ONE MORNING IN DECEMBER 2016 the then president-elect of the United States took to Twitter, as was his incessant wont, and accused the Chinese, who’d just, in an act of penny-ante provocation, shanghaied a U.S. drone, of an “unpresidented act.” In a flash I was reminded of the importance of knowing how to spell.
The fact is: A lot of people don’t type*1 with autocorrect or spellcheck turned on—or, I gather, heed them even if they do. That said, neither*2 autocorrect nor spellcheck can save you from typing a word that is indeed a word but doesn’t happen to be the word you mean or should mean to type. For more on that, see Chapter 10: The Confusables.
It goes without saying, though I’m happy to say it, that no one expects you to memorize the spelling of every word in the notoriously irregular, unmemorizable English language. My desk dictionary of choice, and that of most of my copyeditorial colleagues, is the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (affectionately known as Web 11); I also keep on a nearby stand a copy of the big Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, not as New now as it was when it was first published in 1961, though mostly it just sits there looking authoritative. You’ll also find a number of first-rate dictionaries online, including Merriam-Webster’s own, at merriam-webster.com (and if you’re a Twitter person, you owe it to yourself to follow the cheekily erudite @MerriamWebster), and the densely helpful Free Dictionary (thefreedictionary.com). (Google’s dictionary, which is where you’ll land if you google*3 any word at all plus the word “definition,” is workmanlikely reliable but drab.)
Still and all, I do think that knowing how to spell on one’s own is a commendable skill, so for a back-to-elementary-school brushup I offer you a selection of the words I most frequently encounter misspelled—some of which, I don’t bother to blush to confess, I’ve been known to mess up myself—with remarks on some of the general issues of the art of spelling and its pitfalls. If you can, already or afterward, ace all of these, award yourself a shiny foil star.
ACCESSIBLE
The “-ible” words and the “-able” words are easily confusable, and I’m afraid there’s no surefire trick for remembering which are which. Though it is the case that most of the “-able”s are words in their own right even if you delete the “-able” (e.g., “passable,” “manageable”) and that most of the “-ible”s are not, shorn of their “-ible,” freestanding (e.g., “tangible,” “audible”), most is not all. As, to be sure, our friend “accessible.” And see “confusable,” seven lines up. “Confus”?
ACCOMMODATE, ACCOMMODATION
Words with double c’s are troublemakers; words with double c’s and double m’s are invitations to catastrophe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This is the preferred American spelling. The Brits favor (but not by much and only relatively recently) “acknowledgement.”*4
AD NAUSEAM
Not spelled “ad nauseum.”
AFICIONADOS
Copyediting FAQ
Q. How do I know which words ending in o are pluralized with an s and which are pluralized with an es?
A. You don’t. Look ’em up.
ANOINT
“Annoint” is a legitimate if obscure and mostly archaic variant spelling, but that doesn’t mean you should use it. Same goes for “bannister.”
ANTEDILUVIAN
Perhaps not a word you use terribly often, but if you’re going to use it, that’s how you spell it.
ASSASSIN, ASSASSINATE, ASSASSINATED, ASSASSINATION
Don’t stint on the s’s.
BARBITURATE
I’d guess that a popular misapprehension of pronunciation leads to a popular misapprehension of spelling, thus “barbituate,” but that’s not how you spell it.
BATTALION
Two t’s, one l, not the other way around. Think “battle,” if that helps you.*5
BOOKKEEPER
The only legitimate English word I’m aware of that includes three consecutive sets of double letters,*6 and in writing it you’re quite apt to forget the second k.*7
BUOY, BUOYANCY, BUOYANT
That oddish uo, which somehow never looks right, is easy to flip; thus my periodic encounters with “bouy,” “bouyancy,” and “bouyant.”
BUREAUCRACY
First you have to nail down the spelling of “bureau,” which is hard enough. Once you’ve conquered “bureau,” you can likely manage “bureaucrat” and “bureaucratic,” but be careful not to crash and burn, as I often do, on “bureaucracy,” which always wants to come out “bureaucrasy.”
CAPPUCCINO
Two p’s and two c’s.
Also, there is no x in “espresso,” but you knew that already.
CENTENNIAL
And its cousins “sesquicentennial”*8 and “bicentennial.”
CHAISE LONGUE
That’s indeed how you spell it, because that’s what it is—literally, from the French, a long chair. But the spelling “chaise lounge” took root in English, especially American English, an awfully long time ago, and it’s not going anywhere, and one would be hard-pressed anymore to call it an error, particularly when it turns up in novels in the dialogue of characters who would not naturally say “chaise longue.”
