10 commonly misspelled words -and how to remember them (1)

Which words do you find difficult to spell?

Here we're going to look at 10 words native speakers find most difficult to spell and ways to remember the spelling. Next time (or very soon) we'll look at the words that non-native speakers have most trouble with and how to remember those spellings.
(Photo from vancouverfilmschool at Flickr)

minuscule
This word comes from minute (tiny), not mini, so there's a u after the min not i.

millennium
We can remember it has double l because it's like million, but what about the double n? I just think of the year 2000 and remember there are 2 n's.

embarrassment
If you are embarrassed you have two red cheeks, so there is a double r.

occurrence
If a word ends with a consonant, vowel, consonant (CVC) pattern we double the final consonant before adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. However, if the CVC syllable is unstressed we don't double the consonant, eg open > opening. Here the stress is on the final syllable ocCUR, so we double the r.

accommodation
The most misspelled word! Just remember: "The best accommodation has two double beds" (double c and double m).
(Photo from toddwight1 at Flickr)


perseverance
If you have perseverance you are willing to do something several times before you get it right.

supersede
This word literally means to sit on top of something (to replace it). So super is 'on top of' and sede is 'sit' (think of sedentary).

noticeable
Normally we drop a final e before a suffix beginning with a vowel (like > likable, persevere > perseverance). However, if the letter before the final e is a c or g with a soft sound (as in notice or outrage) we need to keep the e before a suffix that begins with a, o or u, because c and g are only usually soft before e and i. So we write notice + able = noticeable and outrage + ous = outrageous.

harass
The word harass (and harassment) may come from an Old French word meaning 'to set a dog on' (to get a dog to attack somebody or something). Whether this is true or not, we can remember that a dog harasses a hare, so just one r. If you have trouble remembering how many s's you might like to think about which part of the hare the dog bites first! (Photo of Hare by Daveynin at Flickr)

inoculate
When you have an inoculation they only use one needle. Just one n. In fact there are no double doses (no double letters) in the word.

TEST YOURSELF

Without looking at the words above, on a piece of paper, write the words according to the clues below:
1. A hotel, hostel or apartment, for example.
2. To annoy or repeatedly attack somebody.
3. 1000 years.
4. Very, very small.
5. Replace something with a newer type.
6. A feeling of shyness or shame.
7. You can see something easily, obvious.
8. The quality of continuing with something although it is difficult.
9. Something that happens, an event.
10. An injection which prevents you from getting a disease.

Other related posts on The Spelling Blog:
How do you spell...
5 reasons why English spelling is difficult
Mnemonics for tricky spellings
-able or -ible?

Prefixes and suffixes - online activities

I've just come across this little spelling activity from the BBC which I can put directly into my blog. It's a gizmo for practising prefixes and suffixes. Have a go:



What I like about it is that it teaches about prefixes and suffixes rather than just tests. There are loads of spelling activities on the web that are great if you just want to test your spelling. Most of the people I work with have problems with spelling and so they need help, not just something that reconfirms that their spelling is poor.

Let us know if you have other sites that have teaching rather than testing activities for spelling.

By the way, thanks to the award-winning teachertrainingvideos.com for leading me to this. There are other spelling sites examined there too, but most of them do test rather than teach. The notable exception is the wonderful Spelling City which I've written about before here.

Other related posts on The Spelling Blog:
Spelling Long Words - Prefixes
Confusing Prefixes - dis and dys
Confusing Prefixes - anti and ante
Look Say Cover Write and Check

' wa '

(Update: I've just updated this post for two reasons: a) The Blixy Zoom Words isn't working so I've used plain old writing; b) I needed to make it clear this post was about British English pronunciation)

Look at these words. What do you notice about the sound and the spelling?
wander, want, watch, wash, swallow, warrior, swap, wannna

And now these:
walk, wall, war, warm, water, wardrobe, warning, towards, dwarf

Hopefully you noticed that all the words begin with, or contain, the letters wa.

In British English in the first lot, the wa sounds like it should be spelled wo - we hear the sounds /wɒ/ : watch, swallow, was, etc.

In the second graphic, the wa sounds more like 'wor' (war) or /wɔ:/ walk, warning, award. But if you look carefully, you'll see that the wa in these words is mostly followed by r or l (except in water).

So......?

Are these rules? No, they can't be rules because they are not definite enough. There are exceptions such as water and also a very few words where the wa makes a more phonetically regular sound of /wæ/ like in wax (and another word that's not polite enough for The Spelling Blog!) and a few other pronunciations. But there are patterns to be seen.

Are these patterns useful? Yes, I think it's worth raising awareness of this. Nobody ever pointed this out to me and I just thought a lot of these words were phoneticaly irregular, but it's reassuring to see a pattern.

However I would feel happier if I could find an etymological reason for this pattern - believe me, I've searched. Any ideas, anyone?

By the way, when I finally finish my Teaching English Spelling book (before summer 2010, I hope), there will be an awareness-raising exercise about the wa spellings.

Code word activity

I've always thought interactive text reconstruction activities (eg http://www.cict.co.uk/software/textoys/examples/example2.htm) were really useful for spelling improvement, but they're not easy to do on paper. A good alternative is a code words exercise, in which you see some letters in the text and have to guess others to reconstruct it. Doing the puzzle really makes you think about spelling, as well as meaning and grammar - a full workout really!

And for learners who find writing difficult, this can make a great model for their own writing.

Here's one I made. This is a guided one: there are hints to help learners solve the puzzle and think about spelling. Feel free to print it out and use it. The second page is the key. If it's too difficult learners could read the full text first or the teacher could read it out.

This is the first one of these I've ever made, so feedback welcomed. Especially if there are any mistakes!!
Code Word Nouri

Plurals of words ending in 'o' - when to add 's' or 'es'

I made this - just for you!

Plurals Of Words Ending In ‘O’

View more presentations from jomango.

The the Impotence of Proofreading - very funny

Here's a video clip that a friend (thanks, Shaz!) showed me. It's a poem written by Taylor Mali about someone who can't spell. Very clever, very funny and rather rude in parts! So if you're easily offended, best not to watch!



If you want to read the words, they're on Taylor Mali's website

Spelling names - does it matter?

Darren Elliott ( @livesofteachers ) had this little outburst on Twitter this morning! And it made me think: how important is it to spell names right? It seems it's not very important if it's someone else's name but very important if it's yours!

My own name is a bit of a spelling nightmare. Johanna is not usually spelled with an h in English (the h is completely silent), so people often write Joanna or even Joanne, which is a more common name. To a lot of people I'm Jo, but I'm definitely not Joe (same pronunciation but that's a man's name). My Stirling is spelled with an i not an e (Stirling not Sterling, same pronunciation), so I always have to say 'like the Scottish city not the money'.

So people often spell my name wrong. Do I mind? Yes! Well, no! But yes! And no! Intellectually, of course not: my name isn't easy, people are busy, life is short, what does it matter? But my gut feeling is: 'that's not me!'

Perhaps the spelling of our name is part of our identity.

And of course sometimes it really does matter, because if someone types my misspelled name into Google they might find somebody far more interesting than me! Or emails offering me an all-expenses paid trip to the Seychelles may never get to me (not the spam kind- they always get through).

What about you? How important is it that people spell your name right?