One for the pedants. I know the answer but not saying yet.
Peaks?
There, their?
I am defiantly not guessing
led
Your - You’re
The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
Which makes me inclined to comment that a lot of these suggestions aren't actually spelling mistakes , in the same way that writing "of" for "have " is definitely a mistake but not arrived at because the writer can't spell "have".
E0. They really mean E1
Homofone.
That'd be a grammer mistake.
Also "they're", but it is a grammatical error.
Skoda Octavia
Yeah, really doesn't help that iOS' autocorrect loves to replace its with it's! That is a lot of my edits. xD
> One for the pedants. I know the answer but not saying yet.
"They're / there / their", or "It's / its"
Signed, profitofdoom, senior pendant
My bet for most popular homophone confusion is to/too. Only fellow English teachers will appreciate how many utterly wasted hours can go into unpicking this feature of our ramshackle orthography.(Ex-professional pedant.)
Most dapressing post on ukc 😉
> Which makes me inclined to comment that a lot of these suggestions aren't actually spelling mistakes , in the same way that writing "of" for "have " is definitely a mistake but not arrived at because the writer can't spell "have".
UKC seems pretty immune to that utter abomination, but my local town FB page is infested with poorly educated halfwits who use ‘of’ rather than ‘have’ constantly & without any appreciation when you correct them. It is beyond belief that such people are allowed an internet connection.
> led
That was exactly what I had in mind. Lead pronounced led is a heavy metal, not the past participle of verb to lead.
I don't get my knickers in a twist, but it always jolts.
I think we should put the breaks on this thread now!
The one that always catches my eye is "I was wandering what the best...." etc,
Chris
I'm sure autocorrect is responsible for many it's but the main abuse that makes me cringe is the possessive it's. People don't write "hi's" however "it's" proliferates.
A word crime as Al Yankovic would say.
But I understand why they do it. It's because of the possessive apostrophe s after a noun so their logic is
belongs to John =John's
belongs to Mary = Mary's
belongs to it = it's.
They are confusing the use of a noun plus possessive apostrophe and a possessive pronoun.
You can't simply say It's obvious that "It 's" only means "it is " because you are then left with having to explain that
John's means "belonging to John" but also "John is" or "John has".
It's a far more understandable error than of/have, to me at least
I's never taught English likes that in skool.
The poor English joke to one side, its true. I only found out what a verb was when I tried to learn a foreign language in my teens (thats late 80's/early 90's in a comprehensive school). I still have no real clue what a noun is, or what all the variations of them are, let alone some of the more niche descriptors for our language structure. I have a degree too, so cant say I am uneducated - just poorly so when it came to English. We did read a load of very boring books in class however - which I have worked hard to forget.
So please, those with a superior standing in such matters, don't bash those who know no better. It is not always their stupidity, just their ignorance and a product of their educations.
Strangely most of the technical side of understanding grammar didn't come to me from my English teachers but from my French and German studies.
Same here. Learnt all I know about such things from my French and German teachers.
Why is the UKC spellchecker American ? Indicating correct English spellings as wrong. Is it my pc or browser ?
Dessicated or desiccated? I've required coconut in this form for a lockdown recipe.
Probbly you're browser, witch browser arr ewe useing?
You're right. It's my oldest pc. XP and out of date Chrome. Other pc's not doing it. Thanks.
> That was exactly what I had in mind. Lead pronounced led is a heavy metal, not the past participle of verb to lead.
Breaks instead of brakes?
In reply to Dave the Rave:
My phone thinks I want to write duck quite frequently.
I'm fine with to and too and two.
I know the difference between practice and practise.
But I'm still confused in some situations with affect vs effect.
The effect of the drug affects me?
I'd appreciate your help with this.
A while ago my boss sent out an email to tell us that the 'stationary cupboard was moving' and totally failed to get why I thought it hilarious
Correct.
The problem is when effect is used as a verb meaning to achieve or bring about as in
He effected a successful takeover of the company.
One that stumps me all the time is where/were.
My consultant (Sri Lankan) sent an email saying he "needed to massage us all...". I did point out this was not standard procedure!
A local newspaper several years ago ran this perplexing headline
W*nker.
for some reason everyone spells it with a star
hmm twice now I have tried to post a photo with my message but it is not showing up at my end despite having appeared to have gone through (I am viewing on, and posting from, iPhone).
Is there a pic on my post?
I can't see a picture
Thanks.
Edit four the spelling
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
> One that stumps me all the time is where/were.
A tip I used with my students was that "where?" includes the answer: "here." The idea was to help them remember that this spelling always refers to a place.
Thanks, then something is glitching somewhere
edit - tried to include it on this reply too. It is direct from an iPhone gallery and shows as 2.8Mb but presumably the UKC magic should compress it accordingly
> But I'm still confused in some situations with affect vs effect.
> The effect of the drug affects me?
> I'd appreciate your help with this.
Just to reinforce Tom V's answer, it can help to remember that Affect refers to an Alteration and Effect to an End result. So to affect something = to alter it; to effect something = to bring it about as an end result. But if struggling, affect is more commonly used as a verb, and effect more commonly as a noun. NB this is the classic sort of English grammar rule, ie it fits where it touches!
