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Source: (consider it) Thread: Kan yu speell?
Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686

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Not so long ago a friend of mine and I were sitting in the pub, talking about language. I confessed to a word that I have to pause before spelling: syrup. It just looks wrong to me. If I'm careless or in a rush, I almost always write syrop. Now, English is my mother tongue, but I took French throughout school, and grew up with a community with a large francophone minority, so that perhaps explains whence comes the 'o'; except that "syrop" is wrong in French, as well. If I'm writing in French, I always spell it correctly ("sirop"). I joke that with "syrop" I truly am Canadian - wrong in both languages. (The joke about PM Chretien was that he could speak neither official language.)

Do shipmates have a word, or words, that consistently throw(s) them off?

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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Syrup drives me crazy, but it's the pronunciation of it as sear'ip. Hate it.

Coupon should be q-pawn. Except when wrongly pronounced as coo-pawn. Tuesday said chewsday is a little too much.

Can't day I get Quran replacing Koran or Muslim replacing Moslem. They're said about the same. There's also the savants who claim Taoism is said daoism with a d. But then half the people put badderies in their electrical things instead of batteries. In Newfoundland people go to the badroom to take a bath. My favorite island.

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Stetson
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# 9597

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"January" and "February" have long been the hangnails of my spelling-ability. I actually have to think about the French spelling of the latter to get it right(even though I don't speak French), but I still got tripped up writing them together in this post, because they follow different correlations between spelling and pronunciation(in everyday speech, they are both pronounced without the "r" sound at the beginning, but "January" omits the letter itself, whereas "February" just reduces or silences it.)
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Gill H

Shipmate
# 68

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I always have to use a mnemonic to spell rhythm:

Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving

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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.

- Lyda Rose

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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927

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I can spell, always have been able to. Typing correctly is another matter.

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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.

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Eutychus
From the edge
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quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
Do shipmates have a word, or words, that consistently throw(s) them off?

Like you, everything that's nearly the same in French and English: responsability, adress... and I can't bring myself to use the OED-approved English forms -ize and -ization, preferring -ise and -isation, even though some words barely exist with that form. I see it as my little translator's quirk.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Stetson
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The last part of my post above should read...

quote:
(in everyday speech, they are both pronounced without the "r" sound at the beginning, but "January" omits the letter itself, whereas "February" leaves it in.)


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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
I always have to use a mnemonic to spell rhythm:

Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving

Thanks for that.

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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I'm with Eutychus on the -ize/ise divide. Even my spell checker agrees with me. And "focussed" with a double s is logical, whereas "focused" is not.

But then, who said that English is a logical language?

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.

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Schroedinger's cat

Ship's cool cat
# 64

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quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
I always have to use a mnemonic to spell rhythm:

Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving

That is one I always leave to the spellchecker.

The word that always seems to throw me is jaccuzi. I can never spell it, because I always seem to pronounce it jazucci (at least in my head). Fortunately, it is not a word I often use.

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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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Eutychus
From the edge
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quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
I'm with Eutychus on the -ize/ise divide. Even my spell checker agrees with me.

For a spell (ha ha) I had a client who insisted on the -ize spelling. To achieve this, I set the Word spell-checker to US English to catch all the relevant endings and then set it back to UK English, which would accept them as well as -ise.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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I have dyslexia so most words do this to me. The words also float around on the page. I don’t bother reading text without line breaks, it’s too tiring.

When I was a teacher I was the best at teaching spelling as I understood just how much time, patience and effort it takes some children to learn the simplest words.

When I was a headteacher I got Admin to check every single written document. People are very judgmental about poor spelling and see it as lack of intelligence, which far from the truth.

As a child we were lined up in class if we got less than 5/10 for spelling tests. We had to stand there until the end of the morning then we were whacked with a ruler. Teachers assumed it was lack of effort. Truth is we take ten times the effort over every single piece of writing we do.

Can I get an ‘aaaaaymen’ and ‘praaaiyyyseee the Lorrrrrrd’ for computers. Spell checks and predictive text?

[Overused]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Eutychus
From the edge
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
which far from the truth.

Which is far from the truth

/ducks and runs

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
which far from the truth.

Which is far from the truth

/ducks and runs

[Razz] [Razz]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Eutychus
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I'm just glad I'm not the only one that does that sort of thing!

