No matter how many times I use a few certain words, I always seem to spell them incorrectly.
Spellcheck usually helps me, but it’s frustrating that I keep typing these words wrong. Our judges also have certain words that give them trouble, so they put together this list of the “Top 5 Words I Always Spell Incorrectly.”
I am hoping that by making this list, it will help me spell these words correctly in the future. I’m also curious about the words that you run into that give you problems.
First a few honorable mentions:
Curiosity – Why does it drop the second “u” that is part of curious? That always trips me up. Does that one letter take up too much space?
Cycle words – First of all, bicycle and tricycle have too many “i”s and “y”s, and if I type them quickly, I always get them mixed up. In addition, why isn’t icicle spelled the same way? I realize an icicle does not have a cycle, but it sounds exactly like bicycle and it confuses me.
5. Cancelled – It is one “l” or two? Sometimes canceled comes up correctly with spellcheck and sometimes it wants you to use cancelled. Apparently, the U.S. English uses two “l”s while the English English uses one. This seems to happen with several words, such as enrollment and enrolment. At the same time, though, traveling seems to be preferred in the U.S., while they enjoy travelling in England. It’s quite confusing.
4. Valuable – I kid you not, I actually misspelled this one as I was typing this. I always want to stick an “e” in there, just like I do with believable and other related words. It seems like if value and believe have the “e” at the end, so should valuable and believable. I wonder if someday we will change valued to vallued in the U.S.?
3. Misspell –I always get this ironic word wrong. I want to just use one “s” like in mistake, misunderstanding and most “mis” words. It does make sense to use the “ss” here, though, so I don’t really have a good excuse. Also, the rule is the same for misstep and misspoke, so I hope to remember not to misspell misspell in the future.
2. Fluoridated – I had to look this one up before I wrote it down. It seems rare to have a word with a “uo” instead of an “ou” and I always want to put the “o” first in fluoridated. I suppose, though, that the word I am mistakenly writing would only work if you were discussing the flouridation level of your bread.
1. Vacuum – Is it one “c” or two? Is it one “u” or two? And if vacuum has one “c,” why does raccoon have two? I can never remember.
I just pray that I never misspell a very believable story about that time I had to vacuum up the remains of a valuable fluoridated cyclical icicle that was cancelled when curiosity got the better of a raccoon traveling on a unicycle.
Do you have any words that you misspell often? If so, feel free to mention them below. Thanks!
nickclaussen.com 
I’d love to hear about that story!
One I always get wrong is “pursue”. My brain refuses to believe the second letter is a ‘u’ instead of an ‘e’.
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Thanks, I will have to pursue that story in the future. That is a confusing word to write, I agree. Thanks!
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Spelling has never, never been my strong suit but especially those words ending in ate or ite like definite, legitimate, etc. I think it’s because we pronounce the i as an a or vice versa. Thankfully we have spellcheck to confound us further.
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I agree! They sound the same and I often have to look them up to see which is correct. Those are great examples and I am also grateful for spellcheck. Thanks again!
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Spell check lets me down too often for me to trust it. My spelling is pretty strong and most of my spell check hits are related to my typing, which is not strong. Then there are those instances where my keystroke errors don’t generate a response from spell check, so “know” becomes “now” and whatever I was trying to say becomes a rotten pork chop for the troll du jour to chew on, but spell check is none the wiser.
I have had a couple legit spell check busts recently, though. “Grotesque” and “Portuguese”. I’m thinking my spelling of the word grotesque as “Groutesque” may be a Queen’s English spelling, like “colour” or “Flavour” but I’m not sure.
Good post, Nick, I’m looking forward to some interesting responses. Have a god day.
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Kenny, that is a great comment! Well played with the last sentence my friend. I laughed out loud at that. Grotesque is a tricky word, and I often see the different spellings for color and flavor, too. Tanks again!
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I never forget ‘vacuum’ having two u’s due to the way our physics teacher used to emphasise it when he said it, which was quite often in physics, although not often enough in an actual vacuum.
‘Vack-you-umm…’ he used to say. I expect he would have said ‘You misssss-spelled vack-you-ummm…’ if you got it wrong.
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That’s pretty funny. I have never heard anyone say it like that, but it would help you remember. Thanks again!
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Travelled and traveled — like cancelled and canceled obviously.
In Greek, I invariable misspell ‘message’. Is it μήνυμα or μύνημα; That is the question!
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That is an excellent question, as it looks pretty tough. And traveled and cancelled are confusing, I agree. And after seeing the Greek spelling, I’d say my spelling issues in English seem pretty simple. Thanks!
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