10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs January 30, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Communication, Productivity, Studies, Words, Work, Writing, Blogging, Reading , trackback
Ok, so technically the following words aren’t misspelled. They’re misused. The reason you should review this list is because a spell checker won’t correct these for you. Make sure that you’ve got foolproof control over them (especially if you tend to write around 3:12 AM like I am now). Extensively misusing them throughout your posts may actually cost you a visitor or two every now and then because some folks do get caught up on these, which means they won’t focus 100 % of their attention on your incredibly valuable content!
1. Your - You’re
As mentioned above, your message might lose impact if you’re not paying attention to this number one word maltreatment. If you find it particularly difficult to separate them from each other, stop using ‘you’re’ altogether and notice how you are starting to improve your spelling.
2. Then - Than
The next step is then to tell yourself that it’s better late than never to get that vowel placement in order. Then your readers might find something more useful to comment on than your apparent spelling impediment.
3. Its - it’s
It’s best to write an article and its words properly for optimal reader engagement. Again, if you still fail to tell the difference without effort, just write how great it is not having to worry about misusing or misspelling words.
4. To - Too - Two
To write two posts per day, or not to write two posts per day. That too is the question.
5. Were - Where - We’re
Where in the world were you? We were at Billy’s and we’re staying for another day. Make sure your blog visitors do that too.
6. There - Their - They’re
They’re moving their cursor over there. By focusing more attention on proper word use, your visitors won’t highlight and pinpoint your mistakes.
7. A - An - And
A flawlessly written article serves as an eye-opener and should provide lasting value. Remember also that an abbreviation like SUV starts with a vowel pronunciation and requires an ‘an’ in front of it.
8. Off - Of
Of all the mistakes you could prevent from appearing, start off by checking out this common mix up. You should have paid attention at school when they told you not to write ’should of’. Or off your visitors go.
9. Here - Hear
Hear ye! Hear ye! Here is a blog worth reading. You can almost hear the distant clicks of new visitors finding their way over here this very moment.
10. Lose - Loose
But if you’re too loose on your writing discipline, you will end up losing those readers after a while. You’d have a bolt loose if you don’t apply these 10 writing rules from now on with greater care. You win some and you don’t lose anyone.
Can you find the misused or misspelled word in this article? 
(63 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)
- Statistics for January, 2007
- Delaware Is Closed Today
- Carnival of Improvement 02
- Delayed Gratification
- Carnival of Improvement 01
Comments»
[…] The Probabilist writes about the 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs […]
The one I do the most, “Tot He” instead of “to the”. It doesn’t get caught in a spell checker either.
I’d love to have a utility where I could program in words I want to avoid because I overuse them:
interesting
basically
etc
a while -> awhile
It’s a very good suggestion, Steve. However, it’s not an adverb in this case.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors//awhile.html
In 3rd grade they told me everybody has problems with these words. I said they were full of it. With everyday that goes by though, my 3rd grade teacher becomes more and more correct.
I often times spell alright as allright.I just love putting that extra L in there. This is a great reference. Although no matter how many times I bang the difference between their, they’re and there into my brain, somehow my fingers always type one of the ones my brain doesn’t want to use.
averageidea.com
Another one to add: “alot” is not a word. It’s “a lot”.
Thank you for posting this. The only problem is that most of the people who are reading this are probably NOT the people that need to be, unfortunately.
Basic grammar and spelling mistakes have always been a huge pet peeve of mine.
Nice addition Mallory
I am not a native speaker of English and I totally agree with your analysis. I see these errors all the time and they kind of irritate me. If I, as someone whose English is not that good NEVER make those mistakes, why do so many people for whom English is their first language have so much trouble with it?
Those are good pointers, Mallory and Helena. The ones who don’t care about their spelling will only attract similar readers. I knew I was going out on a limb by posting this, but just because English is my third learned language doesn’t mean I should use that as an excuse not to master English slowly and steadily myself as well.
Anyone could have written this article. The information is there right in front of everyone’s eyes. But there are too many people in the world who get an idea and they soon bury it in self doubt or fear of voicing their opinion just in case a fanatic maven decides to get offensive and/or prove you wrong. And that’s a real shame.
