BS: words that are hard to spell

Subject: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 12:32 AM

Recently I was watching YouTube and I clicked on a video that tested spelling ability. It was too easy, and I could spell every word. For example, I had no trouble with 'brought.'

Mudcatters are pretty literate. Just for fun, let's make a list of words WE find hard to spell. Here are my nominees:

phenomenon
parallelepiped
resuscitate

Do you have any to add?

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 12:44 AM

I would but I can't spell them

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 12:47 AM

my main problem is typing 3 fingered & getting a surprise when I see what I've created.

teh is one of my most used words

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 01:55 PM

Dave, give it a shot.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 02:03 PM

I have no sutch problums.



(Come on - someone had to do it!)

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: meself
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 02:56 PM

I do occassionnally misspell something or other, I admit - but this is just too embarassing a topic for me to take part in - no exagerration!

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 04:54 PM

Yeah, I can acomodate that veiwpoint alright. Like me, you probly don't care to see English deteriating.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 05:34 PM

Words that are almost the same in English and French, like independence/indépendance.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 05:46 PM

I am still on a PC desktop, so I have had installed for 10+ years,
TinySpell

It sits up top and turns yellow & beeps if I enter a word it doesn't know. I paid for the version that allows adding YOUR words..(I often type 'thru' instead of through.)

I am a decent speller, but a bad typist and often reverse letters.
I have recently added "Dragon Naturally Speaking" to allow speaking into a mic and typing into a program with voice only. (I didn't turn it on this time, and had 8-10 corrections to get this far.)

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 06:16 PM

I don't know any hard to smell words.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 06:36 PM

Boloxks.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 01:40 PM

Dislexia

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 02:00 PM

I never mispell words.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 04:59 PM

Yesterday Spellcheck objected to "smoulder." It was happy with smolder.

It also objects to naive every time. There's nothing wrong with naive, is there? It's a word I often use when discussing Trump supporters.

Thanks for your examples, everybody.

Italians seem determined to spell things wrong: broccoli, zuchini.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 05:48 PM

What I have found as the years pass is typing two-handed, my one hand can beat the other and transpose letters. Made worse with newer laptops getting thinner and the keys getting an unfamiliar lower profile.

But we all have bogey words. I realised I was an OK speller when my sister kept spelling certain words wrong. And she was always to be looked up to.

weird is a weird word. is it ie or ei? phonetically there are no clues, and I can't think of a mnemonic (or spell that without spellcheck on)
And to make it worse I just made a web page "Keep Stroud Weird" - whimsical images.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 06:15 PM

I before e, except after c, and when the sound is ee.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 06:17 PM

Perhaps the word most commonly misspelled *in print* is "barbecue". Evidently it is incredible that there is no Q in it. It ought to be "barbequeue", of course.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 07:28 PM

God yes, there's a bloke on the harmonica forum who's been calling himself "Barbeque Bob" for decades (sorry if you're reading this, Bob - you know I love you, baby!)

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 07:39 PM

Barbecue or barbeque are both considered correct. Also BBQ.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 08:54 PM

Hmmm, not by everyone, SRS, especially on this side of the pond.
What is more annoying is when there are words that are spelled differently according to the context, and people use the wrong spelling:
There, their and they’re
Here and hear
Compliment and complement
To, two and too
And also when spellcheck wants you to use American spelling when you’re not American!
accommodation v accomodation
recognise v recognize
colour v color
favourite v favorite
And I could go on, but it might be unnecessary….another hard one!

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 09:10 PM

-ise vs -ize is a bit of a nightmare...

What's accepted and what grates is troublesome. "BBQ" is universally fine. Any spelling other than "barbecue" for the full-blown word is just ignorant. Odd, but that's English for you.   A dictionary worth its salt will never tell you what's right or wrong. Dictionaries are there to reflect usage, no more.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Stanron
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 09:41 PM

I thought that spell checkers had an 'add' function so that you could include your preferred spelling.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 02:57 AM

Steve Shaw 24 Mar 23 - 06:15 PM

I before e, except after c, and when the sound is ee.

************************
Nah. Consider height, weight, foreign....

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 03:30 AM

And concierge!

Cue doesn't have a q in either. And queue can also be spelled que or just q.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 04:28 AM

”It also objects to naive every time. There's nothing wrong with naive, is there?”

Maybe your Spellchecker wants the diaeresis - naïve?

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 06:36 AM

I know, Ebbie. I was parroting what we had to chant at school 60 years ago. It's one of those "rules" that has so many exceptions that it's next to useless, a bit like being told to never split infinitives...

