My Favorite Spelling Errors
Of course, I see a lot of spelling errors in my job. Most of them do not involve what any reasonable person would consider hard words. Things like using the wrong "there" or putting "quiet" for "quite," make up something like ninety percent of spelling errors at both of my institutions.
Still, I have two favorites:
1. "Defiantly" for "Definitely": This one is an artifact of spell-check. I do find "definitely" sort of hard to spell, so I have some sympathy for getting the red wavy line on it. BUt if your best guess has the letter A in it, then the computer's first suggestion is going to be "defiantly." If you remember your hooked on phonics and sound it out, you'll realize you want choice two--but most people don't bother, which leads to sentences like, "I defiantly recommend this book/movie/thingy to anyone," or "I defiantly didn't want to be working for minumum wage the rest of my life." It amuses me to imagine someone defiantly making these declarations.
2. "Pregnate" for "pregnant." I admit, I see this one on my rodent lists a lot more often than in class-- things like, "I brought her home from the pet store, and a week later I found out she was pregnate," or "Litter available--my mouse is pregnate!"
Anyone else have faves typos or spelling errors?
Still, I have two favorites:
1. "Defiantly" for "Definitely": This one is an artifact of spell-check. I do find "definitely" sort of hard to spell, so I have some sympathy for getting the red wavy line on it. BUt if your best guess has the letter A in it, then the computer's first suggestion is going to be "defiantly." If you remember your hooked on phonics and sound it out, you'll realize you want choice two--but most people don't bother, which leads to sentences like, "I defiantly recommend this book/movie/thingy to anyone," or "I defiantly didn't want to be working for minumum wage the rest of my life." It amuses me to imagine someone defiantly making these declarations.
2. "Pregnate" for "pregnant." I admit, I see this one on my rodent lists a lot more often than in class-- things like, "I brought her home from the pet store, and a week later I found out she was pregnate," or "Litter available--my mouse is pregnate!"
Anyone else have faves typos or spelling errors?
posted by ProfessorDog at 11:23 PM
13 Comments:
sacred and scared
It's not a favorite spelling error. But I remember my freshman composition teacher had a list of words we had to use correctly Every. Single. Time. They included they're/their/there, it's/its, two/to/too. The rule was your could make a mistake on the list three times and than you had to repeat the course. She also made it clear that the dept. head would back her up on this. She than spent a lecture going over the differences and gave us a worksheet to use as a crib. Buddy of mine screwed it up 4 times on the in class final comp. He was pretty pissed.
Luckily, garble, you only have two errors in your comment--"your" for "you" in the sentence that starts "The rule was..." and "than" for "then" in the sentence that starts, "She then spent a lecture..." I'm going to assume you did this on purpose to see if Professordog would notice.
Wait just a second! You did the "than" thing twice. The other one is, "and than you had to repeat...." Sorry, you fail commenting! Pick another entry and try again.
The one that makes me scream the loudest is "A lot" and "allot". I actually used to see that one "allot" in teacher emails and things sent out from the office at the first school where I taught. Scary.
It's not as egregious as "allot", but I think eventually students would write "alot" as one word for the sheer entertainment value of watching me have a temper tantrum about it.
It's not a spelling error, but I HATE the use of "myself" when it's not being used reflexively. My principal uses this one "allot" (ha-ha), as in "Please turn in your forms to either the secretary or myself."
First off, "rodent lists"?
Thing that drives me nuts??? Kids who write like they're typing an IM or making a comment in Myspace. The internet shorthand drives me crazy!
Mrs. Bluebird, I have pet mice, so I belong to some mailing lists for, uh, people who have pet rodents. For some reason, the barely literate ones always seem to end up with accidental litters. Accurately sexing mice doesn't require particularly good verbal skills, but it does require attention to small details, so there just might be a connection.
I have actually posted on this around the beginning of the year, but
soilder for soldier
calvary for cavalry
citys for cities (and so forth)
seperate for separate
there for their or they're
or for are
american, chinese, etc. instead of being capitalizing them (grr!)
its for it's
use of any apostrophe-s combination to show plural status
These make me crazy. And let's not even discuss comma splices....
My favorite recent ones are "granite" for "granted" (as in "we take our money and privilege for granite"), and "commrodery" in an essay about male basketball players, which I thought added a really excellent homoerotic flavor to the essay.
Apostrophes to pluralize make me BATTY!!
Sorry this is so late, but I HAD to add my two most unusual (although not "favorite" errors): mist for midst. As in, "The country was in the mist of a baby boom." I guess. The other? "Clearly Jane had low self of steam." For cryin' out loud, man - READ something! Low self OF steam!?
Scarred instead of scared always amuses me when I see it, and strait instead of straight. =D
This isn't a spelling error, but I had a friend from Ukraine who had been living in this U.S. since she was seven. She spoke English fluidly but still had a few mix-ups now and then when she spoke. One of them was generic and genetic - she would manage to write them properly, but would bungle them when she spoke. Eventually, through good-natured mockery, we (her friends) managed to break her of the mistake.
I have a lot (alot) of mis-spelling favorites from my classes but the the bug-a-boo off all is the graveyard one. Is it cematery? Cematary? Well the way I approach this in class is this: "When Jane walked through the CEMETERY she screamed EEE!" The kids love hearing this performed in class and will always remember that cemetery has three e's in it.
Nobody said it was easy, but I found the way. If you have problems with your writing tasks, stop breaking your head! Try 1writing service, and you'll get desired.
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