As far as I’m aware of, there are no errors in typography, orthography or homophones in this article. Then why did I write that closing comment? To get people to read it through so thoroughly that they would both consciously and subconsciously master the use of these words. Get people excited about showing their talent and proving themselves right and your teaching is almost on autopilot.
In the end though, the only person in the world you need to prove something to, is yourself.
I just offer advice - and to those who seek it.
Cool list mate
Really cool 
Now to really stir the pot - try writing an article about the correct use of the humble apostrophe!
That’s a good idea. I have to admit that I’ve never looked into when one should use quotation marks and when to use apostrophes around a word to highlight it in different ways (as I did with ‘you’re’ and ‘an’), so there might be errors in that context.
Good post! But even a spellchecker often won’t help. Do you know that the Blogger Spellchecker doesn’t know what a Blogger is? Check it out yourself! I have a whole post here with spellcheck errors from blogger: http://blog.fleck.com/2006/04/07/blogger-doesnt-know-what-a-blog-is/
Have you ever noticed that many posts start with “Ok, so…”?
Hey Mallory,
This sentence of yours is incorrect:
Another one to add: “alot? is not a word. It’s “a lot?.
The reason is that the period goes inside the quotation marks.
It’s “a lot.”
dan
What about the use of the word an with words that begin with the letter “H”. Is it a historic day or is it an historic day?
Steve Job’s… vs. Steve Jobs’… vs. Steve Jobs
What about ‘wierd’?
One that I continually run across is “rediculous.”
10 most misspelled words in blogs…
The Probabilist wrote an article about the 10 most misspelled words in blogs, or, rather misused words.
From the article:
Your - You’re
Then - Than
Its - it’s
To - Too - Two
Were - Where - We’re
There - Their - They’re
A - An - And
Off - Of
H…
Nice one.
Sometimes people just murder the English literature.
Some other blatant mistakes I just find too very annoying:
‘Should Have’ becomes ‘Should’ve’ - which is correct/ok - but it then becomes ‘Should of’ - NO! That is wrong! It is not ’should of’, or ‘could of’ or ‘would of’!
And one more:
You don’t get ’struck’ [for Christ’s sakes]; while solving a complex Math equation. You get ’stuck’. On the same lines, you don’t get stuck by a lightning, you get ’struck’ by a lightning.
Thank you SO much for this posting. I don’t know how many times I’ve corrected my friends’ spelling and grammar on e-mails, blog posts, and IMs only to get yelled at for being nitpicky. Hello? We learned these things in elementary school!
It seems like the people who consistently misuse words are the ones who don’t care, so even with all your efforts, it could all fall on deaf ears.
Oh, and I agree with Trevor about the apostrophe. It kills me to see the apostrophe SO misused, e.g., using it for plurals. I’ve seen this in the workplace, on massive signs for retail stores — everywhere! Is no one paying attention? The only thing there’s some contention on is whether to use it for plural years and abbreviations, e.g., 1980s or CDs. I personally don’t, but some also say it’s okay to use apostrophes in that situation. Meh.
Side note: Rofloer, it’s “weird,” not “wierd,” even though it’s usually I before E except after C and when and the I and E combination makes a long A sound.
People actually make those mistakes? I see your and you’re all the time, but the others? That’s depressing.
a lot (not alot) should be added to this list
Whew, it looks like the new hosting system will manage to carry through the load of new visitors.
Thank you for all the comments and opinions over this issue both here and on digg.com.
And a big thanks to the great webhost provider techies who aided in improving the bandwidth so rapidly!
Those are misused not misspelled. Big difference.
Common Mistakes…
10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs | The Probabilist . com Here is a nice little article that reviews a top ten list of common mistakes when blogging. We……
genious!!!!
I think this isn’t an analysis of misspelled blog words, but one of misspelled English words, as these errors also occur in e-mails, written text, documents, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
And you know this by a poll ? a scientific survey ? Or just your browsing ???
The title should be “Top Most Misused Words I’ve Seen in Blogs”.
Don’t forget:
1. “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes”.
2. “mute point” instead of “moot point”.
3. “death nail” instead of “death knell”.
Can you find the misused or misspelled word in this article?
There are several. “Ok” should be “OK”. “3:12 AM” should be “3:12 a.m.” “Like I am now” should properly be “as I am now.” There are others. But, y’know, those are vanishingly small errors compared to the whoppers you’ve outlined.
