Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
recommended manoeuvresTHE MEN’S FINAL of Wimbledon this year was quite an exciting watch, and lots of people were tweeting about it.
Unfortunately, lots of people were also having trouble spelling it correctly.
So many, in fact, that this happened:
Scarleh’ for the Dubs.
The thing is, some words are just really hard to spell. Even if you are a well read, well educated individual who takes pride in your command of the English language.
Some words, are spelling kryptonite.
Here are twelve examples.
What were they at with this one? You're never sure where the 'u' goes, the second 'a' seems incorrect somehow...it's a minefield.
One 'l' or two?
'E' or 'a'?
'C' or 's'?
OH THE HUMANITY!
Double letters are clearly a sticking point, so in doubling them up, they've doubled the danger.
THANKS ENGLISH LANGUAGE CREATORS.
There are loads of 's' sounds in this one but only some of them are as a result of the letter 's'.
Confused?
Exactly.
The word is barely two syllables long, barely, and yet it manages to have two 'h's in it.
One of them is obvious, the other one is a buggermother.
I literally just had to google it when I used it in the sentence above.
Not only do you have the double letters to contend with, you have to make a tough call regarding the end. Do you go for 'le', or 'al'?
Ah lads, come on now, you're having a laugh with the 'oeu' and the 're'.
Double doubles. Nightmare.
Here, you think you're safe. You're all, 'Ah, double doubles! I know your game.'
But no. No, that's not what's happening. And now you look like a fool.
This is apparently the most misspelled word in the English language, and it's all because of the fourth letter.
You think it should be an 'e', but it's not, and your poxy brain can never remember that.
Double doubles, the pricks.
This betrays what one can only assume was evil in the hearts of those who devised the English language.
To make the word that means to spell something incorrectly difficult to spell itself? It's the work of a mastermind.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Cemetary. Cematary. Cemeratery. Ceme… graveyard.
I almost died laughing at this.
I’m punny.
Yeah, that one’s a deathtrap!
You’ve a grave sense of humour…
Oh, I got a squiggly red line under “humour”. Damn Americans!
You can set your computer for UK English. I did ‘cos the squiggly red lines were driving me mad.
Thanks for the tip, Mary. I looked into it, and it is already in UK English. I think the line is being provided by Google Chrome itself, and I’ve no idea how to change that, to be honest!
Cemetery
You can click on the word with the squiggly red line and highlight the word. Right click a nd from the menu click add to dictionary. Squiggly red line gone.
Thanks for that, Aidan.
That just fixes it for one word Aidan
-In Chrome click the customise button (located under the x in the top right corner)
-select settings from the dropdown menu
-scroll to the bottom and click “Show advanced settings”
-scroll to languages and select “language and input settings…”
-click “add” near the bottom left corner of the dialogue box
-find “English UK” in the dropdown menu
-select “English uk” on the left side of the dialogue box
-click “this language is used for spell check on the right side
I have a problem with flatulance…
ACCoMModation = a home for two Children and two single Mothers
- my teacher
Or lesbians with twins!
One day I spelled ‘marriage’ on the board as “marraige”, and this student of mine says, “Teacher, I think marriage is wrong.” I replied, “Of course it is. Why do you think I’m still single at 40?”
The rest of the class were in stitches!
Lisence Licence License Liscense Liscence … Can you spot the right one?
Two of those are right (or one if you’re American).
I’m going to shoot for the third one. It just looks right. Who knows if it is
i can see the one on the left too….do i win?
License (verb) or licence (noun) are both correct. We differentiate between the two on this side of the pond (ie, commonwealth/UK spelling).
Licensed to sell alcohol (verb).
Driving licence (noun).
In the US, they use one spelling (license) for both contexts.
I’ll go now.
But Liscence is on the right.
So that’s the right one.
Right?
Niall Harpur, your joke seems to have been lost on some people but I liked it!
Yes, I can see the correct spelling of “licence”
Im loving angles instead
This one particularly annoys me when people are offering condolences
It’s amazing the amount of people who spell the word ‘quiet’ as ‘quite’ and vice versa.
