What words do you repeatedly spell or speak out loud incorrectly?

November 13, 2019 12:23 PM

Usually I am a good speller. But there are words that I type regularly that I always spell wrong first. For example covenant I always first spell convenant. There are other words I often but not always mess up in spoken language, usually by misordering similar phonemes (chicken/kitchen --> "The kitchen is defrosting in the chicken"). I am guessing that I am still mentally "speaking" the word as I type, and am doing the same kind of misordering for covenant, where I put the "n" too early in the word?

Do you do this? What words? What do you think is going on? I usually can recognize an incorrect spelling once I've typed it out but I find it odd that I make the same mistake repeatedly.

posted by spamandkimchi to Writing & Language (84 answers total)

I always misspell "receive" when typing but thankfully I notice the error right away. But even writing this response meant I had to carefully remember the order of "e" and "i" in that word.
posted by acidnova at 12:32 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have to quietly say "wed-ness-day" to myself when spelling Wednesday and if anyone here claims they don't they are LIARS
posted by DSime at 12:37 PM on November 13, 2019 [35 favorites]

I can't for the life of me ever spell "resturant" correctly.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:37 PM on November 13, 2019 [13 favorites]

Guarantee. I misspell it 100% of the time and just can't get it right. I think I usually swap the u and a, but I don't know, I can't see the error—I need the squigglies under it to show me it's misspelled and then need auto-correct to help me.

Maybe I should pronounce it GWARantee, that might stick!
posted by cyclopticgaze at 12:40 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

I can't spell the word "maintenance" correctly on the first try. "Maintenance" is to "Maintain". Why is it not "maintainance"? I think it's less of a brain block and more of an act of defiance. I will NOT spell it the "correct" way because it makes so much more sense the other way. Hmmph!
posted by Gray Duck at 12:41 PM on November 13, 2019 [8 favorites]

I always have to think about "February." And "restaurant"? Forget it.

As a child I could never spell the word "science" and pretty sure I had "SCINCE" written on my duo-tangs in elementary school.
posted by VirginiaPlain at 12:42 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I cannot reliably spell the word "conscious" to save my life. I can never remember if there's an s before the second c or not. I also consistently forget which is the repeated letter in "broccoli".

I definitely googled both of those words to see what was correct before typing this comment.
posted by darchildre at 12:42 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]

Candidate gets spelled as "candidiate" because I just keep hammering the same key combo a little too much.
posted by GuyZero at 12:45 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Vacuum, which I can only get correctly via typing vaccuumm in spellcheck and letting it do the work for me.
posted by kimberussell at 12:49 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]

"necessary"
posted by thelonius at 12:50 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

Strength. I always transpose the g and the n and according to my husband, I can’t say it either, so much so that it’s become a running joke. (I of course, think I pronounce it perfectly!).
posted by Jubey at 12:54 PM on November 13, 2019

exersize
ecsercise
exercize
exorcise
wait almost
exercise
posted by General Malaise at 12:55 PM on November 13, 2019 [8 favorites]

I'm not sure I've ever actually confused these words when speaking out loud, but "condom" and "tampon" are intermingled in my head, which is pretty hilarious, really.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:58 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

Oh and so as to not abuse the edit window, is it just me or have other noticed something about the word divine? Most people on social media seem to spell it ‘devine’ so regularly that my stupid brain has now started accepting it as correct. I have to remind myself that these people just can’t spell whenever I write it. Which granted, isn’t often, I don’t find many things divine!
posted by Jubey at 1:00 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Management is a hard one for me. I always wind up talking about mangers, which is not right. Also license, which I screwed up typing just now and spellcheck had to correct me.
posted by backwards compatible at 1:00 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm a freakishly good touch typer but for reasons unknown to me, my hands will always type gentlemen as gentlement and javelin as javeline. It's like the fingers of my left hand are having so much fun they can't believe it's time to stop already for another pesky space. Since I work in sports, the latter is more of an issue than you might think.
posted by penguin pie at 1:15 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

Massachusetts. One "s" or two? One "s"? or two? One "t" or two?
posted by eugenen at 1:16 PM on November 13, 2019

Soldier & shoulder. I have had trouble with getting these two words muddle my whole life. I have a weird lisp going on which I've beaten in most other words (though my r in red is kind of funky) and February is a spelling & pronunciation minefield for me.
posted by wwax at 1:22 PM on November 13, 2019

Amendment - always want to sneak in an extra “m”.
posted by skewed at 1:24 PM on November 13, 2019

License is one I struggle with. Why two different letters for the same sound?

