I have always considered myself (and indeed have a reputation amongst those who know me) as a bit of a wordsmith. My writing and spelling skills have been called upon on many occasions to (for example) help edit essays and to assist in crossword impasses. I’m never wrong, of course, and those who I assist are suitably grateful for my input.
Until yesterday. I was doing the crossword at work, and got to a hurdle myself. The clue was ‘HATRED’ and the answer was a six letter word…with the second letter ‘N’ and the last two ‘TY’. I asked some of my coworkers and they jumped in with ENMITY…but I corrected them gently, saying, “It’s not fucken ENmity, it’s EMnity you mouthbreathers. Try another word.”
So I got home and googled dictionary.com just to be absolutely certain I was correct in my put-down of them, and whaddya know!! I was dead wrong, and they were right. I have tendered my humblest apologies to my coworkers and have thanked them for alleviating my ignorance, but they just blew raspberries at me.
Anyway, what I want to know is: how many of you have gone years and years making a spelling or grammatical mistake without realising it, or without someone else picking it up?
I too try to spell correctly and use words as intended.
As I’m a teacher, my implication is clear (and my pupils can infer what they like from that!)
Why I even know that a contradictory oxymoron is a tautology.
However I should reveal that I checked your spelling of ‘embarrassed’ , unworthily hoping for a mistake , so I could make a further post pointing that out.
I believe the word for this is schadnefreude (defined as malicious glee )
I used to think that “it’s” meant “it is” and that “its” was the possessive, but then I got on this forum and learned that I am apparently about the only one here that thinks so.
Apparently, when I’m typing I can’t conjugate verbs properly. For example, a couple weeks ago I posted this to another forum:
It’s not like I’m illiterate and don’t know that it’s supposed to be “it’s working”, but I just keep adding or removing random suffixes from verbs all the freaking time.
I’m glad you started this thread. I need to download a spellchecker. That will solve some of the problem. The dumbass sentance structure, it won’t help a bit.
Typing error. :o (I was concentrating on making the pun on my username…)
What is your evidence for that?
‘It’s’ is an accepted shortening of ‘it is’.
Because this abbreviation exists, people get confused with possessive. ‘His’, ‘hers’ and ‘its’ don’t have apostrophes.
For some reason I’ve been mis-writing stuff lately, stuff that I hand write. I just don’t write much anymore. And when I’m signing checks or signing a note I have been making a horrible mess out of my name lately. My name ends in a “dt” and the other day I wrote “tt” and crossed them both!
Call me crazy, but I’ve noticed a distinct falling off of my spelling abilities ever since I hit 40. I find myself looking up the simplest of words, repeatedly. It’s most likely early senility. Gah.
The “enmity” example in the OP has never been a problem – considering the spelling of “enemy”. The two just get linked. I know enough never to state I’m 100% right about a spelling example, unless it’s a common monosyllablic word or I’m within inches of a dictionary. Typos, on the other hand, can be a right bother.
I’ve been an ace speller all my life. Never bee-level, because I never studied the kind of super-obscure curveball words that turn up on the bees. But I was good enough to talk my 6th grade teacher into trusting me that imperfect wasn’t actually spelled inperfect.
Still, we’re all inperfect. The one that gets me most often is idiosyncrasy, which I always thought should end in -cracy. All these -cracy words (demo, aristo, etc.) and only the one -crasy? -Crazy.
, so I could make a further post pointing that out.
