“I go online sometimes, but everyone’s spelling is really bad. It’s depressing.” ““Tara, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I spend a lot of time online. I read lots and lots of articles and stories and blog posts and all sorts of things that aren’t easily categorized, and I keep coming across the same misspellings. It’s odd, because I only seem to come across most of these mistakes online. I never see them in print or in creative writing or term papers. The Internet holds many interesting and enjoyable things to read; I just wish people would avoid these common mistakes. Let’s jump in:
Lose/loose: This is probably the most common spelling screw-up I’ve seen lately. I’m not sure why this one is so pervasive, but it’s everywhere. And the error is always people using “loose” where they mean “lose.” It probably has something to do with the double vowel sound, but it’s inescapable.
So, to simplify: You lose weight. You lose your mind. A screw comes loose. Once you lose weight, your pants are a little loose.
Definitely: Notice the definite lack of the letter “a” anywhere in there. The word “finite” is dropped right in the middle of “definitely.” No “a.” Ever.
Ridiculous: There is no “e” in “ridiculous.” There is no “e” in “ridiculous.” There is no “e” in “ridiculous.” If you type “ridiculous” enough, it starts to look ridiculous.
Dining: I have no idea why so many people want to spell this word “dinning,” but there’s only one “n” in “dining.” “Dinning” would rhyme with “sinning,” which is what you’re doing when you put extra letters into words.
Shiny: Same deal as “dining.” Everyone seems to want to add an extra “n” and make this word “shinny,” which would rhyme with “whinny,” which would just be wrong. (That was to the tune of “Trouble” from The Music Man. I feel it’s important that you know that, mostly because I don’t want to be the only one with that song stuck in my head all day.)
Peak/peek/pique: In fairly basic terms:
Peak: The highest or most important point of something. (The mountain peak; the peak of her athletic career.)
Peek: A quick look or glance. (She took a peek through the curtains.)
Pique: To excite or provoke; almost always used with “interest” or “curiosity.”
Heal/heel:
Heal: To make better or restore to health.
Heel: The rear part of the foot, or part of a shoe.
Truly: Truly, there is no “e” in truly.
Faze/phase: Oh, this one. This one is everywhere, and it’s a weird one for people to mix up, but they do. If something disconcerts or disturbs you, it fazes you. You remain unfazed by crazy shit happening around you. Save “phase” for talking about child development or Star Trek.
How about you, readers? Are there any common spelling mistakes that drive you nuts?
Previous Grammar Bitch posts:
40 replies on “The Grammar Bitch Takes On the Internet”
A bit late to the post (I’ve been making my way through the archive for the past week and a half), but wanted to add my favourite: “defiantly”. A house-mate misspells “definitely” as “definatly”, and then makes the above typo. “I’ll defiantly be at dinner tonight.” <- because she objects to my use of lentils? Heheee.
I pretty much agree with everyone’s pet peeves noted in the comments. I’ll add to that list the word, “alot”. Every time I see it I think of Allie Brosh’s Alot and imagine a big brown hairy animal lumbering all over the sentence.
I’m not going to lie, things like this really annoy me. Probably just as much as misspelled words and confused homophones annoy you. We get it, you’re smarter than everyone else. You guys never make mistakes with this incredibly difficult language of ours. And if you do, they’re not the common ones that those poor saps who have not had access to the same quality of education as you may make. It doesn’t matter that the function of language is to communicate and unless someone’s grammar/spelling is so atrocious that is contains no meaning, there is no *real* harm done.
Language contains ideology and this sort of policing of language serves no real function other than to establish a distinction between people of quality and those who lack such distinctions. In academic settings this policing makes sense in a way, because a large point of education is to train people to operate within a particular section of society. But I find it frustrating to see this prescriptive attitude so enthusiastically enforced on the internet, a place that–at least rhetorically–is supposed to be a bastion of democracy and free exchange of ideas. But these sort of lists, these pet peeves that I’ve encountered on many sites that are aimed towards the educated, bourgeois classes only proves that even virtual spaces are classed and elitist.
In summation, prescriptivists can suck it. Descriptivists, represent!
I agree with you on this point regarding spoken langauge (prescriptivist representing here!) but I think written language is often held to a different degree of scrutiny.
