Someone asked for the most misspelled words in English. This retired English teacher happily obliges. The two fun ones I frequently marked are "idot" for "idiot" and "nervious" for "nervous." And then there was "the anals of the university."
all right ("Alright" is labeled nonstandard.)
cannot (but "may not," etc.) The two-word form is advised only in a construction in which "not" is part of a set phrase, such as "not only . . . but (also)": Stevenson can not only sing well, but he paints brilliantly.
receive separate (There is "a rat" in separate) occasion
embarrass occurrence definite judgment mischievous
argument restaurant tomorrow disastrous recommend
tragedy pastime broccoli sherbet barbecue beginning
likable lovable changeable weird explanation grateful harass
rhythm incredible possession library government governor
misspell jewelry until
its / it's (It's a fine day. The dog wagged its tail.)
there / their /they're He just stood there. There is no excuse.
The students had their reports ready. They're going with us.
Many words are misspelled because of incorrect pronunciation:
mischievous not mischievious / sherbet not sherbert / jewelry not
jewelery / disastrous not disasterous
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Comments: 7
This is a great list. I know I've been guilty of misspelling a number of these.
It's bad enough not knowing how to spell troublesome words, what gets me is people who have gone past the 6th grade and still can't speak correctly.
Hi Leo~ what's poppin' smooth operator? O sumb**** I guess I never flipped past the 6th grade.
LaterGator~ =D
discreet (private, circumspect) vs. discrete (distinct, separate) -- I see "discrete" used for "discreet" more and more.
lightning vs. lightening ... I used to just pick on Peter for this one (he'll tell you), but turns out he was in a large company of lighteners. ;-)
I won a spelling bee when I was a little girl!!
Yay! NONE of those are on my "most likely to misspell" list! I remember making fun of my seventh and eight grade teacher behind her back for saying "That is not the correct proNOUNciation." (I went to a little country school where the class sizes were very small, so two grade levels were housed in one classroom.)
Ya know which word ALWAYS gets me... committment.. or is it comittment, or commitment? Two m's? Two t's, both, neither? Aargh.... I can never remember. Most other words I can spell all right, but for some reason that one gets me to pause and second guess myself everyone time!
Recently someone corrected my spelling of the word "misspelled". She thought the word had 3 s's in it --- missspelled... I told her she had misspelled the word misspelled. LOL!