Predictive text is a mixed blessing, though, as is voice-to-text. My Dragon sometimes takes itself for a prophetic voice, writing things like "incompetent management" instead of "innovative management" for my clients [Hot and Hormonal]

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm just glad I'm not the only one that does that sort of thing!

Predictive text is a mixed blessing, though, as is voice-to-text. My Dragon sometimes takes itself for a prophetic voice, writing things like "incompetent management" instead of "innovative management" for my clients [Hot and Hormonal]

Help!

Yes, some typos are more embarrassing than others. Some are marvellously amusing too. I have a lot of blind friends and some of their voice to text missives are really funny.

Full body cringe typos.

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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Yesterday the children in my art class spent a whole lesson designing some inspiring words, things they want to feel eg -happy, proud, challenged, successful, caring kind.

I checked the words before they started colouring them. See my room blog for one result.

[Waterworks]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Enoch
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# 14322

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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
Do shipmates have a word, or words, that consistently throw(s) them off?

Like you, everything that's nearly the same in French and English: responsability, adress... and I can't bring myself to use the OED-approved English forms -ize and -ization, preferring -ise and -isation, even though some words barely exist with that form. I see it as my little translator's quirk.
I stick to 'ise' and 'isation' for all purposes. I was taught long ago, but I can't remember when or where, that the OED principle was that words derived from Greek should have a 'z' because that was how Greek declines. But it was a far worse solecism to put a 'z' in words that don't, like spelling 'realise', which I think is a borrowing from medieval French, 'realize'. So, as I don't really know Greek, and cannot accurately guess which words drive from Greek or Latin, and as other publishers didn't then follow that level of pedantry, I've stuck to 'ise' for all of them and intend to continue to do so.

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

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jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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And so say all of us. (More or less.)

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.

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St. Gwladys
Shipmate
# 14504

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A few place names - particularly Leicester and Gloucester.

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"I say - are you a matelot?"
"Careful what you say sir, we're on board ship here"
From "New York Girls", Steeleye Span, Commoners Crown (Voiced by Peter Sellers)

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Hedgehog

Ship's Shortstop
# 14125

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I stumble over describing my brother's daughter. "Niece" but I am likely to write "neice." Yes, I know the old "i" before "e" rule, but some words are weird. Or wierd. Whatever.

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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Sioni Sais
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# 5713

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"Weird" looks weird and "yacht" doesn't look right however you spell it. Use "ketch", "dinghy" or "sailing boat" instead because just as most ships aren't ships, few yachts are true yachts.

As a railway enthusiast I am annoyed when "gauge" is misspelt, usually "guage".

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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"

(Paul Sinha, BBC)

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Though and through are thoroughly puzzling.
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Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
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The spelling of "language" makes the spelling of "gauge" visually wrong, although there is a change in pronunciation.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Though and through are thoroughly puzzling.

I'm derailing myself, here, but in a different pub conversation, a different friend of mine and I were discussing -ough. I'm missing two(?), but off the top of my head:
though (long o)
through (oo)
rough (uf)
cough (awf)
bough (ow)
thought (aw)

Of course, some regional and class accent differences.

[ 08. February 2018, 15:26: Message edited by: Pangolin Guerre ]

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Dormouse

Glis glis – Ship's rodent
# 5954

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I usually spell occasion wrongly (ocassion) but was told to remember that one might occasionally wear two Collars and one Sleeve ( = 2 cs and 1 s)

Bureaucracy would get me all of a tizz until I realised it was from the French (?) word bureau - and now, no problems!

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What are you doing for Lent?
40 days, 40 reflections, 40 acts of generosity. Join the #40acts challenge for #Lent and let's start a movement. www.40acts.org.uk

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Pigwidgeon

Ship's Owl
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I had a co-worker who could not spell to save his life, but was convinced that he was a great speller. After I left work for the day, he'd go into my computer (this was before the days that everything was password-protected), and "correct" my bad spelling.

Stupid Pigwidgeon put a "p" in the middle of "pumpkin." He couldn't hear a "p" pronounced, so it obviously didn't belong. He also removed the "t" from "mortgage" for the same reason.

I had a dictionary on my desk, which he could have consulted if he hadn't been so stubborn.

(My spellchecker -- this was MS-DOS -- was worthless. It tried to change "Bach" to "Bitch." [Eek!] )

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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf

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Bishops Finger
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In answer to the OP, noh.

