Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer 2022
Spelling FAQ
Notes on, amid a list of, frequently and/or easily misspelled words
The stuff in the back
A lot of people don’t type with autocorrect or spellcheck turned on—or pay attention even if they do. That said, neither*1 autocorrect nor spellcheck can save you from typing a word that is indeed a word but doesn’t happen to be the word you mean or should mean to type. For more on that, see Chapter 8: The Confusables.
It goes without saying, though I’m happy to say it, that no one expects you to memorize the spelling of every word in the notoriously irregular, unmemorizable English language. My desk dictionary of choice, as I’ve mentioned oh so many times by now, is the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (affectionately known as Web 11). You can find a number of first-rate dictionaries online, including Merriam-Webster’s own (merriam-webster.com) and the densely helpful Free Dictionary (thefreedictionary.com).
Still, I do think that knowing how to spell on your own is a commendable skill, so I offer you a selection of the words I most frequently encounter misspelled—some of which I’ve been known to mess up myself—with remarks on some of the general issues of the art of spelling and its pitfalls.
ACCESSIBLE (EASILY REACHABLE OR UNDERSTANDABLE)
The “-ible” words and the “-able” words are easily confusable, and I’m afraid there’s no surefire trick for remembering which are which. Though it is the case that most of the “-able”s are words in their own right even if you delete the “-able” (e.g., “passable,” “manageable”) and that most of the “-ible”s are not, shorn of their “-ible,” freestanding (e.g., “tangible,” “audible”), most is not all. As, to be sure, our friend “accessible.” And see “confusable,” seven lines up. “Confus”?
ACCOMMODATE (TO MAKE ROOM FOR), ACCOMMODATION (HOUSING, OR AN ADAPTATION MADE FOR CONVENIENCE OR CONSIDERATION)
Words with double c’s are troublemakers; words with double c’s and double m’s are invitations to catastrophe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT (RECOGNITION)
This is the preferred American spelling. The Brits favor (but not by much and only relatively recently) “acknowledgement.”*2
AD NAUSEAM
Latin for “to sickness,” meaning “to excess”: She bragged about her trip to Europe ad nauseam.” Not spelled “ad nauseum.”
AFICIONADOS (LOVERS OF: THEY ARE AFICIONADOS OF MANGA; THEY COLLECT AS MANY BOOKS AS THEY CAN.)
One f, please. And note no e after the o in the plural form.
Spelling FAQ
Q. How do I know which words ending in o are pluralized with an s and which are pluralized with an es?
A. You don’t. Look ’em up.
ASSASSIN (KILLER), ASSASSINATE (TO KILL), ASSASSINATED (KILLED), ASSASSINATION (KILLING)
Don’t stint on the s’s.
BATTALION (MILITARY DIVISION)
Two t’s, one l, not the other way around. Think “battle,” if that helps you.
BOOKKEEPER (ONE WHO KEEPS TRACK OF FINANCES)
The only legitimate English word I’m aware of that includes three consecutive sets of double letters,*3 and in writing it you’re quite apt to forget the second k.*4
BUOY (FLOATING OBJECT ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM OF A BODY OF WATER), BUOYANCY (ABILITY TO FLOAT), BUOYANT (ABLE TO FLOAT)
That odd uo, which somehow never looks right, is easy to flip; thus my periodic encounters with “bouy,” “bouyancy,” and “bouyant.”
BUREAUCRACY (SYSTEM OF KEEPING ORDER, OFTEN A COMPLICATED AND ANNOYING ONE)
First you have to nail down the spelling of “bureau,” which is hard enough. Once you’ve conquered “bureau,” you can likely manage “bureaucrat” and “bureaucratic,” but be careful not to crash and burn, as I often do, on “bureaucracy,” which always wants to come out “bureaucrasy.”
CAPPUCCINO (ESPRESSO WITH FROTHED MILK)
Two p’s and two c’s.
Also, there is no x in “espresso,” but you knew that already.
CENTENNIAL (100TH)
And its cousins “sesquicentennial” (150th)*5 and “bicentennial” (200th).