Also, I struggle HARD with some Italian words, like mozzerella. It seems that one consonant is usually doubled apparently at random and I can never remember which one. Also I'm pretty sure I fucked up one of the vowels.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 1:27 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]

My mother once told me she lived in fear of someone asking for a letter of recommendation and having to spell "conscientious."

I always have to double-check when to stop spelling "banana."
posted by telophase at 1:29 PM on November 13, 2019

Also! I only know how to spell "occurred" because I once ran across a thing that explained spelling it as a señorita's comment to a red-headed cowboy: "Oh, sí sí, you are red" and that is now STUCK IN MY HEAD and WILL NOT LEAVE.
posted by telophase at 1:32 PM on November 13, 2019 [18 favorites]

Bureaucracy. I want to add many random vowels to the first syllable for some reason. I just had to spell it yesterday, which is the only reason I spelled it right the first time today. By next week I will again be unable to spell it.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:41 PM on November 13, 2019 [7 favorites]

I was a copyeditor for years and I have to look up or think hard about the spelling of "privilege" every time.

I never had a problem with "cavalry" versus "Calvary" until a teacher warned us about mixing up the two, and now I have to try extra hard not to confuse them when I speak.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:43 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Gauge or guage? Ugh! I had to look it up in order to post this comment--otherwise an excellent speller.
posted by Elsie at 1:43 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]

For tricky words I have a separate pronunciation that i use only when spelling that word. Like for separate I say "sep par ate" while I'm spelling it to emphasize the part of the word that sounds different from how it's spelled. "Main tain ance".
posted by bleep at 1:46 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

I live in fear I will one day be speaking in public and have to say ‘tangentially’ without accidentally saying ‘tan-genitally’.
posted by cabin fever at 1:46 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Biscuit. Bis-que-it. Well shit, now it has a q. I don't actually misspell it because I know I can't spell it so I always just look it up.
posted by BoscosMom at 1:47 PM on November 13, 2019

Liaison; I always want an i in the final syllable.

Restaurateur; I always think there should be an n in there.

On the other hand one word I never have any problems with is "pharaoh" since I realized the a and o are in alphabetical order.
posted by kimota at 2:02 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I always have to remind myself to put the second I in "liaison."

"Genealogy"--the A should be an O, like biology or zoology, right? Wrong.

And "minuscule." I always think the first U should be an I, as in "miniature."


There's a great bit in Stephen King's "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" about this kind of thing, which he refers to as a "literary fingerprint": "I had an almost screamingly literate writer once who used to spell 'refrigerator' with a D--'refridgerator'--no matter how many times the copy editors blooped it. And for this guy, who had a doctoral degree from Princeton, 'ugly' was always going to be 'ughly.'"
posted by dlugoczaj at 2:02 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Medicine/medecine is my bugbear.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:03 PM on November 13, 2019

For my day-to-day job, I work in email, which means I spend a lot of time talking about email headers and machines that process email. This means that I have developed finger macros for "Received:" and "server". I cannot type "receive" without typing it as "received:"; similarly, "served" is "serverd".

"Non-existent" always gets spelled with "-ant" first.
posted by hanov3r at 2:22 PM on November 13, 2019

Alcholhol. Alcohol. Every time.

Also I never understood “segue” and “seg-way” were the same word. I still have to remind myself to say it correctly.
posted by kellygrape at 2:30 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Out loud, shoulder versus soldier is tricky for me. If I ever had to say "the soldier wounded his shoulder" in a speech I would mess it up. In fact, I mistyped it as "sholdier" just now.

When typing, "institution" gets me a lot. I often get lost in a "ti-ti-ti" combo or wind up with insti-tuition.