Wot is this spel-ling ov wich u spik?

[Cool]

IJ

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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lily pad
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# 11456

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I'm a good at spelling. I think it just comes naturally. Although, I do remember calling my grandmother up to ask her to spell a word for me as I was busy writing a letter and didn't have a dictionary at hand. You may think this is a normal thing to do but I was living thousands of kilometres away from her in the high arctic and she only had a grade six education and thought it quite ridiculous that I would waste money on the phone call. Boy could she spell!

There is something about seeing a word spelled incorrectly that makes it jump out at me. It is as if every word on the page fades into the background and that one word is highlighted in neon flashing lights. It's good if you need to read something over for someone. But it is awfully hard in this day and age as no one really seems to care if things follow convention or not.

[ 08. February 2018, 16:03: Message edited by: lily pad ]

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Sloppiness is not caring. Fussiness is caring about the wrong things. With thanks to Adeodatus!

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Og, King of Bashan

Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
As a child we were lined up in class if we got less than 5/10 for spelling tests. We had to stand there until the end of the morning then we were whacked with a ruler. Teachers assumed it was lack of effort. Truth is we take ten times the effort over every single piece of writing we do.

While never diagnosed as dyslexic, spelling has also always been an extra challenge for me. And while I never had anything as traumatic as what you describe happen to me, I definitely scored more than a few 0's on quizzes in a particular teacher's class, based solely on her policy that even if you got the content of the answer correct, one spelling error meant 0 credit. The worst part of that one was that we were grading eachother's papers, so it was luck of the draw on who was grading your paper in terms of their proofreading skills and willingness to fail a fellow student. (My wife has defended that policy, as one spelling error can also get a job application thrown in the trash. We actually had a rare emotional argument about this one.)

I have no concept of vowel order. I'm useless at jumbles and word scramble games. And I have to be extra careful when proofreading, because my eyes gloss over the errors and see the correct word based on context. At least it's a decent answer in job interviews when they ask about my biggest weakness, as I can at least talk about what I have done to remedy my issues.

TL/DR: Spellcheck and Google (a godsend when you don't know which version of a homophone spelling is correct) are my friends.

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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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Og - I now have a postgraduate degree in SPLD (dyslexia) but wasn’t diagnosed until I was 50 years old. That diagnosis helped me a lot as I was able to ‘forgive’ myself and become confident in standing up for myself and other poor spellers.

I think your wife was wrong. If the paper wasn’t about spelling why mark down for it? When applying for a job get it read and re-read and re-read again. I was never impressed with poor applications when selecting for interview. Not because they couldn’t spell but because they hadn’t bothered to have it checked for them. One of the biggest skills and coping strategies with this condition is never to assume your writing passes muster.

[Smile]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686

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That teacher's "0 policy" seems rather draconian to me. I remember one high school teacher (history) reminding us, whenever he assigned an essay, "And remember - spelling and grammar count," to be met with plaintive cries of "Oh, sir!" (This is when essays were handwritten, so my OED was my spellcheck.) He wouldn't fail someone for poor spelling or grammar, but they certainly had an impact on the grade.

Funny thing is, I sometimes do editorial work. I'm very conscious of the few words that trip me up consistently. Fortunately, "syrup" doesn't often pop up in market reports, consulting analyses, etc.

[ 08. February 2018, 16:40: Message edited by: Pangolin Guerre ]

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Og, King of Bashan

Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Not because they couldn’t spell but because they hadn’t bothered to have it checked for them. One of the biggest skills and coping strategies with this condition is never to assume your writing passes muster.

This is definitely where I land. One of my wife's mantras is "don't be a 'c' student"- which is her way of saying, don't do any job in a way that clearly displays to anyone watching that you don't care about the final product and have other things you would rather be doing. For me, this means looking, looking again, googling homophones that spellcheck won't catch, and then having someone else look over it- something I couldn't have done during a pop quiz.

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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy

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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582

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quote:
Originally posted by Pangolin Guerre:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Though and through are thoroughly puzzling.

I'm derailing myself, here, but in a different pub conversation, a different friend of mine and I were discussing -ough. I'm missing two(?), but off the top of my head:
though (long o)
through (oo)
rough (uf)
cough (awf)
bough (ow)
thought (aw)

Of course, some regional and class accent differences.

thorough (uh)

This reminds me of when I lived in Milton Keynes. Three of the villages absorbed into the new town have names with -oughton at the end:

Broughton (B-raw-ton)
Loughton (L-ow-ton, 'ow' as in cow)
Woughton (Woof-ton)

These within a few miles of each other.

