The Most Misspelled Words

[Ash]

Most of you here have been surfing the net for years.
You've seen countless typos.

Tell me...
What is the one single word that you find misspelled the most in your online adventures?

For me, it's the word "DEFINITELY".
Why is it that no one and their grandmother can seem to get the spelling of that word right?
I swear, every forum and message board I visit, almost every single person spells it wrong.

I always think of the I's in it and the last part which sounds like "Telly".  As in "Telly" Savalas minus one L in his first name.
DEFINI-TELY.
It's so easy!
Why do people screw that word up more than any other?

How about you?
What word or words do you see misspelled almost every time?
What words do you personally have trouble with?

[indianasmith]

You nailed it, Ash!!  As a teacher, I get so tired of my students writing "defiantly" when they mean "definitely".  "I would defiantly recommend this book to other students . . ."  Yech!!!

Of course, there's also the classic rendering of  "allright" as one word when it is two, and (a real pet peeve of mine) writing "prejudice" instead of "prejudiced", as in "I think the author is somewhat prejudice against Nazi rodeo cowboys . . . ."

I also notice someone in another  thread today kept typing "Briton" instead of "Britain".

[Goji_girl]

Mine would be:

1. Definitly (I just use another word most of the time)
2. Unfortunately (I just think of tuna)
3. Final (For some reason I always put "fianl" by accident)
 

[Ash]

1. Definitly (I just use another word most of the time)

See what I mean?

[raj]

Not a misspelling but using it's in place of its.

It's = it is.  It's hot out there
Its = possesive.  Its keyboard is dying.

[Goji_girl]

1. Definitly (I just use another word most of the time)

See what I mean?

did I spell it wrong again? dang...

[Mr. DS]

definitely
experiment
and oddly, villain

whenever I'm writing a review its a given they will come up in red on microsoft word...matter of fact I just spelled check all three before posting and they were all wrong...theres others but they seem to escape me at the moment...

[flackbait]

Just look at the postings on youtube. The amount of misspelled words there could make a whole new planet.

[CheezeFlixz]

I see "alot" of typos way to "offen."

[DodgingGrunge]

Language is dynamic and if a mistake is common enough it is absorbed into the lexicon.  Recent examples that come to mind:
 + judgement (with the E)
 + alright (as one word)
 + arbitrator (as opposed to arbiter)
 + irregardless (? haha)

A lot of people seem to confuse homilies with apostrophes, particularly:
 + you're / your
 + it's / its

People also have a lot of difficulty translating commonly spoken expressions to type.
 + play it by year (versus ear)
 + chalk up/full (versus chock)
 + of (versus have, as in "could have" or "would have")
 + pantie Annie (versus penny-ante haha)

[Derf]

Do you have a hour or two to read my response? As an English teacher, I can say with some authority that the mistakes that are happening more and more often come from two main sources: ignorance and apathy ("I don't know and I don't care"). People in my classes offer such effective excuses for lack of proofreading as "You know what I meant" or "The spelling checker missed that one." Mistakes will happen; I understand that. But when people consistently misspell or misuse a word, it does tend to get a bit annoying, particularly when the right word is so simple to remember.

My biggest pet peeves are currently:

"Everyday" as one word when not used as an adjective (i.e.--"Lower Prices Everyday!"). This shouldn't really bug me, but when multinational corporations like Toyota and Sprint (I think) can't hire a competent proofreader to catch such a basic error, it irks my poor little mind.

"Women" used as a singular noun. People don't seem to have any problem with the man/men rule, but when you put that "w" and that "o" in front of "man," all bets seem to be off. This is a recent development, and it is just silly to me.

I'll stop my inane ranting with this one: The switching of "than" and "then." It's "more than," folks, not "more then." Four is more than two, not more then two.

I always start my classes by giving them a list of my pet peeves like these (and many of the ones already covered). They, in turn, usually ignore me and continue making the same mistakes.

Oh, and just so you won't think my head is really about to explode over this kind of thing, here's some clever smileys to let you know that I'm (mostly) only kidding around: 

And the ever-popular exploding turd smiley (am I the only one to think this one looks like the 7-Up spot ate too many jalapeno Starbursts?) to let you know that, while I don't lose any sleep over these pet peeves, they are irksome: 

[ulthar]

Do you have a hour or two to read my response? As an English teacher, I can say with some authority that the mistakes that are happening more and more often come from two main sources: ignorance and apathy ("I don't know and I don't care"). People in my classes offer such effective excuses for lack of proofreading as "You know what I meant"

Teachers share a common lot in life - to constantly battle mental laziness.

In my chemistry classes, I was always confronted with "this is not English class" when I announced to my students that worded responses on homework, quizzes, tests and exams were to be in complete, grammatically correct sentences and yes, spelling counts.

I often countered with "A bit of ethanol can be fun to drink, but ethanal will kill you.  Now you tell me, does spelling count?"

The other counter I offered was "If you don't want to meet the standards required to pass this class, I'll be happy to sign your withdrawal slip."

It irks me in general how mentally lazy our society is becoming.  Spelling is only one part of the manifestation of this.  It's clear in speech, too.  Names get shortened to one or two syllables (a la J-Lo, etc) and soon we'll all be speaking in grunts.  And don't get me started on the lack of logical skills from a supposedly educated society.  Yes, our technology is improving, and more people know more about more stuff, but mental discipline seems on the decline. 

And don't get me started on science text books/textbook authors - that's for another thread. 

* ulthar gets off soapbox now

[DodgingGrunge]

It irks me in general how mentally lazy our society is becoming.  Spelling is only one part of the manifestation of this.  It's clear in speech, too.  Names get shortened to one or two syllables (a la J-Lo, etc) and soon we'll all be speaking in grunts.  And don't get me started on the lack of logical skills from a supposedly educated society.  Yes, our technology is improving, and more people know more about more stuff, but mental discipline seems on the decline. 

While it pains me (as a pretentious intellectual), I think monosyllabic discourse and Prince-speak is part and parcel with our advancing technology.  Type has all but destroyed penmanship.  Dig up some love letters written between your grandparents then compare them with your own.    The public school system I attended never even bothered to teach me cursive.  Legible handwriting simply isn't necessary anymore.

Spelling will soon be much the same.  Or rather, the need to remember the correct spellings will vanish.  Used to be one would have to turn to a dogeared dictionary to lookup a word, which could take quite a while.  It made sense to remember the word for future reference so as to save you the trouble.  But now with rapidly improving spell- and grammar-checking routines the effort is moot.  Why waste the precious mental real estate on abecedarian when Microsoft will do it for you?

I just happen to have an obsession with language so I take the time to remember spellings and meanings.  But phone numbers and addresses?  Ha!  If my cellphone should die I'd lose everything.  Goodbye family and friends, jobs and pizza. 

[Shadow]

I've got one that really annoys me: "rediculous." I see that at a lot of message boards and it drives me nuts. I even went on a rant at one BBS about it. Curiously enough, it was spelled correctly thereafter.

Another one is more a language issue: when people screw up the saying "for all intents and purposes" and say "for all intensive purposes." I know that technically it may still fit, but that's not the expression!

Over the years in my job as a delivery driver, I have dealt with people that...shall we say, only went to school in order to eat their lunch. I still recall the one guy who spelled "partial" as "Parshol."

[RCMerchant]

 I don't know where to start. I misspell stuff all the time. probaley, probelaly, dDAMMIT! probabaly...that ain't right....I'm asking Tara Sue right now...she spells it probably...that looks kinda right.