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What Is The Most Commonly Misspelled Word On Message Boards

I'm not thinking of common typos such as "teh"

         

lawman

4:08 am on Dec 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

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The one that sticks out to me is "definitely", commonly spelled "definately".

jetboy

11:44 am on Jan 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

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bruhaha,

Even though an apostrophe shouldn't generally be used in plurals, some style guides suggest that they should be used for clarity.

For example; to denote a collection of letter A's.

vincevincevince

12:36 pm on Jan 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

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I prefer: a collection of letter 'A's.

One point which does seem to differ between guidelines is whether the pen belonging to Marcus is Markus's Pen or Markus' Pen.

bruhaha

2:00 pm on Jan 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

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One point which does seem to differ between guidelines is whether the pen belonging to Marcus is Markus's Pen or Markus' Pen.

I would go with Marcus's pen. According to the first rule in Strunk & White's Elements of Style (and frankly the ONLY thing I remember from having to read the book in high school!), the "s" should be added in almost every case. They give the example, "Charles's book". The only exceptions they allow are some archaic names whose last two syllables each end with a sibilant and hence would become overwhelming if we added another (examples: Moses', Jesus', Isis', Ramses'). IOW, if you can add the "s" and still pronounce the word (and be able to stop!), add it.

Grammarians' rules can at times get a bit silly--trying to force logical consistency on a language where it has no interest in such.** But this one always struck me as eminently sensible and, better than that, easy to put into practice.

**Sometimes they win. Thus, on "logical" grounds, "proper English" disallows the double negative found in many other languages, even though it can be rhetorically effective, and properly used need not lead to confusion.

TammyJo

9:13 am on Jan 20, 2006 (gmt 0)

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"Hello my name is Tammy, it has been 2 days since my last misspelled thread..."

I can't believe I actually fell off the wagon and then noticed too late! Oh where for art thou lovely spell checker!

BeeDeeDubbleU

10:03 am on Jan 20, 2006 (gmt 0)

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While on the subject of spelilng, I think you'll find that it's "wherefore" :)

jetboy

10:29 am on Jan 20, 2006 (gmt 0)

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Heh heh

bruhaha

1:23 pm on Jan 20, 2006 (gmt 0)

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While on the subject of spelilng [sic! or sick?], I think you'll find that it's "wherefore"

And just slightly off the subject, I think you'll find that "wherefore" does not mean "where" (as in your example, and as many now try to use it), but "why".

("Wherefore art thou Romeo?" has nothing to do with his location. It is bemoaning the fact that he's a Montague, of the family Juliet's [the Capulets] is feuding with. IOW, "If only you could have a different family name!")

If it helps, it's the equivalent of German "wofuer" (probably not a fat lot of help, eh? oh well!) Maybe English will help more -- the "where" in 'where+preposition' compounds means "which" or "what"; compare "whereof", meaning "of what, of which". (See also "whereupon", "whereat".)

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