10 Stupid Spelling Mistakes To Avoid

Time for a little finger-pointing fun today, methinks. I'm not going to get into that whole "correct spelling and grammar" argument - you know, the one about the language dying. Why not? Well, mostly because it's been done to death a million times, but also because it always degenerates into a personal mud-throwing affair (and there's far too much of that going on already).

So I thought I'd put together a quick list of the ten spelling mistakes I've seen most frequently, along with pictures (wherever possible) - just hit the links. These are the errors that make bloggers, writers or even companies look incredibly stupid. Or is that "stoopid"?

1. Differance. The word is 'difference'. Unfortunately, not even schools can manage to get this one right.

2. Mabye. I guess it might be right, phonetically. Depends where you're from. Around here, we spell it "maybe". As in, "it may be".

3. Sucess. Always two c's, please! Especially if you're in a "people" industry.

4. Loose. Only losers spell lose incorrectly. Loose is more appropriate when talking about morals, or clothes.

5. Then. Oh, it makes me want to scream when people use "then" instead of "than". More then anything else!

6. Gullable. It's spelled "gullible", not "gullable". Sigh.*

7. Non-existant. It doesn't exist! It's "non-existent", with an e. By the way, put the correct spelling into the dictionary.com web site and ask it to search... it can't find any matching results!

8. Priviledge. It's "privilege". It's not a shortened version of "private ledge" or something. LOLcats the world over would disagree, though.

9. Can not be beat. How are we supposed to read this? It can not-be-beat? Or it cannot be beat. Beetroot? "Beat" Takeshi? Yes, it's common parlance, but it's written "cannot be beaten".

10. Strait. It might be straightforward for you or me to get this straight, but a lot of people are in dire straits when spelling straight. A strait is a relatively narrow passageway connecting two bodies of water.

* Hah, gotcha! It's spelled either way. I was just kidding!

Title image by Kevin Marks

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Writing

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Comments

9 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Soozle

April 11th 2009 19:13

All Twitter and Biscuit

My pet hate is television presenters saying pound instead of pounds e.g. "this only costs twenty pound"

I find I get irritated by the use of Z for is organisaton becomes organization

Comment by SpikeTheLobster

April 11th 2009 22:04

Qwerk
Peanut Butter

Ah, American vs. English. I have to remember to switch my spellcheckers over all the time, depending on which one I'm writing in. Very annoying. I think the worst, though, are the -ized words, like "burglarized" instead of "burgled". To me, they just smack of laziness: apply simple "-ized" to noun, create verb!

Comment by Johnny Come Lately

April 14th 2009 06:22

Jack's Back

I love teasing my friend Cheryl with the the (no such) word 'irregardless'. I think it's funny but she goes totally mental. I think I can say it is on her top ten most hated!

Personally, I hate the loose/ lose error. What a bunch of loosers. lol

Comment by SpikeTheLobster

April 14th 2009 10:39

Qwerk
Peanut Butter

Hey Johnny, thanks for dropping in. I was going to put that one on there, but I hate it so much I can't bring myself to type it. Arrrgh, buzzword bonanza!!

Comment by Wilson Pon

April 15th 2009 10:36

Health 2 Know
Adventure Toes
boxing sound
Business Rope
Fun Places 2 Travel

Couldn't more agree of what you're saying here, Spike! Beside that, I noticed that the students were quite lazy while writing essays...

Let's take an example, they will write the word, "necessary" into "necesary" or "possibility" to "posibility", which is the common errors for loosing the 's'... Sigh!

Comment by SpikeTheLobster

April 15th 2009 11:26

Qwerk
Peanut Butter

Wilson: Double letters are hugely prevalent in English and very confusing, I gather! An odd thing I find with the UK/US difference is that US writing doesn't double-up with -ing words: or example, UK uses "focussing" and "targetting", US uses "focusing" and "targeting". So lazy.

Comment by Morgan Bell

April 21st 2009 22:42

Deep Pencil
Business News

"priviledge" gets me every time

and the "-dent" vs "-dant" or "-ment" vs "-mant" endings are something i always check on words i dont use very often

that being said i hate it when people say "blah blah is a looser" haha so wrong!

Comment by Irene

April 22nd 2009 15:34

Grammar Matters
Interrobang

About schools not getting words right...my son often brings home papers and things written by (presumably) teachers. They can't spell. How can kids learn from them?

Some other common mistakes I see are "-ious" in words like genius, "pregnate" instead of pregnant, and my favourite, "independant".

I actually don't mind "cannot be beat" because it's a colloquial thing.