# What words are spelled wrong, in your opinion? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 24, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660 "2017-02-24T19:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/1 "2017-02-24T19:44:16Z")
Screw Webster’s-“receive” should be spelled “recieve”, “environment” should be spelled “enviroment”, and the less said about “colonel” the better. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/2 "2017-02-24T19:49:19Z")
Knee = nee Gross = grose ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/3 "2017-02-24T19:49:29Z")
let’s work out the whole “cough, bough, tough, through\*” thing before we get too crazy. \*That last one is just cheating at Scrabble. /Eddie Izzard ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/4 "2017-02-24T19:50:42Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Screw Webster’s-“receive” should be spelled “recieve”, “environment” should be spelled “enviroment”, and the less said about “colonel” the better. Not for those of us who say “enviroNment” 😉 . Also I noticed a post from you earlier today where you wrote “alot”. Do you think that should be correct spelling or was it just a typo? I’ve been seeing this more and more often. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/5 "2017-02-24T19:52:59Z")
> [@FloatyGimpy](#): > > Not for those of us who say “enviroNment” 😉 . Also I noticed a post from you earlier today where you wrote “alot”. Do you think that should be correct spelling or was it just a typo? I’ve been seeing this more and more often. If it was wrong, it was a typo. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/6 "2017-02-24T19:56:55Z")
I tech English. AFAIK, English spelling is the stupidest in the world, so anything goes. I’ll probably think of several, but the first two are: “separate” should be “seperate.” “gray” should be “grey.” “Gray” doesn’t look like the color to me; “grey” does (synesthesia). ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/7 "2017-02-24T20:00:12Z")
There’s only one word in the dictionary that’s spelled wrong. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/8 "2017-02-24T20:04:46Z")
Disc. It should be standardized to “disk.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/9 "2017-02-24T20:08:18Z")
The abbreviation for “microphone” should be “mike”, not “mic”. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/10 "2017-02-24T20:09:37Z")
Woman/Women It’s one of the few words where to change the number we alter the vowel in the second syllable if we’re writing it but the first syllable if we’re speaking it and that pisses me off! ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/11 "2017-02-24T20:15:15Z")
I read this yesterday, and it seems appropriate to post it here. English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/12 "2017-02-24T20:34:40Z")
Wow. O.K… I’ll be brave enoug…excuse me, enuf to step in after that! Replace the -ks and -cks construction (cunstruxshun) at the end of words with -x. Thanx, banx, linx. bax, trax, attax, slax, snax, sux, fu…um… But then you start getting into trouble with lacks/lax, sacks/sax… Hav fun, but pleez be cairfull;. English spelling reform can eezily slip inta… GOTTERDAMMERUNG!!! ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/13 "2017-02-24T20:42:21Z")
Restaurant Should be resteraunte. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/14 "2017-02-24T20:43:51Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Restaurant > > Should be resteraunte. And the family-style ones should be called “resterauntie”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/15 "2017-02-24T20:54:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Screw Webster’s-“receive” should be spelled “recieve”, “environment” should be spelled “enviroment”, and the less said about “colonel” the better. I think you meant: envierment or envirement. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/16 "2017-02-24T20:58:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think you meant: envierment or envirement. 😉 I’ve got enough problems in this thread fighting spell-check without you getting on my case, bub. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/17 "2017-02-24T21:01:51Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > I tech English. I see what you did there. Or maybe you didn’t, and that was just a typo. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/18 "2017-02-24T21:11:02Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I see what you did there. > > Or maybe you didn’t, and that was just a typo. 🙂 :rolleyes: 😉 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/19 "2017-02-24T21:12:52Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > :rolleyes: > > 😉 > > 😃 Standing rule-If they ask me if I was being clever…I was. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660/20 "2017-02-24T21:42:51Z")
I wish label and table were consistent. I don’t care which way, JUST PICK ONE!!! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-are-spelled-wrong-in-your-opinion/780660.md?page=2)