Good article. A shame that nobody who needs to read it will do so.
I always thought non-native English speakers had an advantage because native English speakers learned most of their language skills before they could read.
When you’re a child and hear “there”, “their”, or “they’re” you don’t know how to spell any of them. It doesn’t register that they are separate words. When you learn English as a second language, you translate the words from your native language and they are very distinct.
The incorrect usage of who and whom annoy me. Proper preposition placement is optional also.
Who are you talking to?
To whom are you speaking?
[…] review this list is because a spell checker won’t correct these for you. kim possible bangingread more | digg […]
Great article. Lots of people have trouble with the lose - loose words.
I’ve seen some good additions to the list from the comments, but I thought that posting more than 10 might be too much for the average reader’s attention span. Some didn’t even make it through the introduction.
And yes, this is a purely subjective observation of which words have stood out the most. If any of you feel like reading through hundreds or even thousands of separate blogs to find out the statistically accurate order, then please go ahead. =)
I think the worst, which was not highlighted here, is the improper use of the word “of” in place of have.
I see all kinds of incorrect grammar such as:
“I wish you would of seen it.”
instead of:
“I wish you would have seen it.”
Also, “weary” instead of “wary”. As in, “I’m weary of using any software that’s in beta–I just don’t trust it.” No, you’re wary, not tired.
Most people probably don’t notice this one, but once it catches your eye you’ll see it everywhere, and it’ll make you want to scream.
It does me, anyway.
Nevermind, I missed that that was pointed out in the second half of number 8.
The title of this article should be “10 most misspelled words in Myspace”. Oh, if you’re visiting a blog that makes the errors listed above and they didn’t scare the hell out of you…. i’m sorry. None of the blogs in my circle of trust makes those illiterate errors. And i say it as a non-native speaker
Some people like to write or say “boo koo” meaning a lot, as in “making boo koo bucks.”
This is a mistake. The origin of this usage is the French word beaucoup, which is pronounced like “bo koo.”
Of course, people who misuse the term probably don’t even know its origin. They hear other people misuse it and they ape the behavior. America is showing the symptoms of a catastrophically bad education system.
[…] The Probabilist titled this blog post as the 10 most misspelled words in blogs, but I see the same mistakes every day on discussion forums every day. Worth reading: http://www.theprobabilist.com/10-most-misspelled-words-in-blogs/ […]
Thank you Jim for pointing out those improvements.
Akatherder, you raise a very good point that explains why grammar may be better among the people who don’t actually talk the language on a daily basis.
Boo koo? *laughs*
Where did that come from? It must’ve slipped my radar since it’s totally unfamiliar to me.
[…] I’m taking notes: http://www.theprobabilist.com/10-most-misspelled-words-in-blogs/ […]
people write “would of” because it sounds like “would’ve”
It’s not a horrible mistake verbally. It’s just sad written down.
Advise - Advice
I’d advise people publishing anything on the net to heed your advice.
This one drives me crazy
Great list. For some of the more nitpicky items that folks have suggested, I might offer for consideration the concept of a “House Style”. The general idea is that there still exists some ambiguity and/or disagreement about certain typographical and grammatical choices.
For instance, the “Serial Comma” (”a, b, and c” vs. “a, b and c”) is used by Harvard University Press because they think it worthwhile. The last design firm I worked at, the copy editors were strong proponents of the Serial Comma.
Another example is using quote marks near periods and commas (”‘No way,’ he said” vs. “‘No way’, he said.”). Back in the day, typesetters could simply put the period or comma directly under the quote marks and not waste any space. With typewriters, it made sense to put them before the quote marks, as it looked simpler than after. However, coming from a programming background, I always put the “string” in quotes and leave the comma (mere punctuation) outside. It’s a House Style for me.
The trick is consistency. If your rules are consistent, then your readers can use them to derive meaning. If not, then they get in the way of meaning. Bad.
useful list, thanks!
Apostrophes are used for plural acroynms, symbols, numbers, etc. to separate them. For example, you could listen to song #’s 1-5 on all of your CD’s.
“You’d have a bolt loose if you don’t apply these 10 writing rules from now on with greater care.”
That should have been “You’ll”, not “You’d.” You must not forget tense.
In my opinion, the most annoying is the misuse of ‘myself’.
