I’m a decent speller. (The kids’ spelling, for the record, borders on horrid, and I mostly blame the school-issued Chromebooks and their ever-present autocorrect. But that’s a rant for another day…)
Here are a few words I consistently mess up:
- Occassionally – I always end up throwing in an extra “s.” The correct spelling is occasionally.
- Rhythmn – I sneak in an “n” at the end. Can we all agree this one is hard? The actual spelling is rhythm.
I used to struggle with accommodate, but I’ve finally mastered it by remembering the double “c” and double “m.” Ironically, that small spelling victory may be why I now overcompensate and add extra letters to words like occasionally.
I still have to pause and think when I write balloon, broccoli, and spaghetti.
In the geography category, I spent years adding an “i” to Australia (“Austrailia”). And, to my utter shame — despite being married to someone from the country — I used to spell Portugal with an extra “u” (as in, Portugual).
Your turn.
- What words do you always get wrong, no matter how many times you’ve seen them spelled correctly?
- Are there any words you spell correctly because of a weird mnemonic or childhood memory?
- Do you think spelling still matters in the age of autocorrect and AI?
- Do you pronounce certain words differently just to remember how to spell them? (Like Wed-nes-day.)
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So glad you mentioned Wednesday! I was 17 when I realised there’s actually a “d” in there – I went to a German-speaking school and never had formal English lessons, so I just said “Wensday” for years. Now I still mutter Wed-nes-day every time I write it!
Also: fulfil or fulfill? I can never commit. And I used to butcher definitely every time until someone told me, “There’s no ‘a’ in definitely”- lifesaver.
P.S. “Portugual” sounds MORE Portuguese. Let’s start a petition!
Thank you! I agree that Portugal sounds “wrong”…but, to be fair, it is more like how they pronounce it in Portuguese. (Kind like Port – ew – gal.) Hearing it pronounced IN Portugal is what finally sealed the deal for me getting the spelling right.
Is it traveling or travelling? (One’s British and the other is American.) Ditto fulfil. (Double “ll” is American.)
Occasionally gets me too. I finally spell accommodations correctly due to having to write it out for my kids IEP/504 and letters to teachers.
I spell a lot of word incorrectly, but my autocorrect on the phone stinks. It keeps substituting hone for home and cone for come.
I worked in a university department with students with learning barriers and finally sat down and forced myself it was double “m” (that’s what always tripped me up). But it was a few years before I finally got it right every time.
Autocorrect is VERY hit and miss.
I can relate! Two words that I use frequently that spell check has trouble with are chimichanga and tortilla. I remember that spell check’s correction for chimichanga was “Michigan”.
As a child I really had to think my way through together. I had to break it down very slowly into to get her.
In the pre-interent days, my dad had a very handy little book called 20,000 Words, which was exactly that – a list of 20,000 words. It was very small so that it was easy to carry around.
I can confidently say I have never spelled chimichanga IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I didn’t even know for sure what chimichanga was; I knew it was a food, but thought it was a green chile sauce for some reason.
That does sound like a handy book!
Rhythm is definitely a weird one! I used to be a very good speller- and now I have to admit I plow through my writing carelessly, letting autocorrect tell me when things are wrong. Like, I don’t even take a moment to think about words like accommodate or occasionally- I just type them any which way and then correct them if need be. That’s probably a bad thing, right? I shudder to think of how our kids are learning to spell. But maybe it doesn’t actually matter now- spelling without autocorrect might be an antiquated art, like writing in cursive?
I do think the value of those skills is not as apparent in the modern age. I shake my head because I love being able to write in cursive, but I’m sure there are lots of other skills – churning butter, darning socks – that generations past would be scandalized we don’t know how to do but they’re no longer relevant?
Rhythm is soooo hard for me. I just cannot get it down pat.
Definately (Definitely) is always misspelled and I am forever grateful for spell check. But I agree that is should not be used for kids because kids need to learn to spell. Altho my husband never had an iPad or computer when he was younger and he’s a terrible speller!
One of my dear friends from university days is a wonderful and accomplished teacher and her spelling was always atrocious. I could NOT get over how bad it was…but she’s gone very far in life and actually teaches at a very prestigious school. I also have a very celebrated uncle who is a world-leading physicist and he can hardly spell anything. He’s absolutely brilliant, but married an English major and she used to edit ALL his work because he just could not spell!
Spelling is Very Very Important to me. I find typos in EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE. Sometimes I point them out, sometimes I just sigh and move on, thinking that nobody cares. However, I have declined to enter art shows with typos on their Call to Artist flyers, and won’t do business with an online company that has typos in their website. It speaks of carelessness, haste, and sloppiness, perhaps even a lack of discipline, which all adds up to Nope, Not Risking My Money or Reputation (or artwork) with your place of business.
Then sometimes I find typos in my own texts, emails, comments, or blog posts, and it disproportionately derails me. (Here, have another slice of humble pie—it’s very nutritious!)
Alas, I am much sloppier about my spelling now. Some of it is the speed at which I type (and also the sheer amount of words I write most days). The other is I’ve become more and more reliant on autocorrect and spellcheck.
Ha! I have to eat a lot of humble pie in my life, so I’m acquainted with this dessert far too well.
It’s so funny, I have always been an excellent speller, but the older I get, I find myself second guessing so many words. They just don’t look right to me, even if they are 🙂 I have always and probably always will struggle with the “i before e” rule. A word I constantly get wrong is niece (I want to write neice!) Also, word endings, mostly “ance” or “ence” ie. occurrence. I do think it’s a shame so many kids don’t care about spelling and penmanship anymore. I remember the fun of spelling bees in grade school. And I hate that schools no longer teach cursive writing. To me, cursive is an art form. Just my two cents 🙂
Niece IS tricky and doesn’t look quite right regardless of how I spell it.