COMMANDOS
My—and most people’s—preferred plural of “commando.” (Though “commandoes,” which suggests to me a troop of female deer packing Uzis, is, per the dictionary, less incorrect than “aficionadoes.”)
CONSENSUS
Not “concensus.”
DACHSHUND
Two h’s.
DAIQUIRI
Three i’s.
DAMMIT
It’s not “damnit,” goddammit and damn it all to hell, and I wish people would knock it off already.
DE RIGUEUR
A fancy-schmancy adjective meaning “required or prescribed by fashion”; to misspell it is the ne plus ultra of failed pretension.
DIETICIAN, DIETITIAN
They’re both correct. The latter is vastly more popular, though somehow I think the former better evokes the hairnets and lab coats of the elementary school lunch ladies of my distant youth.
DIKE
The things that keep the Netherlands from flooding are dikes. Let’s leave it at that.
DILEMMA
Ask a roomful of people whether at any time in their lives they believed this word to be spelled “dilemna,” and you will receive in return quite a number of boisterous yeses. But the word is not spelled thus; it’s never been spelled thus. Whence, then, “dilemna”? It remains a mystery.
DIPHTHERIA
Not “diptheria.” There are two h’s here.
DOPPELGÄNGER
The popular error is to transpose the el to an le.
DUMBBELL
Double b. The odds are good that left to your own devices you’re going to spell this “dumbell,” as you’re also likely to attempt “filmaker,” “newstand,” and “roomate.” Well, don’t.
ECSTASY
Not “ecstacy.” Perhaps you’re confusing it with bureaucracy.
ELEGIAC
Not “elegaic,” a misspelling that makes it into print with mournful frequency.
ENMITY
I was well into my twenties before I realized that this word was neither pronounced nor spelled “emnity.” I have since learned—and I find it retroactively comforting—that I was not, and am not, the only victim of that misapprehension.
FASCIST
Capitalized when referring to an actual member of Mussolini’s Fascisti, the British Union of Fascists, or any other organization that thus self-identifies, otherwise lowercased.*9
FILMMAKER, FILMMAKING
Noted above, under “dumbbell,” yet given the frequency with which I encounter “filmaker” and “filmaking,” apparently worth repeating.
FLACCID
Pronunciation is not my fiefdom—I don’t have to say ’em, I just have to spell ’em—but you may pronounce this either “flaksid” (the original pronunciation) or “flassid” (the more recent, and now more popular, pronunciation).
In any event, two c’s.
FLUORESCENCE, FLUORESCENT
There’s that peculiar uo again.
FLUORIDE
And once again.
FORTY
Rarely to never misspelled on its own, but there’s something about a follow-up “four” that leads, occasionally, to “fourty-four.”
FUCHSIA
Commonly misspelled “fuschia,” a dishonor to the botanist Leonhard Fuchs, after whom the flower (and color) are named.
GARROTE
Even knowing I’ve just spelled it correctly, I still think it should be “garotte.”
GENEALOGY
I once let this go to print as “geneology” (perhaps I was thinking of geology?), and decades later the memory still stings.
GLAMOUR, GLAMOROUS
When Noah Webster was standardizing American English in the nineteenth century and streamlining “neighbour” into “neighbor,” “honour” into “honor,” etc., he neglected to transform “glamour” into “glamor”—because, oddly enough, he didn’t include the word at all, in any form, in his initial 1828 dictionary or in any of his follow-up volumes. “Glamor” does show up from time to time, but certainly it lacks glamour. Do note, though, that “glamorous” is spelled only thus; it’s never “glamourous.” And it’s “glamorize,” never “glamourize.”
GONORRHEA
Two r’s. See also “syphilis.”
GRAFFITI
Two f’s rather than, as I occasionally run across it, two t’s. It’s a plural, by the way. There is a singular, “graffito,” but no one ever seems to use it. Perhaps because one rarely encounters a single graffito?
GUTTURAL
Not “gutteral,” even though that’s how you pronounce it. If you know your Latin, you may recognize this word that refers to throaty or generally disagreeable utterances as deriving from guttur, the Latin for “throat.” If you don’t know your Latin, you’ll simply have to remember how to spell it.
HEROES
When one is writing about valiant champions, the plural of “hero” is, invariably, “heroes.” The plural of the hero that’s the heavily laden sandwich can be given, per the dictionary, as “heros,” but I can’t say I’ve run across it much if at all in the wild, and I can’t say I care for it.
HIGHFALUTIN
This word, used to describe the putting on of airs, seems (even the dictionary isn’t positive) to derive from a merger of “high” and “fluting”; nonetheless, it’s not to be taken as some sort of Li’l Abner clipping like “comin’ ” or “goin’,” and there’s no apostrophe at its tail end (or, for that matter, a hyphen in its middle).