This explains it far better than I can: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/myself.html
Read and learn….
10-most-misspelled-words-in-blogs…
Habitually type form when I mean to type from (I even did it just then).
Rediculous. Heh.
Nice one Gary. I got that phrase from a movie review/testimonial. Inaccurate grammar is everywhere, it seems.
The Probabilist: “…among the people who don’t actually talk the language on a daily basis.”
I’m a non-native speaker, but I’m pretty sure one ’speaks’ the language, and does not ‘talk’ the language. (This is actually a mistake that’s also very common in the *Dutch* language).
If you’re tailoring your blog for people who don’t even make it past the introduction, expect to lose readers who are expecting a bit more meat.
(Why require name and email if neither are confirmed?)
Lloyd: What a blunder. =)
I’ll keep that in mind.
Gary: the sentence “You’d have a bolt loose if you didn’t…” would also be correct, would it not?
[…] The Probabilist has compiled a list of words that are misspelled by on most blogs in the blogosphere. If anything, this article only goes to show that having English as the mother-tongue does not translate into documents with no spelling errors. […]
Your a idiot if you cant here the different in there spellings.
Dumbs
There are some suggesting that “a lot” be added because a lot of people incorrectly us “alot.”
However, this is a list of things that a spell checker will not catch. Your spell checker should be telling you not to use “alot.”
A spell checker, on the other hand, will not tell you that you need to put punctuation inside of quotes.
you definitely forgot definately
To whatever: I’m experimenting by writing posts that appeal to different types of readers. The rest of this blog isn’t focused on delivering quick fix answers that only require a person to read the headings. So what you say is actually the other way around.
No post fits every reader and we all know that.
ok, ok.. maybe next time i’ll read the… first paragraph?
A spell checker will also not catch “us” instead of “use.” =-(
I hate typing.
Don’t forget “noone” instead of “no one”.
The misused word in the article is found in the sentence, “You’d have a bolt loose if you don’t apply these 10 writing rules.” “You’d (you would) would correctly be used with “didn’t”, not “don’t.
One I screw up is “Set up” instead of “Setup”. Verb versus noun, common in reviews of computer things: “I set up the new system.” “That guy has a sweet setup.”
Also, affect vs. effect. High school teacher forced us to repeat: “You AFFECT the EFFECTS.”
Awesome article. btw, I am most prone to spelling “Form” instead of “From”.
Others:
“good” vs “well”
“can not” should be “cannot”
Grammar is rarely taught in grade school these days. I learned grammar on my own for awhile simply because I kept finding discrepancies in books I was reading. Then I learned it properly in my sophomore English class and four years as a staff writer and then sports editor of my high school newspaper.
It was appalling to sit in a basic journalism class as a freshman in college and find people who didn’t know grammar at all! We’re talking about nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs — simple parts of speech. Getting down to the nitty-gritty, sure, especially since there are words in English that have more than on meaning. English, after all, especially “American English,” is the bastard child of every language that has ever been invented.
If you want to read a good, humorous book on the English language, read Bill Bryson’s “The Mother Tongue.”
Anyway, hopefully people will take note of this list and pay a little bit more attention when they write, be it blogs, articles, papers or even emails!
This one from the digg-comments I found especially insightful:
by SilverhammerMBA 1 hour ago
You asked for it…
“By focusing more attention on proper word use, your visitors won’t highlight and pinpoint your mistakes.”
Grammatically incorrect. “Your visitors” is the subject of this sentence and thus it doesn’t make sense because they’re not ones “focusing more attention on proper word use”. Notice that “focusing”, is in a different tense than “highlight” and “pinpoint”.
It should read something like:
“By focusing more attention on proper word use, you won’t have visitors highlighting and pinpointing your mistakes.”
how about contractions:
ain’t = are not
isn’t = is not
Contractions are considered to be grammatically wrong, but who cares - the majority of bloggers are doing this for personal entertainment, of course they don’t have the time or money to hire and editor to proofread their work like in the case of a magazine or professional blogging site.
I would also like to second adding “a lot” to your list. Too often people use “alot” which isn’t a word at all! Cheers.
Lloyd: I’m glad you’ve taken so much interest in this (no sarcasm intended). The sentence should certainly be as pointed out. I might be pushing my odds if I write an article about the 10 worst grammar errors.