Although, you make a very valid point that this is the internet. I’ll agree with you that the internet, and its free exchange of ideas, should not be held to the same standards that other written and published media should be.
Nevertheless, I still get irked when “professional” work on the internet contains spelling errors as such. I assume this work has been proofread or copyedited by someone, and that is just sloppy to let it get by like that.
OMG, speaking of proofreading, how embarassing, but I meant to say descriptivist representing! I am a spoken language descriptivist!!! NOT prescriptivist.
(*hiding in shame*)
Then/than. See http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/than.html
-men/-man. My local newspaper uses “freshmen” as an adjective all the time.
This one’s a bit silly, but I’m bothered by “ya’ll.” It’s “y’all”; the apostrophe replaces the “o” and “u” in “you.”
And, of course, its/it’s.
Faulkner spells it “ya’ll” and although Merriam-Webster may disagree, when it comes to Southernisms, I swear on Faulkner’s grave. Based on the pronunciation of ya’ll/y’all, it seems as though “ya” is substituted for a more formal “you” and the apostrophe takes place of the a in all. Try saying “ya all.” It naturally flows together. When I read “y’all”, I want to make the y sound short and the “all” its own syllable, while “ya’ll” flows seamlessly.
I know that y’all is the “correct” spelling according to most dictionaries, but it doesn’t match the actual speech patterns and cadence of the dialect.
Interesting points. I grabbed a Faulkner book that happened to be within reach and was unable to find “y’all” or “ya’ll,” but I did find “you all.” I grew up in Texas and don’t recall there being any debate, but clearly there is!
I was going to include it in my original post but decided that not to because I wasn’t sure how totally accurate it was…but I was going to say that I’d noticed that people in the western portions of the south (i.e. Texas/OK) pronounce y’all differently than those of us closer to the seaboard. The Texans I know actually do make the “y” sound shorter like I described. So maybe its a sub-regional preference? I’m from South Carolina and I’ve seen both spellings, but I prefer the “ya’ll” because it makes more sense to me phonetically.
When I read your first reply to me, I sat here saying “y’all” repeatedly and couldn’t hear what you were talking about! I’ll have to keep an ear out for this other version.
I’m with you on the y’all bit.
I have to say that even though I know the difference between then and than, lately I have been writing then for than! I get so embarassed when I proofread what I’ve written; I just don’t know what has gotten into me.
Yeah, I know how to spell and I can be a bit grammar nazi about some issues in professional writing, but on the net most of the time I like to spell words the way I feel they should be spelled. I suppose if a person judges my intellect by that so be it, but I always felt truly looked prettier with an “e” in it. ;)
The one that drives me nuts, and this could just be a personal pet peeve, is people who write “ya” when they mean “yeah.” Though I immediately read the rest of what they write in a Yooper/Northern Michigan accent, so that’s kind of fun.
I also see “yay” for “yeah.”
I am guilty of using ‘Yay’ as a way to differentiate between ‘Yeah’ as a statement of happiness and exclamation and ‘Yeah’ as in a statement of agreement or sarcastic approval.
Yay you! vs Yeah, you’re right/Yeah, sure, whatever.
See, I don’t think you have to be guilty of anything, as those are different “words” to me. “Yay” would be like “Hurray,” (it’s got an implied exclamation point) “Yeah” is an informal word for yes, which technically “Ya” is too (in English, in other languages it is the word for yes), but it invokes a certain accent that, when I know the speaker doesn’t have that accent, just sort of grates on my nerves. Which I fully admit is nitpicky and maybe just a personal thing, since I don’t always mind colloquial spellings online, because you’re more imitating casual speaking than formal writing, usually.
Ya’know? Eh, whatcha gonna do? ;)
Along the lines of what @kitcloudkicker said, to me those are different words (even pronounced differently), and I use them in the ways you do. What bothers me is when people use one when they mean the other.
Definitely is my word nemesis. I keep trying to remember finite, but somehow I always prop in an extra e where an i should belong. Thank Jove for grammar control in browsers.
My word nemesis is license. I can never remember which way the damn c and s go. I know there’s one of each, but half the time I need Firefox’s infernal red squiggle to remind me.
‘Necessary’ is my word nemesis. I just had to spell check that to get it right.
