I think that all frequently misspelled words should simply be respelled.
The powers that be should endorse such changes - not as strict as the language boards in France and South Africa, but still somebody official should just weigh in on the stupidity of schools enforcing difficult spellings.
Words such as fluorescent and buoy and vacuum would become florescent and boy and vacume, at least as acceptable alternate spellings.
Exorbitant.
I didn’t realize that I had a mental filter on this word: It was pronounced “exorbinent” to my ears, and that is basically what I saw when I read it. I assume I had no need to write it myself.
Until about a year ago - I was writing something and MS Word’s pesky auto-spellcheck function caught me out. I shook my head, tried a few times and finally went online and checked. I had never noticed I was hearing and seeing it spelled a different way than it actually is…
Let me introduce you to a little thing called regional dialects.
Why thank you Henry Higgins.
I’m well acquainted with the concept. Among other pronunciations regional dialects have given us, are Dubya’s ‘nucular’, Nixon’s 'particuly, Fords’s ‘judg-uh-ment’ and a bunch of other modes of expressionswhich Dopers are talking about in this same thread.
I simply offered Webster’s pronunciation for spigot, which happens to agree with my regional dialect, and I wasn’t trying to force it on anyone.
Because the last part is from the Latin sedere, to sit; supersedere = to sit above. -cede is from caedere, to fall.
What implications? The x implies an s sound, because X in the middle of a word always sounds like “ks”. Thus “Mexico” is pronounced “Mecksico” and “sex” ends with the same sound as “socks”.
Another saying is “Neither foreign sovereign seized the counterfeit and forfeited leisure”. I teach reading using a phonics program. The sad thing is, I can explain the reasoning behind the spelling for almost every word that has been listed so far.
I’m a dork.
No, no, no. I’m talking about words that look alike, like excite, which to me, don’t seem to follow the same rule as exercise.
Admittedly, however, it is a different sound being produced in excite and exercise, but to me, you need that -c- to go from exer-cise to ex-cer-cise.
Not I–she was my third-grade teacher, and my parents were called into a conference because I insisted in class that the words “February” and “Wednesday” could not possibly be spelled like that, and if they were, well, someone was falling down on the job.
[My parents were also called in because I was giving Mrs. Wolf “dirty looks,” and as you know, where I give dirty looks, no grass grows, ever.]
[QUOTE=Antiochus]
Why thank you Henry Higgins.
I’m well acquainted with the concept. Among other pronunciations regional dialects have given us, are Dubya’s ‘nucular’, Nixon’s 'particuly, Fords’s ‘judg-uh-ment’ and a bunch of other modes of expressionswhich Dopers are talking about in this same thread.
QUOTE]
If you are well acquainted, then don’t be a jackass by crapping on anyone’s parade. Additionally, your examples are lame, and not analogous (and happen to all be republicans).
a bit harsh there, aren’t you Phil?
The term for when a word doesn’t sound like a word due to repetition is semantic satiation
======================*
The More You Know
…anyway, I’m an excellent speller. But to this day, “friend” sometimes screws me up. Is it “ei” or “ie”?
[QUOTE=Philster]
You stayed up all night thinking, and this is the best you could come up with? Talk about lame…
coincide
I am going to murder your money!
Recieve?
Or receive?
Which can it bbbeeeeeeeeee…?!? :eek: :eek: :eek: