so you can create the checklist. By paying special attention to the writing areas where you tend to be weakest, you’ll improve and make sure you aren’t consistently making the same writing mistakes on your papers.

(Photo courtesy of With Associates)