Grate spelling mistakes of our time

[Mike Barnes]

Mike Tomlinson :

We're loosing the battle, Im afraid.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , F writes

That too.

The majority of mistakes seem to be where the word is actually spelt correctly and pronounced the same, but the wrong one has been chosen.

would've - would of broach - brooch principle - principal there - their your - you're

Classic example in the Grauniad this morning:

"By all historical precedent, given the figures, Romney should have sown it up months ago."

Grr.

[Man at B&Q]

affect and effect are the ones that irritate me.

MBQ

[fred]

Its the revolting habit now creeping in of talking about something " different than " instead of "different from" or "different to" Bloody Yanks.

And they spell Aesthetics as Esthetic. No one is asking for the diaeresis / umlaut but it just looks so bloody ignorant. Like a childs spelling mistake.

[F]

^^^^^^

Oops!

[Dave Baker]

It's people's inability to deal with apostrophes properly that gets me.

[John Williamson]

-------peoples'----

HTH.

[Bob Eager]

And in this very group (although not pronounced quite the same), 'temporally' instead of 'temporarily'.

[Owain]

Beg to differ.

There is only one people being referred to, so it takes 's as a singular.

The British and American peoples' inability to agree on how to pronounce aluminium is a cause of great distress.

Same as children's toys, etc.

Owain

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Dave Baker writes

Point 'em at this:

you might prefer:

[Owain]

sis / umlaut but it just looks so bloody ignorant. Like a childs spelling m= istake.

I think it would be an unaccented digraph.

And they have a job title of Esthetician. Never sure whether that's a make-up girl or a cosmetic surgeon.

Owain

[Mike Barnes]

fred :

They feel exactly the same about our "different to".

And about our "bloody", come to that.

[Mike Barnes]

You jest, surely.

[polygonum]

than " instead of "different from" or "different to"

umlaut but it just looks so bloody ignorant. Like a childs spelling mistake.

Similar transitions have occurred in many words, such as Oesophagus / Esophagus (typing that, am surprised it has not yet become Esofagus). Which results in different acronyms for Lower Oesophageal Sphincter - LOS / LES. And the idea of typing LES sticks in the throat.

[F]

'Different from' or 'similar to'. Not 'different to'.

[S Viemeister]

Yes.

[djc]

I think a lot of it is compounded by spell checking, if the wrong word is used but not flagged up as a misspelling it goes through unchecked. And of course if a word is misspelled the suggested replacement may not be the correct term. Behind it lies an oral rather than literate culture: words are spelt as they sound because increasingly people have heard words they rarely write. A contrast to the past when many knew words in print but were unsure how to pronounce them.

And, yet there is also some psychological process at work, I sometimes catch myself typing a homonym, as if the typing part of the brain was taking dictation from the thinking part.

[docholliday93]

=20

A common problem. Many years ago I was typing an invitiation to a working g= roup on some subject or other, and missed out the k - the spell checker sug= gested addding an h after the initial w. I'm not sure whether I'd have had = more acceptances if I hadn't rejected that! These days many spell checkers just do it without asking...

[The Natural Philosopher]

The number of times you get complimentary offers ARRGGHHH!

And the parking ticket for parking in the PRESCRIBED place!

[docholliday93]

Oh yes - 'This will not effect your statutory rights'