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Hardest word for you to spell


StringJunky

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1 minute ago, Strange said:

Diarrhoea (I had to copy and paste that from t'Internet) is about the only one that causes a problem for me. Luckily, I don't have to write it very often.

Yeah, that's a pain.

Just now, John Cuthber said:

In terms of "most often misspelled", I think it's "the".

What are the alternatives?

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On 1/13/2018 at 4:26 AM, Strange said:

Diarrhoea (I had to copy and paste that from t'Internet) is about the only one that causes a problem for me. Luckily, I don't have to write it very often.

On 1/13/2018 at 4:28 AM, StringJunky said:

Yeah, that's a pain.

On 1/13/2018 at 4:58 AM, MigL said:

What's a pain ?
The diarrhea or the spelling ?

On 1/13/2018 at 5:03 AM, StringJunky said:

See, even you can't spell it. :)  (I know, you do it the American way)

The British way looks more painfully spelled, which seems unnecessarily embarrassing. 

 

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27 minutes ago, Strange said:

I think most people would spell it, "the runs".

Not "the trots"? That's what I call it, and I've ALWAYS used a posh accent to juxtapose the vulgarity of the subject. "The runs" sounds more American to me. 

 

 

Many years ago, computer spellcheck cured me of a weird tendency to misspell "guard". Somehow my fingers learned to type it as gaurd, and eventually that looked right to me. I remember being embarrassingly adamant about how WRONG spellcheck was.

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8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Not "the trots"?

I don't think I have ever heard that used. The squits is another popular alternative.

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Many years ago, computer spellcheck cured me of a weird tendency to misspell "guard".

I seem to remember being surprised when spellcheck corrected "separately" for me, so presumably I had been misspelling it as "seperately" for years.

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2 hours ago, iNow said:

maintenance 

Weird, this is one of the easiest words to spell for me in English. I struggle with words with double l’s and double r’s in them for some reason but believe me, English is a joy to spell, I struggle far more with Polish, try: Dżdżownica (earthworm), Chrząszcz (beetle), rzeczywiście (really) or essencially any other word - its a nightmare.

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1 hour ago, koti said:

I struggle far more with Polish, try: Dżdżownica (earthworm), Chrząszcz (beetle), rzeczywiście (really)

Vowels are like breaths of air, so you struggle with suffocation when there are too few. I'd be gasping in a Polish spelling bee.

1 hour ago, koti said:

or essencially any other word - its a nightmare.

Essentially. 

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Neighbour - which is often spelt missing the "u" - always had me struggling. I use "it's" when I'm informed it's supposed to have no apostrophe - ("it's apostrophe being both wrong and superfluous"). I dig my heels in and use it anyway, in line with apostrophe as indicator of belonging to; perhaps common usage - and I'm not the only one - will end up making it correct.

Edited by Ken Fabian
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13 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I dig my heels in and use it anyway, in line with apostrophe as indicator of belonging to; perhaps common usage - and I'm not the only one - will end up making it correct.

No (other) possessive pronouns have an apostrophe. So good luck with that!

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16 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Why the exception for pronouns?

Interesting question. Because of the complex history of pronouns, I guess. Most didn't start off with an -s ending (and most still don't have one: mine, your, their, etc.). So I think "its" was a later invention and modelled on "his". 

There was a period when both -n and -s were being used as the possessive ending (as in mine, thine and non-standard yourn). And sometimes in combination (hisn).

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