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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870

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quote:
Originally posted by Dormouse:
Bureaucracy would get me all of a tizz until I realised it was from the French (?) word bureau - and now, no problems!

Both of those always get me because the start of the word sounds the same as the start of 'beautiful'. So I instinctively think they should be spelled 'beaureau' and 'beaurocracy'. But because the 2nd letter is wrong, it never gets picked up by a spellchecker.

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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile

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Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
# 11770

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hiccough - up

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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Piglet
Islander
# 11803

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I'm one of the lucky ones - spelling never gave me any bother at all.

A couple of words I always have to think about though (especially if they appear as "down" clues in crossword puzzles):

necessary - I only sorted out the respective number of 'c's and 's's when I found out that the Latin word was "necesse". My Better Half (who went to an old-fashioned grammar school and studied Latin for far longer than I did) remembers it the technical way: one collar, two socks. [Big Grin]

rhythm - no matter where I put the first 'h', it doesn't look quite right.

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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music

Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged
ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346

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Re: necessary. A friend uses 'never eat chips eat salad sandwiches and remain young', if that's of any help.

Spellcheck can be useful, but never trust MS grammarcheck especially for fiction. It tried to correct the phrase 'the cock started crowing' to 'the clock started crowing' in something I was reading yesterday. I think it only accounts for a word on either side and so misses the sense of complicated sentences.

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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka

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Twilight

Puddleglum's sister
# 2832

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I think Egypt is simply beyond the pale.
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Pigwidgeon

Ship's Owl
# 10192

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I think one of the most difficult words is "occurrence" (I had a teacher who included it on almost every spelling quiz). It has three points which can trip you up: one "c" or two, one "r" or two, and does it end with "ence" or "ance"?

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jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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Benefit. Or is it benifit?

[ 09. February 2018, 06:30: Message edited by: jacobsen ]

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
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Dormouse

Glis glis – Ship's rodent
# 5954

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Actually I struggle with ressurrection - two ss? two rs? Argh.

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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941

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Privilege - I always have to think which way round the second 'i' and the 'e' go (though I note that I managed to spell it right first go that time!)

(I then managed to spell 'spell' wrong. Sigh...)

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Hedgehog

Ship's Shortstop
# 14125

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This morning I was struggling with "pigeon" primarily because I am a fan of old movies and I want to spell it "pidgeon." I blame Walter.

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713

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quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
This morning I was struggling with "pigeon" primarily because I am a fan of old movies and I want to spell it "pidgeon." I blame Walter.

You're not alone. There are lots of hampsters around too.

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(Paul Sinha, BBC)

Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
... few yachts are true yachts.

According to the Olympics, a windsurfer is a type of yacht.

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blog

Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Hedgehog

Ship's Shortstop
# 14125

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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
... few yachts are true yachts.

According to the Olympics, a windsurfer is a type of yacht.
It is nacht!

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

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We were taught in school that where there is a single consonant following a vowel the vowel should say its name, i.e. ay ee eye oh and yoo.

When the consonant is double, the preceding vowel has the short form.

Which is why I tend to spell shaddow with two ds. It has 'a' short a therefore a double consonant follows, them is the rules*.

It took me a long time to realise that constonant has no t. I always pronounced it that way, no one ever corrected me. As for February, I always got that right as I was taught to pronounce both rs.

===

[Grammar tangent]*I was not sure if 'they are' or 'those are' was correct, so as I was sure to be wrong... [/tangent]

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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

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quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
... few yachts are true yachts.

According to the Olympics, a windsurfer is a type of yacht.
It is nacht!
[Big Grin]

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Last ever sig ...

blog

Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Schroedinger's cat

Ship's cool cat
# 64

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quote:
Originally posted by Dormouse:
Actually I struggle with ressurrection - two ss? two rs? Argh.

Lots of people struggle with resurrection. Normally on a more philosophical level though.

Privelige is one that gets me too. I want ot put a 'd' in it, and can never work out whether it is -ege, -ige, -edge, or -idge. Or something else.

Of course, when typing I have a whole new set of issues. I think "hte" should be in the dictionary - I can spell it, I just can't type it.

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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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