HORS D’OEUVRE, HORS D’OEUVRES
This one is a nightmare for everyone because of the oeu. Drill oeu into your head and the rest falls into place. The s for the plural is an English-language innovation; French makes do with hors d’oeuvre as both singular and plural.
While we’re here: Though hors d’oeuvres include all more or less bite-size thingamabobs passable on trays, canapés are a subset of hors d’oeuvres requiring a base of bread, toast, cracker, puff pastry, etc., topped or spread with a topping or a spread. Amuse-bouches, which can be made out of just about anything so long as it’s little, are chef-bestowed pre-meal*10 gifts, often served in those charming miniature ladle-like spoons. Now you know.
HYPOCRISY
See also “bureaucracy.”
IDIOSYNCRASY
Same.
INDISPENSABLE
Microsoft Word’s spellcheck believes “indispensible” to be correct; no one else I know does, and it rarely makes it to print.
INDUBITABLY
There’s a b in the middle, not a p.
INFINITESIMAL
Just the one s.
INOCULATE
One n and one c only.
LEPRECHAUN
It doesn’t look much more sensible properly spelled than misspelled, but there you have it.
LIAISON
A word with three consecutive vowels is just begging for trouble.
The relatively recent back-formation*11 “liaise” irritates a lot of people. I think it’s dandy and useful.
LIQUEUR
Another word with three consecutive vowels! If you’re looking to blame someone for this sort of thing, blame the French.
Also, there’s no c before the q, as is occasionally attempted.
MARSHMALLOW
Two a’s, no e’s.
MEDIEVAL
Even the Brits don’t use “mediaeval” much anymore, much less mediæval.*12
MEMENTO
Not “momento.” Think of memory, because you buy and/or hold on to a memento so as to remember something.
MILLENNIUM, MILLENNIA, MILLENNIAL
Two l’s, two n’s. In each. It’s always fun online to catch someone attempting to insult millennials yet unable to spell “millennials.”
MINUSCULE
Not “miniscule,” however much that seems to make sense.
MISCHIEVOUS
The spelling—and pronunciation—“mischievious” go back centuries, but they’re persistently considered nonstandard. They’re also unbearably twee. Woodland elves might opt for “mischievious”; mortals should not.
MISSPELL, MISSPELLED, MISSPELLING
To misspell “misspell” is, to borrow a phrase from the playwright Tennessee Williams,*13 slapstick tragedy.
MULTIFARIOUS
With an f, that is, not a v.
NAÏVE, NAÏVETÉ
Though the dictionary might (begrudgingly) let you get away with dropping the accent marks, there’s no fun in spelling “naïve” or “naïveté” without them, and “naivety,” though ratified by the dictionary, is just plain sad-looking.
NEWSSTAND
Two s’s, please. Two s’s.
NON SEQUITUR
Not “non sequiter.” And no hyphen.
OCCURRED, OCCURRENCE, OCCURRING
Pretty much everyone can spell “occur.” Pretty much no one can spell “occurred,” “occurrence,” or “occurring.”
ODORIFEROUS, ODOROUS
They’re both words. So is “odiferous,” for that matter, but one rarely runs across it. They all mean the same thing: stinking.*14
OPHTHALMIC, OPHTHALMOLOGIST, OPHTHALMOLOGY
Eye-crossingly easy to misspell.
OVERRATE
Also overreach, override, overrule, etc.
PARALLEL, PARALLELED, PARALLELISM
As a young person, I desperately wanted “parallel” to be spelled “paralell” or at least “parallell”; somehow it never was.
PARAPHERNALIA
That r just past the midpoint has a tendency to fall out.
PASTIME
Just the one t. (If it helps, consider that the two words being portmanteaued are “pass” and “time,” not “past” and “time.”)
PEJORATIVE
Perhaps confusing the contemptuous “pejorative” with the lying “perjury,” some people attempt “perjorative.”
PENDANT
It’s not that “pendent,” as occasionally turns up when “pendant” is meant, isn’t a word; it’s that it’s usually not the word you want. “Pendant” is a noun; “pendent” is an adjective meaning hanging or dangling—that is, what a pendant does. Pendulously.
PERSEVERE, PERSEVERANCE, PERSEVERANT
I note a tendency to slip an extra r in, just before the v.
PHARAOH
Reading, a few years back, a facsimile first edition of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile, I was amused to note an instance of the misspelling “pharoah,” which till then I’d figured was a recent problem.*15 Apparently not.