CHAISE LONGUE
That’s indeed how you spell it, because that’s what it is—literally, from the French, a long chair. But the spelling “chaise lounge” took root in English, especially American English, an awfully long time ago, and it’s not going anywhere, and one would be hard-pressed anymore to call it an error, particularly when it turns up in novels in the dialogue of characters who would not naturally say “chaise longue.”
COMMANDOS (MILITARY PERSONNEL TRAINED FOR SPECIAL RAIDS)
My—and most people’s—preferred plural of “commando.” (Though “commandoes,” which suggests to me a troop of female deer packing Uzis, is, per the dictionary, less incorrect than “aficionadoes.”)
CONSENSUS (AGREEMENT)
Not “concensus.”
DACHSHUND (WIENER DOG)
Two h’s.
DE RIGUEUR
From the French. A fancy-schmancy adjective meaning “required or prescribed by fashion.”
DIETICIAN, DIETITIAN (NUTRITION SPECIALIST)
They’re both correct. The latter is vastly more popular, though somehow I think the former better evokes the hairnets and lab coats of the elementary school lunch ladies of my distant youth.
DILEMMA (PUZZLE)
Ask a roomful of people whether at any time in their lives they believed this word to be spelled “dilemna,” and you will receive in return quite a number of boisterous yeses. But the word is not spelled that way; it’s never been spelled that way. So why does it so often end up as “dilemna”? It remains a mystery.
DIPHTHERIA (SERIOUS BACTERIAL INFECTION AFFECTING THE NOSE AND THROAT)
Not “diptheria.” There are two h’s here.
DOPPELGÄNGER
German for “double goer,” meaning “twin,” and not necessarily an evil twin, though the word somehow has a sinister ring. The popular error is to transpose the el to an le.
DUMBBELL (HAND WEIGHT)
Double b. The odds are good that left to your own devices you’re going to spell this “dumbell,” as you’re also likely to attempt “filmaker,” “newstand,” and “roomate.” Well, don’t.
ECSTASY (BLISS)
Not “ecstacy.” Perhaps you’re confusing it with bureaucracy.
ENMITY (ILL WILL)
I was well into my twenties before I realized that this word was neither pronounced nor spelled “emnity.” I have since learned—and I find it retroactively comforting—that I was not, and am not, the only victim of that misapprehension.
FASCIST (ONE IN FAVOR OF STRONG CENTRAL CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT)
Capitalized when referring to an actual member of Benito Mussolini’s Fascisti in Italy during the 1930s, the British Union of Fascists, or any other organization that thus self-identifies, otherwise lowercased.*6
FILMMAKER, FILMMAKING
Noted above, under “dumbbell,” yet given the frequency with which I encounter “filmaker” and “filmaking,” apparently worth repeating.
FLUORESCENCE (BRIGHTNESS), FLUORESCENT
There’s that peculiar uo again.
FLUORIDE (CHEMICAL COMPOUND THAT HELPS KEEP TEETH HEALTHY)
And once again.
FORTY (THE NUMBER AFTER THIRTY-NINE)
Rarely to never misspelled on its own, but there’s something about a follow-up “four” that leads, occasionally, to “fourty-four.” Use logic: it’s not threety-three or fivety-five.
FUCHSIA (INTENSE PURPLE-RED)
Commonly misspelled “fuschia,” a dishonor to the botanist Leonhard Fuchs, after whom the flower (and color) are named.
GENEALOGY (ANCESTRY)
I once let this go to print as “geneology” (perhaps I was thinking of geology?), and decades later the memory still stings.
GLAMOUR (ALLURE), GLAMOROUS
When Noah Webster was standardizing American English in the nineteenth century and streamlining “neighbour” into “neighbor,” “honour” into “honor,” etc., he neglected to transform “glamour” into “glamor”—because, oddly enough, he didn’t include the word at all, in any form, in his initial 1828 dictionary or in any of his follow-up volumes. “Glamor” does show up from time to time, but certainly it lacks glamour. Do note, though, that “glamorous” is spelled only thus; it’s never “glamourous.” And it’s “glamorize,” never “glamourize.”
