| Commonly Misspelled Words | |||||
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There are a great number of rules that apply to the correct spelling of words in American English. There are also a great number of words whose spelling does not conform to the rules. It is not surprising that correct spelling is difficult for many students. Here are some of the words that are most commonly misspelled. For each word there is the most common misspelling of the word. You may find that you use some of these misspellings in your writing. For each word there is also a clue that will help you spell the word correctly. |
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| Word | Common Misspelling | Clue |
|---|---|---|
| acquire | aquire | Don’t forget the c after the first letter. |
| argument | arguement | There is no e after the u. |
| basically | basicly | Ends with ally. |
| bizarre | bizzare | There is only one z, but a double r. |
| committee | commitee | There are 3 double letters; m, t, e. |
| definitely | definately | It is ite, not ate. |
| familiar | familar | It ends with iar not ar. |
| forty | fourty | There is no u here. |
| friend | freind | Put the i before the e. |
| government | goverment | There is a n before the m. |
| grammar | grammer | Ends with ar, not er. |
| inoculate | innoculate | There is only one n here. |
| interrupt | interupt | Remember to double that r. |
| knowledge | knowlege | Don’t forget the d. |
| liaison | liason | Remember there is an i both before and after the a. |
| occasion | occassion | There is a double c, but just one s. |
| occurrence | occurence | There is a double c and a double r. |
| pavilion | pavillion | No, there is no double l here. |
| persistent | persistant | That’s ent, not ant at the end. |
| possession | posession | There are a whole bunch of s’s, four to be exact. |
| sense | sence | It ends with se, not ce. |
| separate | seperate | Remember there is par in the middle, not per. |
| supersede | supercede | That’s a s after super, not a c. |
| surprise | surprize | There is a s before the last letter, not a z. |
| threshold | threshhold | There is only one h in the middle. |
| truly | truely | There is no e here. |
| unforeseen | unforseen | Don’t forget the e after for. |
| which | wich | Remember to put an h after the w. |
This list is just a sample of the many words that are commonly misspelled. When you find yourself misspelling a word, come up with a clue to help you remember the correct spelling of the word.