My dissertation topic was comparing traditional versus new Latino immigrant destinations and I typed "Lation" every. single. time. My fingers just couldn't get over the "tion" habit.
posted by kochenta at 2:31 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

accommodation
posted by oflinkey at 2:38 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

There are a gazillion exceptions to the "i before e, except after c" but for those that DO follow that rule, my hint is to remember "lies and deceit". I KNOW that "lies" is spelled the way it is spelled...therefore, "deceit" is spelled the other way...after c.
posted by Gray Duck at 2:43 PM on November 13, 2019

I've been studying Italian for a about a year and a half, and this happens with every word that has three or more vowels in a row: cucchiaio (spoon), gioielleria (jewelry), l'ape operaia (the worker bee). I have to sound/spell them out one letter at a time (typing very slowly).

In English, it's less of an issue, but odyssey and Albuquerque are probably the ones that give me most the trouble. (Al byoo quair key is how I must say it to myself.) With odyssey, it sometimes takes a few tries before spellcheck can figure out what I mean. Are their two Ds? Wait, is that first y supposed to be an e?
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 2:56 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

I can't type poeple correctly.
posted by theora55 at 3:09 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

I usually fail in my first attempt at any word containing "graph", like "photographic". I think it's because I'm a fast hunt and peck typist who like to alternate hands for each letter, and "graphic" is one of the words that throws me off.
posted by maudlin at 3:26 PM on November 13, 2019

'Toungue' – no, wait: 'tounge'; yeah, that's right.
posted by jamjam at 3:38 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Diarrhea
posted by galvanized unicorn at 3:47 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]

"Rhythm", for some reason! And I'm a writer, but it's one word that I literally have to spell aloud each time I write it. Just a mental block. So now I've kind of learned it off, by sound! Unfortunate too, as I'm also a musician so it comes up pretty often!
posted by cornflakegirl at 3:53 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]

Spelled "millennium" wrong on the cover of a brochure once. Thank god that's over with.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:02 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

In elementary school I was heartbroken when I lost a spelling bee on "fiery" which I spelled "firey". I still struggle with it--it just seems so wrong!
posted by a fish out of water at 4:24 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Rhythm
Privilege (why do I think there’s a D in there?)
posted by tatiana wishbone at 4:25 PM on November 13, 2019

I answered 8+5 wrong on an arithmetic test in grade school once and still have to count it out on my fingers just to make sure. (It's 13 not 12, apparently but my brain refuses to accept this.)
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:33 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I could not spell necessary correctly until I learned this mnemonic device:
A shirt NEEDS one Collar and two Sleeves - one c and two s's.

I still can't spell misogyny, license, exercise, or rhythm. I just type a bunch of letters that are vaguely in the direction of each word and spellcheck those suckers. I guess I have trouble with the sometimes-y and the c/s/z. Otherwise I am an exemplary speller; I even do copy editing for money sometimes so I really don't think that's a lie I've told myself.

I think that one thing that's going on is that English is notoriously illogical with spelling, so we're at a high difficulty level to begin with. And another thing that's going on is that as technology has become more accessible we're committing less things to long term memory. Think about how many phone numbers you had memorized as a child and how many you know now - do you even know your best friend's number? Your mom's? We keep a lot of stuff in the cloud, as it were, including how to spell things. Because we've got spellcheck at our fingertips and nobody does hand written notes of any complexity anymore, if the spelling of a word doesn't come naturally we rarely are forced into a situation where we need to solidify that hazy knowledge, and so it continues.
posted by Mizu at 4:43 PM on November 13, 2019 [7 favorites]

Ironically, the word I used to mispronounce was "pedant." Instead of PEH-dnt, I used to say it as puh-DANT (rhymes with "can't.")

In the time since learning how to say it correctly, I have come to occasionally say it wrong on purpose... just to see who bites.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:53 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Architecture. Took me years to get right. Even now I don't trust this very post.
posted by stevis23 at 5:24 PM on November 13, 2019

I always blame this on muscle memory with the covenant/convenant sort of situation. Anybody named Scott, I'm sorry when I call you Scoot in an email.
posted by queensissy at 5:27 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

“Minuscule” and “supersede” are mine. I always want to write “miniscule” because “mini” = small. And I always want to write “supercede” by analogy with “intercede” or “concede.”