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 06:38 AM

And it's fine to start a sentence with a conjunction. But that's not what my teachers used to say.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 07:28 AM

Tattie, those are different words, not the same word spelled differently.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 07:58 AM

I before E except after C except when your foreign neighbour Keith received eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters…. Weird eh??

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 09:17 AM

:-)

We were told some daft things at school, weren't we?

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 10:13 AM

Are you homophonicphobic?

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 10:15 AM

Well, we both went to RC schools, Steve, so maybe even dafter than most :-D

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 10:28 AM

Proper nmaes are most varient.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 12:07 PM

I eventually found "desiccant" is right, but it still looks wrong to me. My naïve keyboard lacks an i-umlaut, so I have to usually settle for being naiive, and to MICROS~1 with spelchek.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 12:55 PM

If you're typing proper names or place names it's respectful to keep the word exactly as the source dictates, but I'm in favour of dropping a lot of accents on borrowed foreign words. "Cliche" is now an English word when used in English, so why not ditch the accent? Same with cafe. I'm a volunteer at Bude Memory Café, and they use the accent all the time, so I follow suit. Penguin Cafe Orchestra don't use the accent, so me neither if I mention them. In our recent banter about déjà vu, I kept the accents on, partly because it looks a bit awkward without and partly because the spell-checker puts them in. Makes me look clever, too. ;-) We need the accents on résumé in order to avoid confusion, but I'm not sure about smorgasbord or francais or facade...

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 01:51 PM

We need the accents on résumé in order to avoid confusion, but I'm not sure about smorgasbord or francais or facade...

I agree about résumé, smorgasbord and facade but francais without the ç just looks wrong to me.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 01:54 PM

dehiscent, desiccant, decimate, one of these words is not like the others...

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 02:42 PM

Stanron.. as I posted above, my spell checker does allow adding a preferred spelling.. and some have databases to download that give a choice of languages and/or dialects.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 09:58 PM

I use a sellcheater. I meant I use the spellcheater on my PC. Your know, the think everyone say’s makeshift mistaked. It works fabulous thinks..

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 12:21 AM

That's a good one, Georgiansilver.

I've decided not to bother about umlauts in German words. An umlaut simply indicates a variation in the vowel, and heavens, if we all started trying to replicate every variation in vowels, we'd never get done.

"Maybe your Spellchecker wants the diaeresis". You mean maybe my spellchecker wants the Pepto-bismol.

Seriously, I never heard the word diaeresis before. It's "a mark (¨) placed over a vowel to indicate that it is sounded in a separate syllable, as in naïve, Brontë." I've seen naive written that way, but I think we stopped doing that years ago because the character isn't on the QWERTY keyboard.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 02:38 AM

I live near Haworth and visit there at least weekly. I can assure you that none of the Bronte signs, shops, place names or souvenirs contain the diaeresis!

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:17 AM

I before e, except after c, and when the sound is ee.

except when it isn't.

language moves-
estate agents, yoof, marketing men, pop singers - all morph words to sound cool, or hot or wicked or (?), call it fashion and be accurate, and that is only in English English.

And without an exhaustive survey I would still bet there are plenty of foreign words we have appropriated that don't follow over-used rule-based clichés.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:24 AM

I thought that spell checkers had an 'add' function so that you could include your preferred spelling.

they often do, I use FireFox English English and the ise's of this demesne still get undelined, and life is too short to do anything but ignore that one.

One of the problems of adding words to your spell check lexicon (sic) is the words we KNOW are right, it ain't necessarily so and worse - anyone else using your PC is now lumbered unless they KNOW!

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:26 AM

I think that was addressed Date: 25 Mar 23 - 06:36 AM Mr R.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 06:36 AM

One problem with spelcheks that permit additional dictionary entries is that users can put "irregardless" in them without due care and attention.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 07:20 AM

Irregardless is a word whether you like it or not.

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 10:08 AM

So is the somewhat less jarring Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but I had to grep the net for the correct spelling .... only to find a slightly different speling with a reference from 1931. Fun Facts Dept: the last hand-compiler of a particular dictionary was interviewed on the Today Programme, and admitted he'd put the above word in "just for fun".

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 10:53 AM

We see what you did there...

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 11:00 AM

Irregardless is a word whether you like it or not.

As is "albeit"

DC

Subject: RE: BS: words that are hard to spell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 11:15 AM

Never said it wasn't a word, Doug. Just one of those horrors I never want to hear, along with prior to, at the end of the day and going forward. I've recently added "double down" to my list. And daft sentences with Full. Stops. Between. All. The. Words.