GRAFFITI (UNAPPROVED ART OR WRITING ON A PUBLIC SURFACE)
Two f’s rather than, as I occasionally run across it, two t’s. It’s a plural, by the way. There is a singular, “graffito,” but no one ever seems to use it. Perhaps because one rarely encounters a single graffito?
GUTTURAL (LOW AND RASPY)
Not “gutteral,” even though that’s how you pronounce it. If you’ve studied any Latin, you may recognize this word that refers to throaty or generally disagreeable utterances as deriving from guttur, the Latin for “throat.” If you haven’t studied any Latin, you’ll simply have to remember how to spell it.
HEROES
When one is writing about valiant champions, the plural of “hero” is, invariably, “heroes.” The plural of the hero that’s the heavily laden sandwich can be given, per the dictionary, as “heros,” but I can’t say I’ve run across it much if at all in the wild, and I can’t say I care for it.
HIGHFALUTIN
This adjective, used to describe the putting on of airs, seems (even the dictionary isn’t positive) to derive from a merger of “high” and “fluting”; nonetheless there’s no apostrophe at its tail end (or, for that matter, a hyphen in its middle).
HORS D’OEUVRE, HORS D’OEUVRES (APPETIZERS)
Another French word. This one is a nightmare for everyone because of the oeu. Drill oeu into your head and the rest falls into place. The s for the plural is an English-language innovation; French makes do with hors d’oeuvre as both singular and plural.
While we’re here: Though hors d’oeuvres include all more or less bite-size thingamabobs passable on trays, canapés are a subset of hors d’oeuvres requiring a base of bread, toast, cracker, puff pastry, etc., topped or spread with a topping or a spread. Amuse-bouches, which can be made out of just about anything so long as it’s little, are chef-bestowed pre-meal*7 gifts, often served in those charming miniature ladle-like spoons. Now you know.
Using “appetizer” is generally safe.
HYPOCRISY (SAYING OR BELIEVING ONE THING BUT DOING ANOTHER)
It’s not “hypocricy.” (See also “bureaucracy,” above.)
IDIOSYNCRASY (PECULIARITY)
More of the same.
INDUBITABLY (UNDOUBTEDLY)
There’s a b in the middle, not a p.
INFINITESIMAL (TINY)
Just the one s.
INOCULATE (VACCINATE AGAINST)
One n and one c only.
ITS, IT’S
You’ll see this again later, but it bears repeating. “Its” is a possessive adjective. “It’s” is a contraction for “it is.” Please, please get it right.
LEPRECHAUN (IRISH ELF)
It doesn’t look much more sensible properly spelled than misspelled, but there you have it.
LIAISON (CONNECTION)
A word with three consecutive vowels is just begging for trouble.
The relatively recent back-formation*8 “liaise” irritates a lot of people. I think it’s dandy and useful.
MARSHMALLOW
Two a’s, no e’s.
MEDIEVAL (FROM THE MIDDLE AGES)
Even the Brits don’t use “mediaeval” much anymore, much less mediæval.*9
MEMENTO (SOUVENIR)
Not “momento.” Think of memory, because you buy and/or hold on to a memento so as to remember something.
MILLENNIUM (1,000 YEARS), MILLENNIA (PLURAL OF MILLENNIUM), MILLENNIAL (THESE DAYS MOST COMMONLY USED TO REFER TO A PERSON BORN IN THE 1980S OR 1990S)
Two l’s, two n’s. In each. (Well, “millennial” has three l’s, but who’s counting?) It’s always fun online to catch someone attempting to insult millennials yet unable to spell “millennials.”
MINUSCULE (TINY)
Not “miniscule,” however much that seems to make sense.
MISCHIEVOUS (PLAYFUL)
The spelling—and pronunciation—“mis-chee-vi-ous” go back centuries, but they’re persistently considered nonstandard (i.e., wrong). They’re also unbearably cutesy. Woodland elves might opt for “mischievious”; the rest of us should not. The word is prounounced “mis-chi-vous.”
