Most Annoying Spelling Errors

[athelind]

Okay, answer this here if you wish, or in your own journal if you want to make Richard Dawkins grind his teeth by abusing the term "meme":

What spelling errors annoy you the most?

For me, it's the ones that people could avoid if they just thought for half a second about what the word meant.

"Rediculous" bugs me, in part because it it's so damned common. You almost never see people misspell "ridicule". Describing something as "ridiculuous" says that they are "worthy of ridicule", not that they're "doubly diculous".

Oh, and there's a difference between a "typo" and a "spelling error". A "typo" is a "typographical error", an error that occurs because of the mechanics of data entry. "Teh" instead of "the" is a typo. CApitalizing the first two letters of a word instead of just the first is a typo. It's a matter of your fingers tripping over the keys. A "spelling error" is in the wetware.

As I was typing this, I caught a related error in someone's description on a MUCK: "taunt" instead of "taut". That's not a typo or a spelling error. That's just using the wrong word. So... you have a "taunt rear." Does that mean your rear is making fun of me, or that I should make fun of it?

'Cuz I'm doing the latter.

Comments

[duncanroo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that point is mute.

-- Duncan

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

*groan*

[trpeal.livejournal.com]

"Alright" and "alot". More than any other punctuation or spelling errors, these bother me the most.

THESE ARE NOT REAL WORDS!

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Looking at the Usage Note from dictionary.com, I'd have to say that while "alright" isn't currently considered acceptable, it should be.

Usage Note: Despite the appearance of the form alright in works of such well-known writers as Langston Hughes and James Joyce, the single word spelling has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions such as already and altogether have never raised any objections. The difference may lie in the fact that already and altogether became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright has only been around for a little more than a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. Consequently, one who uses alright, especially in formal writing, runs the risk that readers may view it as an error or as the willful breaking of convention.

[tephra]

I'd rather see alright than altogether. Altogether would bug me greatly.

I shall view my usage of alright (even if it is usually in dialog) as a "willful breaking of convention."

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

http://www.absurdnotions.org/an20031027.gif

Ever since I started to get stuck on the ambiguity mentioned in Jay's argument ("All of the kids are correct"), I find myself (a) unbothered by "alright" used by others, and (b) reluctant to use either form of the phrase in writing myself.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

*Nods* In a grammar book for my college courses, it says that all right is the proper form (and I'm using it more often now) but that alright will likely overtake it as the most common usage anyway, and that is isn't unacceptable.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Actually, "alot" is a word -- but it's been spelled wrong. The word is "allot", meaning "to allocate".

But yes, I feel your pain. For gawds' sakes, people "a lot" is TWO FUCKING WORDS.

[tephra]

"Rediculous" is definitely the one that worms under my skin and makes me want to smack people. Partly because, as you said, it's so common and partly because I keep finding people that otherwise have good grammar and spelling are doing it.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Definitely "definately". That one drives me crazy.

Any mistake with "its" and "it's". You don't see people putting extra apostrophes into his or hers; why would there be one in its? "Could of" is another big beef of mine. I pounce on it whenever I see it, and my grade sevens hated me for it. (They hated life, so I didn't feel slighted.)

I can accept when Americans spell things without U's that need them, but when Canadians do it (expecially Canadians currently residing in Canada) it drives me crazy. How hard it is to type one extra letter in "honour", "armour", and "neighbour"?

Okay, that's my pedant-rant.

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

On a related note:

Shopkeepers who advertise:

Potato's
Apple's
and so on...

That seems to be a peculiarly British thing to do - possessive-ising plurals. Or should that be plural's? And it drives me insane when I see it. Bloody hell, you're not selling possessions -belonging to- the apple, you're selling -many- apples.

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

The other one, related to this:

Aluminium (Pronounced "Al-you-min-ee-um")

The word is spelled 'Aluminum' ("A-loo-min-um"), the way that it is spelled and pronounced in America. It was named by a British scientist. However, other British scientists ganged up on the word at some later date, after the word emigrated to the States, and decided it needed an extra 'I' to make it match with 'Titanium', 'Sodium', 'Chromium' and other metals.

But they didn't bother to add the same extra I to 'Platinum'.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

*NODNODNOD re: "of"*

Yes, I know it's pronounced as "could of" in the swamp where you came from, but among civilized people, it's recognized as a contraction.

As for "its" vs. "it's", that's an understandable mistake. "The ball belonging to Jerry" is rendered as "Jerry's ball", not "Jerrys ball" -- so, naturally, "the hideous fangs belonging to it" would intuitively be "it's hideous fangs".

But hey, ya can't trust a language to make sense when it's the bastard child of Latin and German.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

"Loose" for "lose" bothers me because it's become so common that I'm afraid it will start to resist correction, or worse, be crowned a "dialect."