One of my friends used to call this a “reverse gazebo error” — where a “gazebo error“ is mispronouncing a word because you’ve only seen it written. I’m more likely to commit a gazebo error than a reverse gazebo error, but sometimes…
posted by snowmentality at 5:48 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

I always type thnaks instead of thanks. I think its muscle memory now.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make thnaks a legit word.
posted by Kris10_b at 6:15 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have trouble spelling "astaxanthin", a supplement I am experimenting with. I actually had a nightmare a few days ago in which I tried to recommend it to someone by typing it into google but I kept getting the spelling wrong in my dream so the information wouldn't come up.

This gives me trouble whenever I run out and have to reorder.

A lot of supplement names are tricky and obscure like gluthathione.
posted by whitelotus at 6:40 PM on November 13, 2019

Rhythm!!!!
posted by sucre at 6:49 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Broccoli
Brocolli
Broccolli
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 6:58 PM on November 13, 2019

Calendar. I spelled it wrong twice in this comment. I use it daily.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 7:03 PM on November 13, 2019

I almost always stumble when pronouncing "catastrophizing" in the middle of a conversation. Just can't get that one out without second-guessing myself.
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 7:13 PM on November 13, 2019

This is probably the place to make mention of my coworker who thinks that “definitely” is spelled d-e-f-i-a-n-t-l-y.
posted by sesquipedalia at 7:18 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I used to need to type out the state name Georgia multiple times per day. I cannot type the word Georgia, I’m an expert at typing out the (non)word Gerogia, however.
posted by Jazz Hands at 7:31 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

Memorable. Mehm-ore-abuhl. Mehm-rahble.

I taught myself how to pronounce a lot of words by reading them and comparing them to similar-looking words. Adorable = ad-orable, but Memorable =/= mem-orable? I found that really strange.

Since my parents didn’t speak great English when I was growing up, I often didn’t have anyone correcting me. I’ve corrected a lot of my strange pronunciations over the years, but “memorable” still gets me.
posted by saltypup at 8:02 PM on November 13, 2019

Add me as someone who repeatedly types "supercede" even though I know the more accepted spelling is "supersede." That's probably the most common one for me. If I catch myself or there's a spell check that gives me a squiggly red line (like now), I'll fix it.

Another when I'm in a hurry is typing "apart" when I really mean "a part."

Mostly I consider myself a pretty good speller and I know how to spell something, but fairly often I'll look at it and think, Is this really correct? Because, like a few other folks have mentioned, it just appears visually odd. And then I'll second-guess myself and look it up to be sure. Couple of examples:

relevant - it looks odd to me because I pronounce the last syllable closer to "vent" rather than "vant."

tendinitis - Once, someone I respected told me this was wrong and that it should be "tendonitis" and I did a double take and said Oh of course, that makes sense (and didn't look it up at the time). But both are accepted by Merriam-Webster (thanks, Latin) even though Firefox gives me a squiggly line for "tendonitis."

I'm definitely not as strong with a lot of proper names. e.g. count me as another person who has to look up Albuquerque each time.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:29 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I type the word “housing” probably 50 times a day - but I always type “hosuing” first.
posted by tinymojo at 9:03 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Sulfur / sulphur. At a vulnerable time in my education, I was taught by a Kiwi.
posted by Gneisskate at 9:33 PM on November 13, 2019

Asess. Surely not asses. Oh right, assess.
posted by moons in june at 9:56 PM on November 13, 2019

I have to pause and be mindful before pronouncing the word "vehemently" lest I say "vemenently".

I knew a guy used to say "mor-taj" instead of "mor-gaj" when talking about his mortgage, he was good humored about it and was like, "well, I knew one of those letters was silent."
posted by Horkus at 10:04 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm only typing "silhouette" correctly here because of my smart keyboard suggestion thingy. Ditto "hors d'oeuvres." Superfluous double letters suck (accommodate, embarrassment, millennium, etc.) And while I totally know how to spell "commercial", something about the mechanics of typing it always makes me want to write "commerical" instead.