I’ll leave it up for grabs.
There are rumours in Europe that non-native English speakers make less grammatical-misspellings than native speakers!
The term for this is ‘malapropism.’
For no. 10 you should of wrote “You’ll” instead of “You’d” as the rest of the sentence is in the present tense, right?
I hate to nitpick, but there’s a grammatical error in one of you’re examples.
We were at Billy’s and we’re staying for another day.
If you ‘were’ at Billy’s, this indicates you’re not there anymore. So where are you staying at for another day?
Right.
Alternatively you can change the don’t to didn’t in order to match it with the ‘You’d', but the sentence is better off in the present form.
You state, “As far as I’m aware of, there are no errors in typography, orthography or homophones in this article.” Yet, you end the first sentence with a preposition (”of”). The first sentence can adequately read, “As far as I am aware.”
Otherwise, I really like the article!
Add masterbation to the list
Imagine your mother finding Billy and yourself at the mall, which you’re both just briefly visiting. After this you head back to Billy’s.
I’m wondering if you deliberately wrote #1 incorrectly in your comment.
Craigslist: The ‘of’ is at the end of a subordinate clause and not a sentence. Don’t ask me if that makes a difference though.
I also found a couple of funny comments on this at digg:
by SimianSamurai
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
reply by stg3095
That is the kind of grammar up with which I will not put.
what about “atleast” vs “at least” and “continous” vs “continuous” and what to do about “prepone”?
Sims (76) is right; using contractions such as “you’re” and “we’re” is incorrect anyway, unless quoted from speech. “Won’t” is probably my favourite, because it takes on an entirely different meaning when the apostrophe is omitted. I might add, since I am prone to it, that it is incorrect to use hyphens in place of more appropriate punctuation to denote a pause - like so.
I have caught myself type “your” instead of “you’re” on occasion, but I find I make more mistakes on paper. Also - I have not used a spellchecker for several years now.
Someone up there said it should be “I wish you would have seen it” instead of “I wish you would of seen it”, but they’re both wrong. It should be “I wish you had seen it”.
That one really bugs me…. it’s everywhere.
rediculous
Should your article title be ‘in’ blogs, or ‘on’ blogs?
Nobody: We don’t know that for sure until the word ‘blog’ gets properly introduced and applied in dictionaries to start with.
Good point.
Time for a nap…
Practise, Practise … Practice…
Caught a post on digg.com overnight entitled ” 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs “. The post details…
[…] in text such as the title of this posting. I couldn’t help think of him when I found this posting today detailing the 10 most wrongly used words on […]
I always have the most trouble with “its” and “it’s”. I still have to look it up everytime.
“anyways” (supposed to be “anyway”)
definately instead of definitely. some yokels from the south must be blogging alpha phonetically.
than/then and definately drive me mad
mad I say
With all due respect, this isn’t a “10 most misspelled words in blogs” post. This is a “10 most misspelled words in informal writing” post. I’m surprised this got Dugg so high when this is elementary English … the fact that you added the “in blogs” was compelling enough to get your blog post popular. In that sense, good work — but I think you and I would agree that this isn’t a problem specific to blogs.
My biggest mis-spelt word would have to be “the”. The way I usually spell it is “teh” and what happens is that I hit “e” key before the “h” key. I also note that a lot of people usually do not hit their space bar key at the right time and you ge tcertain weirdw ords…
Good post
Tamar: Yes, I agree with you completely. The ‘in blogs’ part was added mainly because the sentences I made up, which describe the use of these words, centre around the reasons why bloggers should know them by heart - to retain traffic and readers’ attention.
As a blogger, there’s nobody pointing out how bad your spelling is, with the exception of sporadic flamers who won’t do so in a constructive way. I wanted to do it in a somewhat entertaining and positive manner without pointing fingers.
And yes, you can still apply that approach anywhere outside the blogosphere as well.
Someone may as well mention that “prolly” does not exist to replace “probably”.
interesting
I have seen “loose” and “lose” on man sites around the Internet. I have had a test (written by a college professor) with it spelled incorrectly.
[…] on the top 10 in Technology: 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs. The writer says that there are ten misused words “in blogs” that cannot be picked up by spellchecking. These ten words […]
RE: 18. millyuns - January 31, 2007
What about the use of the word an with words that begin with the letter “H”. Is it a historic day or is it an historic day?