Occurrence is hard (I default to an “a”).
I love being able to write (and read!) in cursive, but it is definitely a lost art form. Belle can write cursive and Indy can the tiniest bit, but neither uses it enough for it to likely stick with them into adulthood.
I always have to really think about “vacuum.” I always want to put an extra c in there!
YES! Vacuum!!! I always spell it right, but I ALWAYS have to think about it. That’s like balloon for me. I do spell it right, but have to stop and go slowly.
“Potato” is mine – I always want to spell it “potatoe.” (Sometimes tomatoe too…) I get a lot of Dan Quayle jokes about this.
Dilemma too. For some reason I always want to spell it delemna. No idea what that “n” is doing in there.
I am with you – the lack of attention to spelling in my kids’ current schooling drives me NUTS.
Dilemma is a tough one.
I cannot stand when I see my kids work and they may have gotten a PERFECT grade on it and there are like 10 spelling mistakes? What? I used to go and correct the issues but the kids didn’t take to that too kindly.
My word is “misspell”! How ironic, huh? I want to leave out one of the s’s. I mess up accommodate, too! I think spelling still matters, but it matters far less in the autocorrect world we live in. Phil will often draft a thank you in email first so any spelling errors are fixed before he writes it out. He struggles with spelling.
Honestly my bigger issue is mispronunciation. There are so many words I read as a young child/young adult but never heard spoken. I would say the quality of my education was lower than Phil’s or other peers that grew up in metropolitan/urban areas where they had AP and the like. So there are a lot of words that I say that Phil has to gently correct my pronunciation. It’s hard to think of examples offhand, though! But one that stands out is “adirondack” – I said “a deer on dack”. How was I to know I was saying it so very wrong!!
Ironic, but I find misspell hard, too!
To be fair, adirondack is an unusual word and I can see many pronunciations being used.
Some place names are soooo hard. We live close to a place called Musquodoboit (pronounced Musk-oh-dob-it).
My downfall is “label”. I write this word probably multiple times a day in my job for over 20 years, and I STILL feel like it should be spelled ” lable” and I have check myself nearly every time. ARGG!
That would be frustrating but, also, it’s a bit hilarious! It’s interesting how one word can trip someone up and not another and vice versa. Label is never an issue for me, but I don’t know if I’ve ever spelled rhythm right on the first try…ever?!
I’m a terrible speller. English is a stupid language and the rules are all over the place with too many exceptions. My husband is also crummy at it. We used to have a little book like Birchie’s dad, and it was a life saver.
Somehow our daughter is an excellent speller. She had to fake mistakes on spelling tests to get her teachers to stop trying to sign her up for the school spelling bee (too shy). She’s always gotten 100 on spelling tests otherwise. She can also draw, paint, and has a beautiful singing voice, other things she did not get from us. 🙂
English is SO tricky and so many things do not make sense. Most rules seem designed to just be broken in strange and random ways.
Go Maya! What an accomplished daughter you have!! Fair enough to not wanting to participate in spelling bees. It sounds like a lot of pressure.
So funny, i just listened to a radio program about “hyper correction” – that is when you misspell something because of “over application of a perceived language rule”..:) I guess your misspelling of occasionally is such a case.
This is fascinating! There are so many rules but, as I just noted in my response to Julie, they seem to be broken randomly and often!
I lost a fourth-grade spelling bee by putting too many “s”s in “glasses” – I hit that s-s-e-s and just kept going. But there’s a redemption to the story! The next year I beat the girl who had beat me on the word “beginning” – I had drilled that one-g-double-n HARD and she missed it.
“Resurrection” always trips me up unless I remember that Latin root is “surgo” – one s, therefore two r’s.
“Deodorant” is hard too. I have to think about the root being “odor” or I spell it “deodarant.”
Deodorant IS hard. I just spelled it wrong when I tried to write it. Antiperspirant is as well!
I had to chuckle at your getting the upper hand the next year! Good job!
I have a really hard time spelling exercise. It’s beyond ridiculous. I lean into spell check SO much. My dad is the world’s worst speller. Maybe it’s a hereditary thing and I can blame him?
I vote hereditary!
I’m the same as you with accommodate, or accommodation, which, of course, I use a lot when I’m writing my travel blog posts. I have always been a good speller, but typing is more difficult than writing by hand. My eldest had to have remedial spelling, and my youngest was a fantastic speller. At one stage, they were at the same spelling level, even though they were four grades apart. It caused a bit of angst when my daughter was doing her homework and would ask how to spell a word, and her little brother would give the answer. My biggest problem when I write is not putting in enough commas.
I agree that it’s different to type a word than spell it by hand! I think I am better when writing with a pen in hand vs. keyboard (but, then again, I don’t have autocorrect when I’m writing by hand).
Punctuation is a whole other beast and I know I’m not particularly good at it. *throws up hands*
Don’t we all stumble over letters sometimes? LOL I definitely have a couple of words that I ALWAYS have to think about twice… recently I struggled with “abandoned” (I wanted to sneak in another ‘n’ somewhere) and the word “pedestal” (although I am not sure why because I don’t know how you’d spell it differently, but it just didn’t look right to me ;))
I can see myself trying to spell pedestal with an extra “a” in place of the second “e” — like pedastal! It’s a tricky word!
Yes, I think this is it! LOL
The autocorrects are not helping in learning to spell. I am currently learning Spanish and it is so easy to just have the device fill in the words and if I only know the starting letter I try to spell close enough to match the correct one. So much for learning.
In English I always have an issue with definitely (I usually spell it definitly) and all similar words. It is a struggle.