Words that look like they're spelled .... wrong.

[NiceCupOfTea]

doomey has just posted a question about the word 'tuition' which, to doomey, just looked plain wrong.

The word that I always have to double check is 'assessment' - far to many letter 's'es for my brain to cope with. 'Personnel' being the other obvious one I always need to check.

What are yours?

(I do hope I've spelled everything right. If not - treat any incorrect spellings as being within the spirit of the question and point them out, whilst ridiculing me!)

[WhiteBear]

receive or is it recieve?

leciester?? leicester?? liscester?? arghhhhhhhh

[Stephen_G]

Whatever happened to "I before E except after C", WhiteBear? ;-)

I've got two dictionaries on my desk because I type a word and it doesn't look right. I never used to have a problem spelling words. Now I think my brain has turned to mush.

[NiceCupOfTea]

We know the rules. We have the dictionaries (even that word looks wrong!). We have the F7' button on 'Microsoft Word'. Still the word just doesn't look right somehow!

[Buenchico]

I was once designing a leaflet for my friends catering service which required me to use the plural of 'menu'.

Menus looked wrong, because I thought that it looked like some sort of Latin word, pronounced 'men - us'.

Menues seemed more logical, but the 'e' looked out of place.

Menu's looked right, but I knew that the apostrophe couldn't be justified.

After consulting the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Fowler's 'Modern English Usage', the Longman 'Guide to English Usage' and F.T.Wood's 'Current English Usage' (all of which are on my bookshelf), I still wasn't certain, so I phoned Ipswich Reference Library. A quarter of an hour later, after three librarians had consulted several different sources, and had debated the issue among themselves, we agreed that it should be menus.

It was only then that I remembered that my friend, who I was designing the leaflets for, is dyslexic - so she probably wouldn't notice my spelling anyway! ;-)

Chris

[Buenchico]

Judge Netmeg: That 'i' before 'e' rule isn't very scientific ;-)

[WhiteBear]

judge I agree with Chris.... 'I before E' rule isn't very scientific

it dosnt work for all the words in the english language!!!

x

[jno]

'i before e' is only a guide to spelling words with an 'ee' sound in them, so 'scientific' doesn't count. There are words that break the rule (weird, for instance) but not all that many, so it's a useful memory-jogger.

[Ethel]

I before E except after the letter C, unless the word is 'scientific' obviously

:)

[Amber63]

I don't have any because I spell perfectly every time.

[Panic Button]

Separate and desperate

or is it seperate and desparate?

[stewey]

" 'i' before 'e' "...quite weird.

[Slooow_Jo]

Oh joy the good ole i before e debate lol

I was typing a word earlier which didn't look right so ended up changing the whole sentence so as not to use it, damned if I can remember now what it was though :o(

[*Princess*]

Embarrassment...or however you spell it!

And what is the plural or penis?! Penises or Penii?!

[jno]

if you're being Latin (for scientific purposes) I think it's penes. Penises will do fine for English. Extra R for embarrassment because it's the syllable with the stress on it (it isn't with harassment).

[paddywak]

liek amber, eye two spel purfekly hits hall yu uthers wat kant

[kriskwery]

Half the problem is recognising whether or not you are generally a good or bad speller. Good spellers tend to know when a work looks wrong and will double check; bad spellers neither know nor care!! I appreciate that even the best of us make mistakes occasionally (that is one I always need to double check). I'd be interested to hear how people remember difficult spellings ... for instance, I never get stationEry confused with stationAry because, long ago, someone told me that E was for envelopes - silly but it works for me!

[Panic Button]

Princess, you should be embarressed!

[eash]

I get annoyed with people who spell definitely wrong. It's not definately it's definitely.

[Panic Button]

(or is it embarrassed?)

[mallam]

Yes, jno. Penises will do fine for English, except in medicine, where it is indeed usually penes. It never ceases to appal, the way people come out with Latin plurals in -i, when not even all words in -us have that plural, never mind all the rest.

But no, jnp, the extra R for embarrassment cannot be explained by the stress on it, as harassment does have the stress on the same syllable, except for Americans. Who else agrees with them? Certainly not the OED.