Difficult words to spell

[Pointlessness]

Ah... my first actual thread.

Everyone has a word that they use but cannot spell. What is yours?

For me, this word is "tongue". No matter how frequently I write it, I always seem to misspell this word every time. I also used to have a problem spelling "diarrhea", but I overcame this problem.

 

[Achinz]

There a quite few. Two of French origin come to mind at the moment:

connoisseur
chauffeur

 

[Iggy]

Good first thread, although mentioning the words “tongue” and “diarrhea” in the same post would give me cause for concern.
My word is “necessary”, it is one of the classic words one learns how not to misspell, but I just cant get it right. My main typo is “the”, about 50% of the time I type “teh”.

 

[De Lorimier]

French being my first language there's still tons of words in english that are problematic for me. Luckily, there's good old dictionary.com to come to my rescue every time I need it!

 

[Ultraworld]

nesecarry

 

[Achinz]

Many technical words especially of Greek origin are also challenging eg

haemorrhoids (or hemorrhoids, US version)
idiosyncrasy (not idiosyncracy)
diphtheria

Deciding whether adjectives based on the suffix -able is spelt -ible or -able eg

feasible, but
realisable (or realizable, US)

 

[stormbind]

Rescission is hard to type.

There's a marked difference between mispelling, and consistent mispelling. Once corrected, I would hope not to repeat the error.

 

[IglooDame]

The one word that I pretty much always have to type both ways and look at which way looks right is receive.

 

[Goober]

I tend to be decent at spelling, but sometimes I write/type faster then my brain can process, and completely blank out on how to spell a word.

I also get confused between the US and Canadian spellings of words, like colour, color, center, centre, etc. Those REALLY confuse me . . .

 

[Achinz]

Originally posted by IglooDude
The one word that I pretty much always have to type both ways and look at which way looks right is receive.

The -ie- or -ei- is a perennial spelling confusion. One rule to remember is that when the sound is "i", then it's -ie except after <c>. A jingle mnemonic (another spelling challenge) is:

"Nieces are nice".

Common exceptions are "counterfeit" and "seize" and technically derived words like "caffeine", "codeine", "protein".

 

[Achinz]

Originally posted by RealGoober
I also get confused between the US and Canadian spellings of words, like colour, color, center, centre, etc. Those REALLY confuse me . . .

A general rule for distinguishing between British and US variants:

1. The British suffix -our is equivalent to the US -or
2. The British suffix -re to the US -er
3. The British suffix -ise to the US -ize and the derived -isation vs -ization eg civilisation vs civilization.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by Achinz
A general rule for distinguishing between British and US variants:

1. The British suffix -our is equivalent to the US -or
2. The British suffix -re to the US -er
3. The British suffix -ise to the US -ize and the derived -isation vs -ization eg civilisation vs civilization.

And in Australia, do you use British or US suffixes ? British ones right ?

 

[Achinz]

Marla:
Yes, it British in Oz, as you may have gathered from my posting.

I have to admit that some Americanisms have crept in eg the "Labor" Party and kids influenced by the Internet have started to use the -ize endings and "gotten" instead of "got" as perfect tense of "get".

 

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by Achinz
Marla:
Yes, it British in Oz, as you may have gathered from my posting.

I have to admit that some Americanisms have crept in eg the "Labor" Party and kids influenced by the Internet have started to use the -ize endings and "gotten" instead of "got" as perfect tense of "get".

"gotten" sounds so much as an ugly mistake !
I used to like better the American way to speak English than the British one... however, with time, I tend to consider more and more the British one as nicer and more correct.

 

[stormbind]

Let us not forget that in 1796 the Americans used British spelling and for a long time after aswell.

In essence, today's weird US spelling is a branded (Websters) version of the world's most universal and unbranded language.

Only in the US could they take language, then brand, package and sell it as a product

 

[Iggy]

Originally posted by stormbind

Only in the US could they take language, then brand, package and sell it as a product

Indeed, and then subsequently have their most prominent man commit Busherizations to it.

 

[Double Barrel]

bureaucrat / bureaucracy

For some reason, I always seem to forget the spelling of this one, and it is a word that I like to use to describe the worthless red tape of anything government related.

Recently, though, I have made a concerted effort to remember the spelling, so hopefully this one won't be a problem any longer (although I did mispell it the first time and had to look it up on dictionary.com. Go figure)

 

[Pointlessness]

I used to have a problem spelling "necessary" too, but I used it so often, I spent extra effort in order to remember the spelling.

 

[Suppersalmon]

A lot of words because im dyslexic their more spelling mistakes in my essays than correct ones usually

 

[Deep_Thought76]

Kroxylldiphyfific is a hard word to spell..

Seriously, though, I get typos more often on words like 'access' or 'success', and 'conscience' gives me trouble.

btw.. 300th post!