The rule you learn in school is that words beginning with a vowel get “an” and words beginning with a consonant get “a”. But this is not entirely correct. It’s more about the sound than the spelling. H-words is where it gets interesting. Some get “a” (like “a house”), but others get an “an” (like “an hour”). Some you’ll here both being used (a/an historic). It’s a sound based rule, NOT spelling based. And as I survey the list, the majority of these “mistakes” are because the writer is spelling based on SOUND not on the prescriptive rules.
Did I just use here in place of hear?
It happens to the best of us.
I work in a place where there hangs a sign which reads “Nothing left in the sink will be cleaned out each night Mike Tuttle ” There are two of ‘em, and they’re both laminated. (So, if I don’t leave anything in the sink, it will be cleaned out, ur, somehow.)
Dumbest article ever. This is all just basic English grammar and such.
How the hell it got on Top 10 Diggs of today, I’ll never know…
It’s not as common as the ones you list, but one other commonly confused word is “discrete” meaning separate and distinct vs. “discreet”, meaning circumspect or modest.
Dustin said:
“In 3rd grade they told me everybody has problems with these words. I said they were full of it. With everyday that goes by though, my 3rd grade teacher becomes more and more correct.”
Talk about living in a glass house… It’s “every day”. Not “everyday”. Different meanings entirely.
Oh comeon now. Your just makeing fun of people.
Stop beeing rediculous.
Regarding the use of the apostrophe, there are three sets of rules: contractions, possessives, and philosopher’s quotes.
The contraction rules are simple: the apostrophe goes where one or more letters used to be. Is not -> isn’t … until -> ’til … of the clock -> o’clock.
The possessive rule is also simple: apostrophe-s equals possession. You can think of it as a special case of contraction, where the apostrophe-s replaces the words ‘has a’. John’s bike -> John (has a) bike. That replacement isn’t always grammatically correct — “I borrowed John (has a) bike” doesn’t make much sense, for instance — but the pinhole view (John (has a) bike) is a good way to make sure your possessive really works.
Oh, and while some people just use a trailing apostrophe for possessive words that end with an s — James’ bike — it’s also perfectly legal to go ahead and do the full apostrophe-s: James’s bike. In fact, “James’s” is recommended by _The Elements of Grammar_, which is pretty much the first writing guide anyone ever sees in school.
MISUSING the apostrophe-s to mean ‘plural’ or just ‘hey look, there’s an s at the end of this word’ is called the Greengrocer’s apostrophe, and is wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong. There is no such word as “your’s”, for instance. The has-a test will smoke these mistakes out as well: “your (has a)” makes no sense at all.
Finally there’s what’s called the philosopher’s quote. That’s when you put single quotes around a word or phrase to convey the idea ‘exactly this’.
Grammatically, everything between the quotes gets treated as a single word, which means you don’t set philosopher’s quotes off with commas, like you do with ‘what he said’ quotes. Neither do you put any punctuation that belongs to the sentence inside philosopher’s quotes: John said, “I am not a happy camper.” -vs- John put on his ‘I am not a happy camper’ face.
Misused words and typos are one thing, but blogs that tYpE liKe tHiS mAkE mE iNsAnE.
[…] read more | digg story […]
[…] Probabilist has a good post on the 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs, where he talks about words that are often misused rather than actually misspelled. If you are a […]
[…] Top 10 words missspelled in blogs […]
i -> I
c’mon people!
[…] Probabilist has a list of the ten most misspelled/misused words in blogs. These are the kind of things that your spell checker just can’t catch for you. I wrote a […]
It’s just making me realise how good my education actually was (as much as I hate to admit it)
You, your, you’re and you’rn…
Some readers think that my posts and comments should be grammatically perfect — no typos, no dangling participles, no misspellings, no ill punctuations. They aren’t, and I’m not anal-retentive enough to demand it of myself here. (My staff, yes; me,….
I liked your article. Here are a few of my pet peeves:
Grammer
Hanger (when they meant “hangar”)
Insure/Ensure/Assure
Principal/Principle
Various apostrophe errors
Actually, the article does have an error - the phrase “spell checker” is common but incorrect.