Since technology has solved most of these for me, my worst remaining tic is using "it's" as a possessive, which most autocorrect aren't yet smart enough to catch. I know the rule if I think about it, but when writing on the fly the "possessive = apostrophe + s" instinct is so strong I just can't resist.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:17 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Pho-e-nix. Al-bu-quer-que. Jun-e-a-u. Pi-er-re (Why do you call yourself "peer"?)
Mass-a-chu-setttttttts (the key is stuck).
Lou-i-si-an-na (Looey-see-anna, Lucy-anna, Louzie-anna).
posted by TrishaU at 1:44 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seperation
License
Zuchinni
Definately

There's also a bunch of words in here that I probably wouldn't spell right but that I never type.
posted by geegollygosh at 4:12 AM on November 14, 2019

I always blame this on muscle memory . . . Anybody named Scott, I'm sorry when I call you Scoot in an email.

I had a boss named Doug, and I had to forcefully stop myself from typing "Dough" EVERY time I sent him an email. EVERY time.
posted by dlugoczaj at 5:48 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

I don't think I've spelled the word "maneuver" right on the first try ever in my life. I think part of it is knowing that it's spelled differently basically everywhere except the US, so I keep trying to put an unnecessary "o" in there? But I never know where it goes? And then I remember "Oh wait, no o, because America" and I STILL have to look up the spelling.

Also, the word "tousled" was one that I'd only ever seen and never heard, so my head canon was that it was pronounce "TWO-zled" and not "TOZ-zled". Even knowing that that's now how it's pronounced, I still say it that way in my head.
posted by helloimjennsco at 6:26 AM on November 14, 2019

Mnemonics I use daily:

Be a friEND until the END.
There is A RAT in sepARATe
TOGETHER is TO GET HER

I used to work in the field of Historic Preservation, which made it a problem that I always spell it "hisotric". Now I work in a Library of Veterinary Medicine, which makes it a problem that I always spell it "libriary" and "veterianry".
posted by Rock Steady at 7:26 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

Committment
Comittment
Comitment
Commitment
Got it!

I know someone whose vocabulary is extensively from extensive reading and pronounces subsequently with the emphasis on the second syllabus - sub SEE kwent ly even though they get consequently right.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:29 AM on November 14, 2019

wierd weird
diahorrea diarrhoea diarrhea
posted by charlen at 9:15 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

My father claimed the hardest word to type is "ratio" because your fingers always add a final "n".

One of my own common errors is "lenght", er.. "length".
posted by SemiSalt at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Unnecessary.

I have no issue with necessary, but add the un and I lose control.

What happens is, obviously the n has to be double, because you got the un and then you got the necessary. So you need two ns. But then I want to just double everything. Who wants a twin? C? R? Everybody gets a buddy! What a shitshow.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:51 AM on November 14, 2019 [7 favorites]

I don’t have much trouble with any of the above, but my mind insists that pomegranate has another “n” in it, like “pomengranate”. With all the annoyance that autocorrect has caused me, I have to credit it for pointing out that I had a problem with that word when I didn’t think I had a problem at all.
posted by chromium at 11:17 AM on November 14, 2019

alchol (alcohol) for some reason, and also prosituition (prostitution)... which I found out the hard way while writing a social studies paper in high school
posted by zima_lengneui at 3:12 PM on November 14, 2019

I just remembered one. I cannot say the word empathize. My brain somehow twists it into emphasize and I can't make it stop.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:13 PM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

My fucking name, Michael, not Micheal

fwiw after I learned French my spelling fell apart for years. Are you bilingual or more, even passively? If so, you may be having brain collisions, or so my theory goes.

(PS ‘convenant’ is a perfectly cromulent spelling in Dutch)
posted by mwhybark at 9:14 PM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am in education and I type studnets about 30 times a day.

I had a friend who was going through a very long-term trial and never stopped saying prown croseputor. I am not making that up.
posted by Frenchy67 at 5:00 AM on November 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

I am a Python programmer. I caught myself typing bumpy and spicy (instead of numpy and scipy).
posted by JonJacky at 2:58 PM on November 15, 2019

apparently prerogative has TWO rs! Do you pronounce that first one? Mind blown...
posted by Don Pepino at 3:02 PM on November 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

inherit - because your Heir Inherits from you and one is IR and the other is RI!
posted by soelo at 8:34 AM on November 18, 2019

I misspell things all the time when I'm typing or writing and weirdly, the problem send to be my brain getting ahead of me with the letters. It's actually a little easier when I'm writing to just sneak the correct letter in where I left it out than when typing, where it's usually easier to erase and start again.
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:44 PM on November 25, 2019