MISSPELL, MISSPELLED, MISSPELLING
To misspell “misspell” is, to borrow a phrase from the playwright Tennessee Williams,*10 slapstick tragedy.
MNEMONIC (MEMORY DEVICE)
It has nothing to do with pneumonia. And as with phenomenon, I cannot read or say this word without thinking of the Muppets’ “Mahna Mahna” song.
NAÏVE (INNOCENT), NAÏVETÉ (INNOCENCE)
Though the dictionary might (begrudgingly) let you get away with dropping the accent marks, there’s no fun in spelling “naïve” or “naïveté” without them, and “naivety,” though ratified by the dictionary, is just plain sad-looking.
NEWSSTAND
Two s’s, please. Two.
NON SEQUITUR
Latin for “it does not follow”; used to point out a logical flaw. If someone asks you “What’s your favorite color?” and you reply “My name is Olivia,” you’re guilty of a non sequitur—your answer does not follow the question. In any event, it’s not spelled “non sequiter.” Also: blue.
OCCURRED, OCCURRENCE, OCCURRING
Pretty much everyone can spell “occur.” Pretty much no one can spell “occurred,” “occurrence,” or “occurring.”
ODORIFEROUS, ODOROUS (SMELLY)
They’re both words. So is “odiferous,” for that matter, but one rarely runs across it. They all mean the same thing: stinking.*11
OPHTHALMIC (RELATED TO THE EYE), OPHTHALMOLOGIST (EYE DOCTOR), OPHTHALMOLOGY (MEDICAL SCIENCE OF THE EYE)
Eye-crossingly easy to misspell.
OVERRATE (THINK TOO HIGHLY OF)
Also overreach, override, overrule, etc.
PARALLEL (EQUIDISTANT AND NEVER MEETING; SIMILAR), PARALLELED, PARALLELISM
As a young person, I desperately wanted “parallel” to be spelled “paralell” or at least “parallell”; somehow it never was.
PARAPHERNALIA (STUFF; ODDS AND ENDS)
That r just past the midpoint has a tendency to fall out. No one seems to pronounce it. And yet.*12
PASTIME (HOBBY)
Just the one t. (If it helps, consider that the two words being combined are “pass” and “time,” not “past” and “time.”)
PEJORATIVE (DEROGATORY, NEGATIVE)
Perhaps confusing the contemptuous “pejorative” with the lying “perjury,” some people attempt “perjorative.”
PENDANT (SOMETHING THAT HANGS)
It’s not that “pendent,” as occasionally turns up when “pendant” is meant, isn’t a word; it’s that it’s usually not the word you want. “Pendant” is a noun; “pendent” is an adjective meaning hanging or dangling—that is, what a pendant does. Pendulously.
PERSEVERE (PERSIST), PERSEVERANCE, PERSEVERANT
I note a tendency to slip an extra r in, just before the v.
PHARAOH (ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MONARCH)
Reading, a few years back, a facsimile first edition of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile, I was amused to note an instance of the misspelling “pharoah,” which till then I’d figured was a recent problem.*13 Apparently not.
PIMIENTO (VARIETY OF PEPPER)
The popular spelling “pimento” cannot be called incorrect, though copy editors will persist in changing it. Interestingly, Web 11 has a separate entry for “pimento cheese.” It contains pimientos.
POINSETTIA (THE RED- OR WHITE-PETALED PLANT YOU SEE EVERYWHERE AT CHRISTMAS)
Neither “poinsetta” nor “poinsietta.”
PREROGATIVE (CHOICE)
It is not spelled “perogative,” though it’s often misspelled—and mispronounced—thus.
PROTUBERANCE (THING THAT STICKS OUT), PROTUBERANT (STICKING OUT)
Not “protruberance” or “protruberant.” Yes, you’re thinking of “protrude.” We all are. That’s why the misspelling keeps showing up.
PUBLICLY (IN PUBLIC!)
The vastly less popular “publically” is generally if not universally held to be nonstandard, which is a nice way of saying that by any decent standards it’s incorrect.