While Harry Potter may want to check spells, the rest of us will want to check our spelling by doing a spelling check with a spelling checker.
You can only check things (nouns). Spell (when referring to how letters are arranged in a word) is a verb, spelling is the noun.
That’s a great observation and explanation. Spelling checker does sound odd when all you read is about spell checkers.
When healthy, I can type roughly 150 wpm. I’ve always been a great speller, too. My tradeoff on that speed is typos, although almost always of the type a spellchecker will catch. At work, I hunt them down. (Off work … ? Well, my blog is called “Blog on the Run” for a reason.)
Unfortunately, since beginning to take some new medication for a chronic condition, the tradeoff also has become entirely different words from what I intended to type — the kinds of mistakes that 1) don’t get caught by any spellchecker and 2) can lead to embarrassing corrections if not caught.
Yes, I shall be discussing this phenomenon with my physician. It’s a career-threatening problem.
Additional notes: “awhile” should not always be changed to “a while” and vice versa. “A while” is correctly used as noun, typically the object of the preposition “for,” as in, “This damned spelling problem has been with me for a while.” “Awhile” is an adverb, as in, “This damned spelling problem has been with me awhile.”
blogs that tYpE liKe tHiS mAkE mE iNsAnE.
Oh, c’mon. Respect the scriptkiddies! Use phrases like “Teh Gay” to dirisively name what conservative Christians are afraid of or “Teh Hott” to identify your favorite good-looking person. [/some snark]
When you’re a child and hear “there”, “their”, or “they’re” you don’t know how to spell any of them.
Oh, it’s worse. I was in first grade before I figured out that the hymn we frequently sang at church was NOT “Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear.”
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When you’ve got an apostrophe as a part of your name, you do tend to take note of the way people abuse this lowly punctuation mark, but there’s really just one simple rule to applying the apostrophe correctly in most instances:
“Use an apostrophe when letters are missing.”
http://www.2dolphins.com/2007/01/apostrophobia.html
Its soo troo! You’ll nailed it on the head! Everyone should get a dictionary, than look up these words!
Just joking. I don’t really write like that on my blog… in all seriousness though, anyone can make these mistakes. That’s why proofreading is so important…
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[…] 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs - Technically the following words aren’t misspelled. They’re misused. The reason you should […]
It was said earlier that “a while” was improperly used. Because “after” is a preposition and “while” is the object, the use of “a while” is correct. Use “awhile” as an adverb: “stay awhile”; Use “a while” as a noun: “stay for a while.”
Which you already said by means of link. Sorry.
dErisive. Not d*I*risive. Speaking of typos. Grrr.
[…] Probabilist” Johan Holmberg writes about the top 10 misspelled words that spell-checkers can’t correct. A must […]
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I have seen the word ‘loose’ used in place of ‘lose’ or ‘loosing’ instead of ‘losing’ so often I thought my understanding was incorrect.
[…] of the most misspelled words in blog posts. I’m quite sure I’m guilty of all of them at some point. Now, is the the […]
What about spelled and spelt
It annoys me to see these words mixed up
10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs…
Technically the following words aren’t misspelled. They’re misused. The reason you should review this list is because a spell checker won’t correct these for you….
I recommend keeping a copy of The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) within easy reach.
“Prophesy” [verb] instead of “prophecy” [noun] is a pet peeve of mine.
But also, I am sorry that people write and say “You and I” instead of “you and me.” I guess with usage it will be eventually be rated as acceptable. People don’t seem to use “you and me” any more.
Doug said, “I recommend keeping a copy of The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) within easy reach.”
http://www.bartleby.com/141/
good article, these things often irritate me too. my number one mistake is no longer using capitals on words that should have them, or at all actually.. yeah. so you dont have mistakes, but you are missing a word if you’re trying to be grammatical or whatever. i think (maybe i’m wrong) you need an “at” in this sentence: “Make sure that you’ve got foolproof control over them (especially if you tend to write around 3:12 AM like I am now).”
i dunno though, cuz the thing about blogging is that we are encouraged to write the way we speak. that’s why people who’ve learned english as an additional language tend to be more precise when they write and more observant when they read. good article.
You’re right about that preposition missing in the sentence.
