Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Did you know?

Interesting tidbit of the day...
Did you know that "Supersede" is the most commonly misspelled English word? Spelling for me is a constant work in progress. From K Love's news page:

"Collins Dictionaries of Britain said its researchers have estimated that the most commonly misspelled word in the English language is "supersede." Collins said other commonly misspelled words -- including conscience, indict, foreign, mortgage and phlegm -- are challenging because they their spelling is different from their phonetic pronunciations.

The real spelling problems occur when people have (learned) the rules or have a bit of knowledge, but then make mistakes in how they apply this."

Interesting trait of learning and then subsequently misapplying(while trying to follow) the rules. It is truly a gift to master the art of language. (One that I'm clumsily unwrapping everyday!)

PS-Before running the wonderful spellcheck, I counted 5 dreaded words in red!

1 comment:

Kevin Pierce said...

HOW DO YOU SPELL MISSPELL?

NEWSWIRE--A study by Collins dictionary company shows that supersede is the most commonly misspelled English word, followed by conscience, indict, foreign, mortgage and phlegm.

I wish I may, I wish I might
Recall the C that's in indict.
Or to write of Ecuadoran,
Add the E-I-G to foreign.
A -science suffix must appear
If I'm to keep my conscience clear.
And though it's coffee that I'm smelling,
Mortgage wants its T for spelling.
At the end, what's left is lem
(If P-H-G were hacked from phlegm).

As for supersede? Erase it:
It's defined as, "to replace it."

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