Do you know that one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language is--"misspelled"? That sneaky double s has tripped more than a few people.
Just as most misspellings of proper names (discussed last week) are due to variations from the "regular" spellings, other frequently misspelled words achieve that status by violating convention. Remember the grade-school spelling rule "i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh"? But... how do you spell "height"?
You form plurals by adding s; but then how do you explain "mouse" and "mice"? Or "woman" and "women"? Or "goose" and "geese"--and for that matter, why is the plural of "mongoose" still “mongooses”?
And what about words that are spelled one way and pronounced another--and letter combinations for which there seem to be no conventional pronunciations? Why does "knife" have a k in it? Why doesn't "dough" rhyme with "rough," nor "key" with "obey," nor "plow" with "tow"?
Be grateful if you learned English in toddlerhood. The more-or-less-official tongue of international business is perhaps the hardest language in the world for adults to master. Blame a centuries-long habit of freely adopting words from other languages, no doubt aided and abetted by the British Empire period.
Nonetheless, and like it or not, people still see sloppy spelling as a sign of ignorance or carelessness or both. Blind faith in your spell checker is not an advisable solution: few computers can tell the difference between "twenty-four resources" and "twenty for Resources." At times, we all have to revert to the ancient "look it up" method.
However, no dictionary can help if you're so uncertain of a spelling that you can’t find it in the alphabetical list or keyword search, or if you're like the college student who lamented, "My professors say I have to learn to look up words when I'm in doubt--but I'm never in doubt!" The only thing resembling preventive medicine is to review likely-to-be-misspelled words until the correct spelling is burned into your memory. Do you have "misspelled" straight? Good; now here are ten more words to memorize before drafting your next business proposal:
1. Accidentally
2. Calendar
3. Consensus
4. Guarantee
5. Indispensable
6. License
7. Occurrence
8. Personnel
9. Relevant
10. Stationery (as in "writing paper," not to be confused with stationary, which means "motionless")
When you have all those right, visit the "Most Often Misspelled Words" page at yourdictionary.com for a top-100 list and some useful memory aids....
...the word for which is spelled M-N-E-M-O-N-I-C-S and pronounced “knee-MAWN-iks.”
Showing posts with label misspelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misspelling. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Perils of Misspelled Names
Having talked in my last post about the value of proofreading, I should note one thing that is often “corrected” where no correction is needed—the unusually spelled personal name. I should know. My last name is S-W-A-R-T-S with an s at each end, and if I had a dollar for everyone who’s written it as S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z or S-W-A-R-T-Z or even S-C-H-W-A-R-Z, I could retire right now.
Hundreds of others have reason to curse the surname legacy of their paternal ancestors—or to wonder what their immediate ancestors were thinking on choosing a first name. Long, impossible-to-spell names are bad enough. Names that sound like bad jokes (as every Houstonian knows, Ima Hogg was a real person) quickly get old to live with. Names with obvious alternate spellings (“Is that K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E or C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E?”) can be a nuisance. But a name for which everyone thinks the spelling is obvious means a lifetime of policing everyone who writes it down—and still seeing it come out wrong half the time. It’s especially bad if the discrepancy comes near the end of the name; people usually stop listening to me spell out S-W-A-R-T-S after I pass the w.
Many people regard misspellings of their names not merely as annoying but as personally insulting—especially when those misspellings are attached to message responses, and the original communications were signed with the right spellings. Get an e-mail signed “Smyth” and reply to “Dear Mr. Smith,” and you effectively tell him you didn’t consider his message worth reading carefully. Even where it concerned a key element of his identity.
Get a name right, by contrast, and you make a favorable impression. Get a difficult name right, and you make an especially favorable impression (“What a relief to meet someone who doesn’t misspell my name!”). Dale Carnegie knew this well; his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People devotes a whole chapter to remembering names.
Which isn’t always easy, especially where multiple tiers of communication are involved. Many convention attendees carefully spell out their names (verbally or in writing) during the registration process, only to receive a badge with the wrong spelling upon arriving at the event. Usually, the person who actually took the registration wasn’t at fault. Despite computerized recordkeeping, many registrations still go through two or three levels of human beings. And often, one of those human beings transcribes a note or memo without looking carefully.
Worst of all, however, is the usually careful proofreader who sees the actual spelling clearly—and still writes down the wrong one. “It looks wrong, so it must be a typo” is the sort of “logical” thinking that infuriates those of us whose names vary from majority custom. So unless you know someone personally, always assume that a name is spelled exactly the way it’s written, no matter how ridiculous it looks to you. If the spelling really is wrong, at least you’ll have someone besides yourself to blame.
Remember that, or I’ll send you an e-mail with your name misspelled!
Despite what many would-be novelists think, good writing is not easy. It is, however, vital—especially when your reputation and customer relationships are riding on it. Don’t steal time from your business’s primary mission to struggle with written communications. Contact Spread the Word Commercial Writing today and learn how professional help can save you time and frustration!
“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”™
Hundreds of others have reason to curse the surname legacy of their paternal ancestors—or to wonder what their immediate ancestors were thinking on choosing a first name. Long, impossible-to-spell names are bad enough. Names that sound like bad jokes (as every Houstonian knows, Ima Hogg was a real person) quickly get old to live with. Names with obvious alternate spellings (“Is that K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E or C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E?”) can be a nuisance. But a name for which everyone thinks the spelling is obvious means a lifetime of policing everyone who writes it down—and still seeing it come out wrong half the time. It’s especially bad if the discrepancy comes near the end of the name; people usually stop listening to me spell out S-W-A-R-T-S after I pass the w.
Many people regard misspellings of their names not merely as annoying but as personally insulting—especially when those misspellings are attached to message responses, and the original communications were signed with the right spellings. Get an e-mail signed “Smyth” and reply to “Dear Mr. Smith,” and you effectively tell him you didn’t consider his message worth reading carefully. Even where it concerned a key element of his identity.
Get a name right, by contrast, and you make a favorable impression. Get a difficult name right, and you make an especially favorable impression (“What a relief to meet someone who doesn’t misspell my name!”). Dale Carnegie knew this well; his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People devotes a whole chapter to remembering names.
Which isn’t always easy, especially where multiple tiers of communication are involved. Many convention attendees carefully spell out their names (verbally or in writing) during the registration process, only to receive a badge with the wrong spelling upon arriving at the event. Usually, the person who actually took the registration wasn’t at fault. Despite computerized recordkeeping, many registrations still go through two or three levels of human beings. And often, one of those human beings transcribes a note or memo without looking carefully.
Worst of all, however, is the usually careful proofreader who sees the actual spelling clearly—and still writes down the wrong one. “It looks wrong, so it must be a typo” is the sort of “logical” thinking that infuriates those of us whose names vary from majority custom. So unless you know someone personally, always assume that a name is spelled exactly the way it’s written, no matter how ridiculous it looks to you. If the spelling really is wrong, at least you’ll have someone besides yourself to blame.
Remember that, or I’ll send you an e-mail with your name misspelled!
Despite what many would-be novelists think, good writing is not easy. It is, however, vital—especially when your reputation and customer relationships are riding on it. Don’t steal time from your business’s primary mission to struggle with written communications. Contact Spread the Word Commercial Writing today and learn how professional help can save you time and frustration!
“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”™
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