And I also don’t mind it when people intentionally write incomplete sentences, for instance: “Nice of you to drop by.” since it does bring out the essence of verbal discussion and expressions. A blog serves as a forum for sharing personal opinions - and it’s okay to keep things informal to a certain degree.
I really hope this has an impact on bloggers out there. I know that I sure typed this comment carefully! I think the way you showed each word’s usage was pretty cool too. Very cool article. Keep it up.
Allright is all wrong. All right is right. Alright is nonstandard spelling.
From “The Free Dictionary”:
Usage Note: Despite the appearance of the form alright in works of such well-known writers as Langston Hughes and James Joyce, the single word spelling has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions such as already and altogether have never raised any objections. The difference may lie in the fact that already and altogether became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright has only been around for a little more than a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. Consequently, one who uses alright, especially in formal writing, runs the risk that readers may view it as an error or as the willful breaking of convention.
This >> These
Writing is a debugging process, they say..
Nice post. In my experience the most common mistake people make is LOSE and LOOSE. Even people proficient in English are confused in the difference in meanings.
[…] 10 Most Misspelled Words in Blogs […]
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Okay, it isn’t exactly a misspelled word, but I’m really getting sick of the oh-so-pretentious “whilest.” It’s bandied about so frequently that it actually has just the opposite effect - it comes off as unimpressive and a little tacky.
I constantly destroy ‘their / they’re’. Actually I just consistently switch them. Why? I have no idea, but it’s nice to see, despite my education, that I’m not the only one
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The it’s/its distinction is my personal pet peeve. C’est la vie…
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You used the word ‘incredible’ when you may have meant ‘amazingly’ or ‘astonishingly’, or should not have modified the word ‘valuable’ at all. The word ‘incredible’ means not believable, or implausible to the point of disbelief. Its usage should be reserved for statements such as “when brought in for questioning, his version of the events was incredible”.
Communication has become a matter of “trying to communicate.” No-one ever cares about the language rules, that should be guidelines and not restrictions.
Anyway, dude, you need to control YOUR spam.
Educated people still care about language rules. Successful people do more than ‘try’ to communicate. Lackadaisical writing and syntax = lackadaisical thinking. But have it your way; you reduce the competition — DUDE.
[…] read more | digg story Posted in Uncategorized. […]
Who’s/Whose always, ALWAYS bothered me. Even the biggest grammar nazis get that one wrong.
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Quote from above: “Make sure that you’ve got….”
Two points, both a bit tongue-in-cheek:
First, is not using “that” superfluous, extraneous, unnecessary and not needed?
Second, the word “you’ve” is a contraction for you have. Your using that sentence raised the question, where can I get some got? Regardless of your cautioning me to make sure I have some, I assure you I have none and have been a resounding failure at obtaining any. I know not where to get any, and have never been successful at getting anyone who claims to have got to share any of it with me. Of course having got may not truly be an advantage of any kind. As an example, I have never known of anyone telling me they have got to go to the store that actually let their got go to the store for them. They have, in almost every instance, very shortly thereafter gone to the store themselves, and, I am assuming, left their got with nothing to do. In a similar manner, it is rare the person who says they “got to” do something that can enlighten me as to when they did it. I can only assume since their memory is blank, they can hardly wait to engage in the same activity or go to the same place once more in order to refresh their memory.
Hope that hole that you got in your cheek from pushing your tongue clean through it heals quickly…
Now that I read your list I can see myself making those mistakes while writing on my blog.
oooohhhh… i”d like to throw the misuse of “everyday” on the top of that list. drives. me. in.SANE. “wierd” and “should of” get under my skin as well. itch itch itch.
Remember to write for and to your readers. Some colloquialisms (vis-a-vis outright syntactic, grammatic, or semantic errors) are perfectly fine. ‘Everyday’ is a bit more comfortable than ‘quotidian’ in most written discourse. Keep in mind the old adage “never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice”
I wasn’t clear. “Everyday” as an adjective is fine. It’s the misuse of “everyday” as an adverb (in place of “every day”) that makes me throw things.
A couple of quick ones…I can think of only two times when you can feel badly–if you’re dysthymic or your tactile sense is diminished. Otherwise, you feel bad. Also, try to refrain from adding the preposition ‘at’ after an interrogatory sentence questioning location, e.g. “Hey Moe, ya know where Curly is”? Not “…ya know where Curly’s at”?
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