‘Separate’ is the most commonly misspelt word in the English language, according to a recently concluded study.
It was revealed by the study that the eight-letter word came on top of the list because of the regular placing of an ‘E’ where the first ‘A’ sits.
From in.news.yahoo.com:
The market research company www.OnePoll.com carried out the study of 3,500 Britons.
“There seem to be some words which we always struggle to get down onto paper, and ’separate’ is one of those which eludes us,” the Telegraph quoted the spokesperson of the company as saying.
“A common mistake many make is writing a word the way it sounds which leaves us muddling up one letter with another and getting it wrong.
“Fortunately, computers’ spell-check corrects wrongly spelt words for us, but that means we become lazy and never learn the correct spelling.
“There’s no excuse not to learn how words are formed – it’s drilled into us from such a young age and if the words are frequently used we should make a conscious effort to get it right next time.
“The fact we judge other people’s intelligence by their written word, yet don’t like to be judged ourselves, means we should all pick up a dictionary once in a while,” the spokesperson said.
It has also emerged that one in six people often spell words so incorrectly that their PC is unable to recognise the word. wo out of three admitted using spell-check on computers has made them lazy while writing letters or notes by hand.
The second word on the most commonly misspelt word in English language is ‘definitely‘.
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Tags: English language, intelligence, market research, Separate, writing