Surprised nobody's mentioned on-site yet
> Just to reinforce Tom V's answer, it can help to remember that Affect refers to an Alteration and Effect to an End result.
Unfortunately there is the admittedly rare usage where to affect means something like to pretend, as in Harold Wilson affected a northern accent. Relates of course to the noun affectation.
Practise and practice - have found this no problem since I was advised (not adviced) to think of advice and advise, which most people wouldn't get wrong. Same works for licence and licensed.
Most of these seem to be grammar not spelling.
I’ll go for.
Necessary.
My spell check just won’t pick it up.
Prusik!
Not so much on UKC but often in newspapers: Absail
> Practise and practice - have found this no problem since I was advised (not adviced) to think of advice and advise, which most people wouldn't get wrong. Same works for licence and licensed.
Top tip for all these: -C- (Noun spelling) comes before -S- (Verb spelling) alphabetically, just as N comes before V....
Of course, you have to remember that a usage like the licensed in licensed premises (can't think why that came to mind!) is a participle being used as an adjective...
As I said upthread, tips for making sense of the rules of English generally fit where they touch!
> As I said upthread, tips for making sense of the rules of English generally fit where they touch!
Not forgetting that our rules on this particular piece of spelling advice don't apply in the U.S.
Mailon
No, led is the past participle of lead.
https://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-english-verb-lead.html
> Mailon
Probably the most mis-pronounced word, by those who think it's a mallion
> Necessary.
> My spell check just won’t pick it up.
I suspect you've accidentally managed to get the wrong spelling added to your spellchecker.
> Probably the most mis-pronounced word, by those who think it's a mallion
Including myself Type it into Google though and I'm not alone.
If I type nessacary, or nesecary or any other combination it says it’s wrong but give me no replacements.
Given that "it" comes from "hit" in Old English, and the genitive was "his", maybe we should use "is" instead of "its" for extra confusion!
> John's means "belonging to John" but also "John is" or "John has".
This at least is a consistent pattern - apostrophe always signifies missing letters. The only reason it seems confusing is that we have lost most (but not all) of the genitive declension of John; which would've been Johnes at some point in the past, hence John's when the e is omitted.
> A tip I used with my students was that "where?" includes the answer: "here." The idea was to help them remember that this spelling always refers to a place.
Is that really all there is to it?
example:
"In 1600 where the peasants lived, they were chopping up firewood"
Summat like that?
> Is that really all there is to it?
> example:
> "In 1600 where the peasants lived, they were chopping up firewood"
> Summat like that?
Yep.
I thought John's was a contraction of "John, his" as in "John, his cow" but I only arrived at that conclusion from reading Treasure Island .
Very good!
How would you delineate between a common spelling mistake and a posh one?
You're a rum bugger Rog, you never change, but do any of us really
Perhaps encyclopaedia would be regarded as a posh spelling mistake by commoners?
> How would you delineate between a common spelling mistake and a posh one?
I'd not thought of that usage Steve, which is surprising as I quite like cryptic crosswords, and I do go out of my way to avoid ambiguities
> You're a rum bugger Rog, you never change, but do any of us really
I take that as a compliment. By all accounts at my age I should have been voting Tory for at least 20 years, but it hasn't happened yet.
> How would you delineate between a common spelling mistake and a posh one?
Posh: Tattler; common: Helo!
That's actually quite light.
Interestingly, Led Zeppelin were originally going to be called "Lead Zeppelin" as in the metal, as someone once remarked at one of their early gigs (when they were still performing as The Yardbirds) they're so heavy they're going to go down like a lead Zeppelin.
But then of course they though the lead (metal) and lead (as in in the lead) confusion might crop up so they changed the name to Led Zeppelin.
I wonder if this might where be the the whole deliberately misspelled band names started (Motley Crue, Def Leppard etc)? God knows when the umlauts crept in though....
Snowden.
Of course. Spot on. Although I suspect only because of so many obvious troll posts.
> I wonder if this might where be the the whole deliberately misspelled band names started (Motley Crue, Def Leppard etc)? God knows when the umlauts crept in though....
You need to go further back in time. The Beatles are an obvious example. I'm sure there will be lots more from the fifties and even earlier but I'm not that old.
Oooh good point - the Beatles name would certainly have have come in to the thinking behind the Monkees and the Byrds.
Can't think of any 50's ones off the tope of my head, don't think Screamin' Jay Hawkins really counts
I think the umlauts came in as Lemmy was into the all the tanks, planes etc. that the German army had in WWII and so thought it looked kind of mean and cool.
I guess Motley Crue agreed.
> Oooh good point - the Beatles name would certainly have have come in to the thinking behind the Monkees and the Byrds.
> Can't think of any 50's ones off the tope of my head, don't think Screamin' Jay Hawkins really counts
It was happening in doo-wop: The Mello-Kings, The Du Droppers.
None instead of non-
Yes! Good point.
Did Blue Oyster Cult got in with the umlaut before Motorhead though?
It got pretty silly after that Leftover Crack, Motley Crue, Maximo Park etc etc...
Mistaking price for value? 😂