RACCOON
The variant “racoon”—rarely seen now but once quite popular—cannot be taken as incorrect, but it can surely be taken as weird-looking.
RASPBERRY
With a p.
RENOWN (FAME), RENOWNED (FAMOUS)
Not “reknown” or “reknowned.” The latter has always seemed especially cruel to me given that it means “well-known.”
REPERTOIRE (SUPPLY), REPERTORY (THEATER COMPANY)
Three r’s each.
RESTAURATEUR (OWNER/OPERATOR OF A RESTAURANT)
It’s not “restauranteur,” and the floor is not open to debate as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care what Webster’s online says.
ROOMMATE
See “dumbbell” and “filmmaker,” above. And just keep seeing them till you get these right.
SACRILEGIOUS (IRREVERENT OR DISRESPECTFUL)
You want to spell it “sacreligious.” You can’t.
SEIZE (TAKE OVER), SEIZED, SEIZURE
Easily and not infrequently misspelled, by people who get hung up on that “i before e” thing, as “sieze,” “siezed,” and “siezure.” Maybe they’re confusing it with “siege.”
SEPARATE, SEPARATION
Not “seperate” and “seperation.”
SHEPHERD
Some people may be named Shepard, but sheep watchers are shepherds and certain dogs are German shepherds and potato-crusted meat dishes are shepherd’s pies.
SIEGE (ATTACK)
Even if you dodge the bullet of a misspelled “seize,” you may still (counterintuitively) trip and misspell “siege” as “seige.” Don’t.
STOMACHACHE
It’s peculiar-looking as one word, I suppose, but it sits cheek by jowl with “earache” and “headache,” and no one seems to find them peculiar-looking at all.
STRAITJACKET
“Strait” as in constricted, not “straight” as in not curvy.*14 Also: straitlaced.
SUPERSEDE (TO TAKE THE PLACE OF SOMETHING)
Not “supercede.” I have never in my life spelled “supersede” correctly on the first try.
SURPRISE, SURPRISED, SURPRISING
In any of them, don’t forget the first r, which is omitted with surprising frequency.
TAILLIGHT
Two l’s.
TENDINITIS (PAINFUL INFLAMMATION OF A TENDON)
Not “tendonitis,” though that’s likely an unstoppable respelling of the word (and I note that the local spellcheck has refused to call it out with the Red Dots of Shame).
THEIR, THERE, THEY’RE
“Their” is the possessive adjective. “There” is an adverb. “They’re” is the contraction of “they are.”
THRESHOLD (THAT WHICH YOU FIND UNDER A DOOR; ALSO, GENERALLY, BOUNDARY)
It’s not “threshhold.” I bet you’re thinking of “withhold.”
UNDERRATE (TO PLACE TOO LOW A VALUE ON), UNDERRATED, UNDERRATING
(And any other “under” + r—commencing compounds you can think of.)
UNWIELDY (HARD TO HANDLE)
Not “unwieldly,” as I occasionally run across it. See weird below, which may be responsible.
VILLAIN, VILLAINOUS, VILLAINY
That’s ai, not ia.
VINAIGRETTE (A CLASSIC DRESSING FOR SALADS)
Not “viniagrette.” Also not, for that matter, “vinegarette.”
WEIRD
I run across “wierd” more often than I ever expect to.
WHOA
It’s been rendered online as “woah” so often that you might be persuaded that that’s an acceptable alternate spelling. It is not.
WITHHOLD (KEEP AWAY)
See “threshold.”
Y’ALL
It’s you + all, so never “ya’ll.”
Somewhat to my Yankee surprise, there’s scant consensus (and much feuding) among my Southern confederates as to whether “y’all” may properly be applied to just one person (and I leave discussion of the death-defying “all y’all” for another day) but near unanimity that non-Southerners shouldn’t use it at all, y’all.
YOUR, YOU’RE
Like “its/it’s”: one is a possessive adjective, and one is a contraction. You’re smart enough by now to know which is which.
WOULDN’T HAVE
It hurts to even say this, but not “wouldn’t of.” I beg you.