It’s the fact that the c’s and ss’s make the same sound that gets me every time. Every time I have to write it my thoughts go exactly like this: “Neccesary, or Necessary? They both look right – Which one is supposed to be the double letter? NOOOOOO!!”
I had the nick ‘neszessary’ for ages so for some reason I’ll never spell necessary wrong.
“Because” is my word nemesis. I know how to spell it, but every damn time I type it, it comes out “becuase” or “beacuse.” I don’t know why I can’t train my fingers to do it right.
This is more grammar than spelling, but you’re/your and there/their/they’re mistakes make me want to stab the mistake-maker in the eyeballs.
Oh, you ladies are definately off base here…reely, dont you know anything?
JUST KIDDING–don’t disemvowel me! I love this thread!!!
However, I would not be welcome at the Team Oxford Comma clubhouse…
My boss habitually writes “dose” when he means “does”. It drives me CRAZY. It also makes him look somewhat incompetent which I enjoy.
Yes to all of the above, and here are two more that just make my skin crawl: unconditionally using “and I” when talking about pair/group activities (“Here is a picture of Schmooples and I at the fair!”) and who’s/whose confusion (let’s talk about contractions, friends).
This might not be totally related…
But my housemates are all convinced that the word “Foyer” is actually the word “Foray”. They’ll send emails or make post-its that say things like “If your shoes are muddy make sure you clean them off before you enter the foray”, or “The foray table is getting super cluttered, don’t leave your shit there”.
It drives me absolutely crazy. SO much rage! I tried to correct one of them once, but she just told me I was being elitist (?).
Please remove your shoes before you foray into the foyer. Hilarious AND enraging.
Perhaps you should start calling it the entryway or front hall.
I thought of another one!
I have several friends that do this and it drives me up a wall!
“could of” “should of” “would of”. As in, ‘Oh, I wish you’d called me, I would of picked you up”. Or, “I could of eaten a whole pizza”. HAVE, people. HAVE! Not OF! :(
Two nit-picky additions:
Uncensored, NOT unsensored. Unless you are attempting to create a word that indicates something was not sensed previously.
Supposed to, NOT suppose to. Not that I’m in love with the usage of supposed to, but at least affix the appropriate suffix.
Oh, and though I am not sure of the proper usage myself, I hate spellings of yeah, yea, yay, yah, ya, etc that don’t fit the way I think they should be spelled in a situation.
For example, yea should only ever be paired with nay as in an oral vote. Not as an exclamation of happiness.
In other people’s writing, “there,” “their” and “they’re” make me crazy. In my own writing, it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out “originally” – I really wanted it to be “origionally.” I blame “religious.”
I forgot about your/you’re. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Even worse, phaze – the bastard child of wrongness. You can just imagine the uncertainty as people type: ph…f…no, ph..ase…no..aze..phaze!
I laughed at sinning by dinning. There was an apartment therapy post about craigslist ridiculousness that talked a lot about “dinning tables.”
I remember writing “wheather” as a child. I didn’t know which to use, so I combined them.
‘to’. This one drives me nuts more than anything else. I usually see it on Facebook. Someone will say, ‘My new shoes are to tight’. Or, ‘I’m getting ready too take my sister to the store’. People getting those mixed up really, really irks me. That one bothers me more than anything else.
I also hate ‘supposably’, when used to mean ‘supposedly’.
I share your hatred of ‘definately’ – argh!
I do freelance writing for a living and the other day my boss emailed me to say that for the past several articles I’d spelled ‘receiving’ wrong. I had been typing so fast that I made that same typo about ten times and spelled it ‘recieving’. I was really embarrassed.
There is no “e” in “shiny” either. I see “shiney” way more the “shinny”.
Also, I know “aww” isn’t technically a word, but I see so many people typing “awe” when they mean “aww”. It bugs me. A lot.
Me too. I get that it is a thing some people do to make themselves distinctive, but I hate ‘awe’ with a passion. Awe is an actual word, awwww is not.
No joke, POM, my college newspaper EIC fought me on the “faze” issue because he said it wasn’t a word. Wasn’t a word! The baby internet was no help to us at the time! It was infuriating. Definately infuriating. :P
Everyone should use Firefox. It underlines all mispellings in read. See, it underlined mispelling, which I spelled incorrectly on purpose. It should be misspelling. :)