Yes…quiet shocking!
It’s amazing how many people use “amount” where they should use “number”!
antidisest……….wait……….oh yeh, Antidisestablishmentarianism
Anti-distinctly-minty…..
I know a lad from Limerick who always spells it Limrick, it drives me mad. At least learn to spell your address right.
Btw, great article.
Those gifs are brilliant!
Our music teacher at school gave us the mnemonic ‘Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving’, which I still use to spell it. Pity she didn’t have one for mnemonic…
Rhythm is a great word if you ever find yourself playing hangman – there aren’t many 6 letter words with no vowels
Some people should Google the correct contraction for should/could/would have. Every time I see should/could/would of, it makes me want to tear my hair out!
Auto correct to the rescue!
There, their and they’re.
It’s and its.
Your, yours and you’re.
AND being and been!
Them and those. As in, get them spuds for dinner at lunchtime
These particularly annoy me! I look like a complete arse correcting people who continuity make these mistakes!!!
Continually?
I just think a lot of people are barely literate.
In the last few minutes I’ve seen “dept” for “debt” and “aloud” for “allowed”.
I blame Girls Aloud
Maybe their autotrader is trolling them.
Did you mean councillor or counsellor? Just to add to the confusion…
Also, broccoli. That one’s impossible.
Manouevre is the only one that I was stumped by (as vouched for by the red squiggly line I can now see underneath it.).
Very true. That always causes me trouble, and occasionally occurrence as well. The others are okay.
Even manOEUvre!
@MaireadandEnda “…as vouched for by the red squiggly line I can now see underneath it…”
Ah sure you’re the great lad!
Love how it says google the word instead of using a dictionary
Excercise
Not to be mistaken with EXORCISE.
Surely you mean “exercise”?
Chickin. Expresso.
Thanks P. McCarthy.
There is a rat in separate.
Good analysis.
Anal y sis, that can’t be right.!
Few in the Dail as well :)
Assume …makes an ASS of U and ME
I always got this one wrong until somebody told this little phrase.
Come into my ‘budwarr’!!!
You’re my density, I mean destiny….
I once knew a guy who told a girl she was an enema meaning enigma.
Haemorrhage and diarrhoea – the bane of every medical secretary’s life.
“Bleedin’ ” and “the shits” aren’t acceptable?
Defence or Defense
Calendar is another one for some reason.
Then there’s the touch keyboard on the mobile which you end up pressing the B or N keys instead of the space bar so yourbfeckingnsentencesnendupblookingblikenthisnffs!
Also the use and misuse of the semicolon.
Neccessary, no, neccesary, or wait, /googles the word, “aahhh”.
Every. Single. Time.
It is NECESSARY for a shirt to have one Collar and two Sleeves. That defines the one C and two S’s. Now that I’ve written it I’m not sure collar is correct. Hmmm
Quality article Louise. Loved it!
How many people googled the spellings of words just to comment on this article??
Equiptment …. DAMN IT!!!!
He spelled ‘Yale’ with a 6
Definitely always gets me!
Are you certain?
I thought i was the only one!!
Yes, Damocles. He’s cretin.
Flauccinaucinihilipilification…
My friend Grainne always went on like a little old woman since she was young. on her 21st Birthday her own mam misspelled her name ,She thought she had struck gold finding a card with her name on it and came home with a hallmark card saying “on Grannies big day”. shes in her thirties and still gets slagged over it.
Length. Strength. Width. Thought. Taught. Taut. Breadth. Breath. Breathe.
Really?
Just tried to spell bureaucratic without Google.
*Shamed*
Onomatopoiea used to be a pet hate back in my leaving cert days, it could leave you in a real ding dong if you forgot how to spell it in the middle of a learned off poetry answer. You could go barking mad trying to figure it out….
Always had trouble with immediately and calendar.
my lecturer in college has a PHD in English and struggles with calendar
nope, nun of them!
