# Words that look misspelled **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 8, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793 "2004-12-08T19:24:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/21 "2004-12-09T19:22:00Z")
Yes! Misled! For _years_ I thought that ‘misled’ was pronounced ‘my-zulld’ and was the past tense of some verb ‘to misle’. I had no idea that it was connected with the verb ‘to mislead’… ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/22 "2004-12-09T19:26:44Z")
**police**. Go on, just stare at it for a bit. Go on, a bit longer. And a bit more. Now, have you seen a po louse around here? ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/23 "2004-12-09T19:47:50Z")
> [@doomraisin](#): > > I always have to pause with the word “weird.” It never looks right, and I guess it’s because it doesn’t conform to the “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ or when it sounds like ‘a’ as in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh.’” rule I’ve used since childhood. There are others, too, and it seems to happen randomly. Maybe it’s a human brain oddity, kind of like deja vu. “Neither seized weird leisure, either at that height.” Have it repeated in a sing-song voice once a day, every day, for the better part of a year, by your eighth grade English teacher. It’ll stick with you well into adulthood. My bugaboo is “forty.” I keep thinking it ought to be “fourty,” but it isn’t. I don’t think. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/24 "2004-12-09T20:20:16Z")
It’s always bugged me that “science” and “ancient” don’t conform to the “I before E except after C” rule. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/25 "2004-12-10T16:40:39Z")
I was eating last night at a place across the street from Harvard University, and on the blackboard was a list of side orders that included “kernal corn.” I pointed it out to my friend, who has a graduate degree from Harvard, and he thought “kernal” was the correct spelling. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/26 "2004-12-10T16:55:43Z")
Yes, but a graduate degree in what? If it was English or computer science, then I’ll start to worry. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/27 "2004-12-10T17:22:58Z")
It was in biology, but he’s an avid reader of all kinds of literature, so I would have expected him to know… (not that I’m perfect, I just like to kid people from Harvard…) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@Rich\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_Mann)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/28 "2004-12-10T19:47:49Z")
> [@doomraisin](#): > > I always have to pause with the word “weird.” It never looks right, and I guess it’s because it doesn’t conform to the “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ or when it sounds like ‘a’ as in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh.’” rule I’ve used since childhood. There are others, too, and it seems to happen randomly. Maybe it’s a human brain oddity, kind of like deja vu. I read somewhere long ago (sorry, no cite) that the phenomenon of experiencing something as unfamiliar that should be very familiar is called **jamais vu**. I get this from the pronunciation of ‘girl’. It just doesn’t sound _girly_ enough to be right. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/29 "2004-12-10T20:42:24Z")
“Supersede”. Why the hell isn’t it "supercede? ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/30 "2004-12-10T21:53:51Z")
One crisis, more than one crises. ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/31 "2004-12-10T23:53:39Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Yes! Misled! > For _years_ I thought that ‘misled’ was pronounced ‘my-zulld’ and was the past tense of some verb ‘to misle’. I had no idea that it was connected with the verb ‘to mislead’… I learned this one the hard way in one of the early grades. I wrote down “mislead” on a spelling test, got back the correction “misled.” I went through a moment of denial, and then…“OK, I guess you could pronounce it that way.” I think I even went to the dictionary to look for the verb “to misle.” I still think it would make a great verb; sounds a lot more devious to me than “to mislead.” GT ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/32 "2004-12-11T00:02:29Z")
I just misspelled **ad nauseam** in another thread, but no one called me out for it - yet. ---
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/33 "2004-12-11T00:04:05Z")
Our local paper keeps me on my toes. They actually do spell things incorrectly (see how gracefully I danced around that whole “misspelled” thing?) on a pretty regular basis. Not that it’s a big paper or anything. But really now, **Schwarzengger**? It sure made me look twice. I knew it wasn’t right, but then I’m the one who had to look up “question” the other day to make sure I hadn’t forgotten how to spell it. Feh. Laugh all you want, kiddies. The brain is the first to go… ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/34 "2004-12-11T00:07:39Z")
spigot Does everyone know what that is? Because, I’ve written it before and had people ask me. ans: pronounced [COLOR=White][COLOR=Black]“spick it”. [/COLOR] Usually the outside water faucet.[/COLOR] ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/35 "2004-12-11T00:22:26Z")
Misled is also one of mine, along with **infrared**. As a teenager, every time I read the word aloud, I popped out with not infra-red, but as if it were an object that fell victim to the _infrare_… and thus, was infrared. I always wondered why I could never find “infrare” in the dictionary. When I was five years old, I remember thinking that “lightbulb” was the most ridiculous word known to man. I would say it again and again, and think how it didn’t sound… right, somehow. It irked me to no end. These days, if I think too long or too hard about any word, it sounds wrong or alien to me. My hairdresser’s daughter, a couple days ago, popped her head in the room while I was having my hair cut, and asked her mother, “How do you spell ‘Jan’?” Her mother laughed about it, but her daughter muttered to herself “It just looked too simple when I wrote it down, like I was forgetting something.” Hey, I’m with you, sister. Happens to me all the damn time. ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/36 "2004-12-11T16:34:29Z")
Thanks everyone…it is good to know that my sanity is still intact. For know. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/37 "2004-12-11T17:12:58Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > spigot > > Does everyone know what that is? Because, I’ve written it before and had people ask me. > > ans: pronounced [COLOR=White][COLOR=Black]“spick it”. [/COLOR] Usually the outside water faucet.[/COLOR] There’s no ‘k’ sound in the spigot I’ve used all these years. It’s a hard ‘g’ and the word rhymes with ‘dig it’ as you can hear at [http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=spigot&x=0&y=0](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=spigot&x=0&y=0) If you’re not using IE as your browser, once you see the definition and click on the speaker icon, look in next the window towards the bottom to click on the option that lets you hear the word on your default audio player. ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine_and_Smiles)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/38 "2004-12-11T18:09:55Z")
Why the hell isn’t it spelled “excercise”? Instead, you have “exercise.” The implications are astounding. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/39 "2004-12-11T19:13:21Z")
poeple…Damn…peple…Crap…pople…AARRRGGGHHHH…PEOPLE! Ever since I was a little kid, I have not been able to spell this word correctly, the first time. I once forgot how to spell my friend’s name. It was Matt. I had to call him up and ask. I was going to write Mat. ---
**Author:** ![Kerrigan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/49beb7/32.png) [@Kerrigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kerrigan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793/40 "2004-12-11T20:23:51Z")
I was studying for Anatomy & Physiology… chapter 27. The reproductive system. My “this word looks _wrong_” of the night was “sperm.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-look-misspelled/278793.md?page=3)