The 2015 Triple Crown triumph of the horse whose name is officially (mis)spelled American Pharoah (and whose sire’s name, even more grislily, is, for reasons I won’t go into, Pioneerof the Nile) called much popular attention to the error, so perhaps ongoingly the word will show up properly spelled more often.
PIMIENTO
The popular spelling “pimento” cannot be called incorrect, though copy editors will persist in changing it. Interestingly, Web 11 has a separate entry for “pimento cheese.” It contains pimientos.
POINSETTIA
Neither “poinsetta” nor “poinsietta.”
PREROGATIVE
It is not spelled “perogative,” though it’s often misspelled—and mispronounced—thus.
PROTUBERANCE, PROTUBERANT
Not “protruberance” or “protruberant.” Yes, you’re thinking of “protrude.” We all are. That’s why the misspelling keeps showing up.
PUBLICLY
The vastly less popular “publically” is generally if not universally held to be nonstandard, which is a nice way of saying that by any decent standards it’s incorrect.
RACCOON
The variant “racoon”—rarely seen now but once quite popular—cannot be taken as incorrect, but it can surely be taken as weird-looking.
RASPBERRY
With a p.
REMUNERATIVE
Not “renumerative.” I tend to avoid “remunerative” altogether, not only because I can’t remember how to spell it but because I can’t pronounce it without choking on it, and so I’d rather go with “lucrative.”
RENOWN, RENOWNED
Not “reknown” or “reknowned.”
REPERTOIRE, REPERTORY
Three r’s each.
RESTAURATEUR
It’s not “restauranteur,” and the floor is not open to debate.
ROCOCO
Neither “roccoco” nor “rococco.” Nor, not that you would, “roccocco.”
ROOMMATE
See “dumbbell” and “filmmaker,” above. And just keep seeing them till you get these right.
SACRILEGIOUS
One wants to spell it “sacreligious.” One can’t.
SEIZE, SEIZED
Easily and not infrequently misspelled, by people who get hung up on that damned “i before e” thing, as “sieze” and “siezed.”
SEPARATE, SEPARATION
Not “seperate” and “seperation.”
SHEPHERD
Some people may be named Shepard, but sheep watchers are shepherds and certain dogs are German shepherds and potato-crusted meat dishes are shepherd’s pies.
SIEGE
Even if you dodge the bullet of a misspelled “seize,” you may still (counterintuitively) trip and misspell “siege” as “seige.” Don’t.
SKULDUGGERY
The variant “skullduggery” has, at least in the United States, lately become the more popular. That the word derives from a Scots term for fornication and not from grave robbery leads me to favor the nonmisleading single-l spelling.
STOMACHACHE
It’s peculiar-looking as one word, I suppose, but it sits cheek by jowl with “earache” and “headache,” and no one seems to find them peculiar-looking at all.
STRAITJACKET
“Strait” as in constricted, not “straight” as in not curvy.*16 Also: straitlaced.
STRATAGEM
It starts off like “strategy”; it just doesn’t finish like “strategy.”
SUPERSEDE
Not “supercede.” I have never in my life spelled “supersede” correctly on the first go.
SURPRISE, SURPRISED, SURPRISING
In any of them, don’t forget the first r, which is omitted with surprising frequency.
SYPHILIS
One l.
TAILLIGHT
Two l’s.
TENDINITIS
Not “tendonitis,” though that’s likely an unstoppable respelling of the word (and I note that the local spellcheck has refused to call it out with the Red Dots of Shame).
THRESHOLD
It’s not “threshhold.” I bet you’re thinking of “withhold.”
TOUT DE SUITE
It’s not “toute suite,” and correctly or incorrectly spelled, it’s as irksome as n’est-ce pas, as noted in Chapter 5: Foreign Affairs. You know what’s a good word? “Now.”
UNDERRATE, UNDERRATED, UNDERRATING
(And any other “under” + r–commencing compounds you can think of.)
UNPRECEDENTED
For pete’s sake, how hard was that?
UNWIELDY
Not “unwieldly,” as I occasionally run across it.
VILLAIN, VILLAINOUS, VILLAINY
That’s ai, not ia.
VINAIGRETTE
Not “viniagrette.” Also not, for that matter, “vinegarette.”
WEIRD
I run across “wierd” more often than I ever expect to.
WHOA
It’s been rendered online as “woah” so often that one might be persuaded that that’s an acceptable alternate spelling. It is not.
WITHHOLD
See “threshold.”
Y’ALL
Never “ya’ll.”
Somewhat to my Yankee surprise, there’s scant consensus (and much feuding) among my southern confederates as to whether “y’all” may properly be applied to just one person (and I leave discussion of the death-defying “all y’all” for another day) but near unanimity that non-southerners ought not to use it at all, y’all.