SKIP NOTES
*1 Please note the first word in this chapter to give the lie to the “i before e, except after c” rule (“or when sounding like a, as in ’neighbor’ or ’weigh,’ ” the rule continues). There are any number of perfectly common words in the English language featuring the ei combination with no c (or a sound) in sight, from “foreign” to “heist” to “seizure” to “weird.” To say nothing of “albeit” and “deify.”
*2 Evidence also indicates that our British cousins are not as fond of the spelling “judgement” as some of them believe or would have you believe. And here is where I send you off (you’ll find out why when you get there) to explore the Google Books Ngram Viewer, though I warn you that it’s a direly addictive toy.
*3 Well, yes, “bookkeeping.” No, “sweet-toothed” doesn’t count.
*4 Or, if you prefer, the first k.
*5 I’m not sure why English needs a dedicated word for a 150th anniversary, but if it has a word for the thing before the thing before the final thing† and a word for jumping or being shoved out a window,‡ why not.
† “Antepenultimate.”
‡ “Defenestration.”
*6 A, perhaps randomly, I always refer to capital-N Nazis, even those who are not of Hitler’s political party. B, using the word in supposed jest, as in calling your teacher a “homework Nazi,” is both direly insulting and offensively trivializing.
*7 Modern style favors ditching the hyphen in words formed with prefixes (e.g., “antiwar,” “postgraduate,” “preoccupation,” “reelect”), but if the result is difficult to read and/or uncommon, you should feel free to hold on to that hyphen. (The same goes for suffixes, as in the word “hyphenlessly,” used back in Chapter 2.) Thus I opt for “pre-meal” rather than “premeal.” (I find the universally accepted “premed” hard enough to make out on the first go, much less “premeal.”) You’ll note as well, when you cast your eye back up to the text proper, that I chose “ladle-like,” as (though the likes of, say, “catlike” or “cakelike” is dandy) “ladlelike” would, I think, try your eyes’ patience. (P.S. You can’t ever do “dolllike,” because look at it.)
*8 A back-formation is a neologism—that is, a newly coined word—derived from an already existing word, generally by yanking off a bit at the beginning or the end. Among the many common back-formations in the English language: “aviate” (from “aviator”), “burgle” (from “burglar”), “laze” (from “lazy”), “tweeze” (from “tweezers”)…Well, there are a lot of them. For all the back-formations that slip effortlessly into popular use, though, many are controversial: “conversate” and “mentee,” for instance, both of which I find grotesque, and “enthuse,” which I find harmless but which some people have loved to hate since it was coined nearly two hundred years ago.
*9 That fused-letter thing is called a ligature.
*10 There’s nothing to be gained by referring to the playwright Tennessee Williams as “the famous playwright Tennessee Williams.” If a person is famous enough to be referred to as famous, there’s no need to refer to that person as famous. Neither is there much to be gained by referring to “the late Tennessee Williams,” much less “the late, great Tennessee Williams,” which is some major cheese. I’m occasionally asked how long a dead person is appropriately late rather than just plain dead. I don’t know, and apparently neither does anyone else.
*11 Though “moist” often tops lists of the most viscerally unpleasant words in the English language, I turn my nose up at “stinky” and “smelly.”
*12 There’s an interesting linguistic phenomenon called the silent medial t that occurs in words like often, hasten, and soften in which the t goes unpronounced. I suppose the r in paraphernalia could be called a silent medial r. “Silent medial t” sounds to me like the name of a secret society (“He wore the signet ring identifying him as a member of the silent medial t’s”) or a muscular condition (“Of course you can’t complete a pull-up; you have silent medial t’s”).
*13 I sometimes get emails from readers who’ve stumbled upon a typo in one of our books. I don’t like typos any more than you do—I probably like them quite a bit less—but as long as there have been books, there have been typos. Nobody’s perfect.
*14 The title of the 1964 Joan Crawford axe-murderess thriller—which you really ought to see—is Strait-Jacket. (The generally preferred American spelling is “ax,” but I’d much rather be an axe-murderess than an ax-murderess. You?)