I misspelled ‘eighth’ as ‘eight’ in class when teaching some kids the different dates in a month and had a 12 year old Japanese kid correct me….felt like a right dope haha
I would love it if someone could explain the difference between’ effect’ and ‘affect’ in a way that I could remember, I always get it wrong.
“Affect” is to change…”effect” is change…
Thanks John : )
My girlfriend uses the word “irregardless”. Very irregular!
Does she say, ” I love you darling, irregardless of its size…”?
NAMA
There their they’re ughhhh
It’s easy Marie..
Their = belonging to them
They’re = they are
There = EVERYTHING ELSE!
Appreciate
Me fail england? That unpossible!
Library … Psychiatric… Thank.god for predictive text
Never trust predictive text….
I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.
Haha john, brilliant!!
I am stealing this poem for an English lesson next year!
Not your poem though is it? You should always give credit where credit is due. And in this case, the credit goes to Jerrold H. Zar, who wrote the original poem in 1992. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spell_checker
I went on to the web today to surf and browse a bit,
The Journal and The Daily Edge I headed straight to it.
Went into lots of news items upon my favourite site,
To read the news and shoot the breeze was what I wanted – right?
I saw a spelling item and an old rhyme came to me,
I used to teach to Spaniards,
For their English, don’t you see.
Looked up my TEFL folder and cut and pasted it
The readers will enjoy I said,
It’s sure to be a hit,
I didn’t know who wrote it,
But it sure contained some wit.
Now I’ve been accused of plagiarism by some smart-assed little Sh!t…
By John O’Neill (1956- )
Well it didn’t take me long to find out who wrote it. So it would have been easy to credit the person, or at least say it wasn’t your own and you didn’t know who wrote it. Whatever way you look at it, you were claiming credit for something you didn’t actually come up with yourself. Not to be pedantic, but those are the facts.
Yawn…
Really? Yawn? That’s all you can say in response? The least you could do is apologise. You failed to credit the original author and couldn’t be bothered finding out who it was by. You then claimed credit for it. Blatant dishonesty that is.
By the way Matthew, you made a spelling error in your last response…you spelled “pathetic” as ” pedantic”…
I think you’ll find I spelled pedantic correctly. :-P
And don’t you mean it the other way around? lol
You know my poem, I’ve two more lines I want to add to it.
As well as lacking in IQ,
You’re also low on wit…
The End.
You failed to give credit
You failed to look it up
You cannot win this argument
Now apologise or shut up
And your “poem” fails to scan my man.
I think you’ll find poems can come in many forms. Granted it wasn’t my best work, but I was thinking on the fly.
“On the fly” or on a wasp,
It matters not a jot.
I think it’s plain for all to see,
A poet you are not.
And now I tire of your tirade
Your self- important crap
I’m finished now,
I’m going home.
I said I’m finished…..
Clap!!
Am I the only one that mixes up recieve/receive?
This is a classic example of the rule that’s correct but for a few exceptions… “I before E except after C”
I can never spell nessecary correctly. It’s one of the few common words I misspell. Another until recently was exercise…till I had to start spelling it a lot. Had to force myself to memorise it and I’ve not had trouble with it since.
There is “A rat” in Separate….Got me through some tough times
Just remember 2 cots and 2 mattresses to get accommodation right every time:)
Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Damn it!!!! Beaten to it.
ok…sense/sence
Showing off!? :-D
Coridoor….no….corridoor…..eh…corridor?
Hallway?
Some people say ‘went’ instead of ‘gone’ as in ‘ I would have went to that’. In spelling confusion between stationery and stationary. Stationery means office supplies and stationary relates to a vehicle which is stopped/parked.
A lot of people have trouble with far simpler words. Such as: lose (often appearing as “loose”), quiet ( often appearing as quite) and of course there is the usual their, there, they’re, to, too and somehow, two.
Can someone please spell resorbable/resorpable for me plese-this kills ne everytime……
Re-absorbable…
Resourceable is what you want perhaps. It means capable of being supplied with necessary provisions.
Sentance. Sentence. For why is that so difficult?
For what did you put “for” in your sentence Sarah??!!!
have your say