"Stoopid" has picked up enough steam to be treated by many like an ordinary alternate spelling. I don't know if Lynn Johnston knew what she was doing.

Moving to the more obscure, "bonified" for the Latin term bona fide. There is no verb "to bonify." When people say it aloud, I can hear the wrongness.

Pasta cooked firm is not "El Dante." That sounds like some kind of Spanish reference to the fires of hell, for which, if you needed such a thing, there is already an established culinary term, Diablo. Noodles are cooked al dente. It's Italian and refers to your teeth.

And on the subject of foreign food phrases, even though this has nothing to do with spelling, "au jus" is not a noun. Unfortunately, this battle has been lost. Everywhere you can get a French Dip sandwich (even at Quizno's, where it's called a "Steakhouse Dip" to mollify Republicans), it is served "with au jus." Makes me wonder what an nice beefy au picked right off the vine would taste like.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's because I live in Canada where most people have at least a passing familiarity with French phrasing, but I've never seen "with au jus" up here. I'm glad of that. If I saw it on a menu, I'd complain to the management, and then offer to sell my services as a translator.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Man, au rocks! especially the beefy ones, dude.

Bonified sounds as though it should be brought in from the cold immediately! To Bonify....to reduce to bare bones. Might make an intriguing verb for accountants to use.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

I agree with Ssthisto. I hate "Egg's" and the like.

The CORRECT spelling that bothers me most is "though" or "although." It should be "Tho," dammit. In my personal writing I usually use "tho'," which is incorrect but at least acknowledges that it's so. I kind of prefer "thru," although I don't use it in my own writing.

Mixups of "affect" and "effect" bug me. But they're easy to confuse, so I have a bit of sympathy.

"Doggy-dog." for "dog-eat-dog." And the ones that drive me absolutely mad, for some reason; using "to" when it should be "too," and "your" for "you're." Gorm. Didn't your first-grade teacher explain those to you? Mine certainly explained them to me! Tephie adds there, their, and they're. Agreed.

My first-grade teacher taught me these without affectation. Her teaching was effective. Its effects affected my writing to this day, which is good, because she certainly wanted to effect such an affect. She was effective enough that I remember her with some affection. Anyone who effects such affects is indeed effective.

I bet I got some of those wrong. :)

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

I usually confuse ie and ei in spellings. "I before E except after C" I was taught. But their looks correct to me.

Didn't Dan Quayle spell potatos "potatoe's"?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

It seems to me you got them all right. Or alright. :)

In addition to the grade-one teacher, I can personally attest to the fact that every grade-school teacher you had tried to drum this into your head, and that of everyone else in your class. I was still doing it in grades seven and eight, and I do it now with my grade fives.

[luxatos.livejournal.com]

Besides the already-mentioned apostrophication of plurals and the confusions of it's/its and there/their/they're, I'd have to say my biggest peeve is using "belive" for "believe." I can be somewhat sympathetic of the others, but that one just drives me batty.

[azhreia.livejournal.com]

My biggest peeve is probably "congradulations". AAARGH!

Also "rediculous".

As far as "aluminium" goes, that IS the correct spelling and pronunciation here in Oz. "al-you-mini-um", not "a-loo-min-um".

Oh, yeah. I also cringe when I see "undo" instead of undue. or even "do to (unforeseen circumstances)". it's DUE. DUE. And in civilised parts of the world, is pronounced DYEW, and is never confused with "do".

The apostrophe thing bugs me no end, as well. I'd rather that people left them out if they weren't sure than stick extra ones in. The word that most makes me cringe when that happens is "wan't". Why would anyone expect to put an apostrophe in want?

[athelind.livejournal.com]

"wan't" sometimes crops up as a typo. I've been guilty of it in the past -- at some point, I think I've stuck an errant apostrophe into almost every word ending in "nt", just because I was typing so fast that my muscle-memory over-rode the noggin.

[lynn-onyx.livejournal.com]

Describing something as "ridiculuous" says that they are "worthy of ridicule", not that they're "doubly diculous".

You mean ridiculous, no extra u before the o.

[palanth.livejournal.com]

Presently, the one that really seems to be getting under my scales is "I could care less" when the expression is "I couldn't care less". Not exactly a typo, more a mis-saying, but still it bugs me. After all, if you "could care less" about something, that would imply you are not caring the least that you could.

Oh, that, and the "rediculous" for "ridiculous" bit. As for the apostrophe usage, Bob the Angry Flower demonstrates it best. }:=8>

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

Mine is probably congradulations. People abbreviate this as 'congrats' all the time! How does it then not logically follow that the word is spelled with a 't'?