A. Commonly Misspelled Words
Here are some of the reasons people misspell words.
Mispronunciation
Mispronunciation is known to be one of the most common causes of misspelling. Hence, phonetic misspelling is common, once a word is mispronounced; for example, the word “realize” may be misspelled as “relize”.
Typing errors
Some spelling errors are introduced because people’s typing isn’t perfect, such as
- letters are doubled, or more frequently double letters tripled, such as “betwween” and “betweeen”
- letters are singled, such as “betwen”
- keys are transposed, so “because” becomes “becuase”.
Some of the errors listed may be due to mistyping rather than ignorance, for example “solider” for “soldier”.
These misspellings can also happen in handwritten text.
Examples of commonly misspelled words are seen in the table below
| CORRECT SPELLING | COMMON MISSPELLING |
| Absence | Absense |
| Accidentally | Accidentaly, Acidentally |
| Accommodate | Accomodate, Acommodate |
| Acknowledge | Acknowlege, Aknowledge |
| Acquaintance | Acquaintence, Aquaintance |
| Acquit | Aquit |
| Advisable | Adviseable |
| Aggression | Aggresion, Agression |
| Annually | Annualy, Anually |
| Atheist | Athiest |
| Buoyant | Bouyant |
| Camouflage | Camoflage, Camoflague |
| Caribbean | Carribean |
| Committed | Commited, Comitted |
| Conscientious | Consciencious |
| Conscious | Consciuos |
| Consensus | Concensus |
| Disappoint | Disapoint |
| Drunkenness | Drunkeness |
| Disastrous | Disasterous |
| Embarrass | Embarass |
| Fascinating | Facinating |
| Fulfil | Fullfil |
| Gauge | Guage |
| Grateful | Gratefull, Greatful |
| Harass | Harrass |
| Hierarchy | Heirarchy |
| Humorous | Humerous |
| Inoculate | Innoculate |
| Intelligence | Inteligence |
| Leisure | Liesure |
| Liaison | Liason |
| Maintenance | Maintainance, Maintnance |
| Millennium | Millenium, Milennium |
| Misspell | Mispell, Misspel |
| Necessary | Neccessary |
| Neighbor | Nieghbor |
| Occasion | Occassion |
| Occurrence | Ocurrence, Occurrence |
| Omission | Ommission, Omision |
| Personnel | Personel |
| Perseverance | Perseverence |
| Plagiarize | Plagerize |
| Playwright | Playright |
| Possession | Posession, Possesion |
| Privilege | Privelege, Priviledge |
| Pronunciation | Pronounciation |
| Questionnaire | Questionaire |
| Referred | Refered |
| Repetition | Repitition |
| Rhythm | Rythm |
| Separate | Seperate |
| Skillful | Skilfull, Skilful |
| Successful | Sucessful, Successfull, Succesful |
| Supersede | Supercede |
| Surprise | Suprise |
B. Idioms
An idiom is a commonly used expression whose meaning does not relate to the literal meaning of its words. A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. An idiom’s figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. There are thousands of idioms, and they occur frequently in all languages.
Examples of Idiomatic Expressions
1. She is pulling my leg – To pull someone’s leg means to trick them by telling them something untrue.
Literal meaning is physical pulling of the leg is quite different from the figurative expression.
2. Wow! It’s raining cats and dogs out there – It is raining heavily.
Literal meaning is instead of water from the rain we have cats and dogs which isn’t possible.
3. That shoe costs an arm and a leg. – an arm and a leg means something is very expensive
4. Every cloud has a silver lining – Be optimistic, even difficult times will lead to better days.
5. Oh no! You spilled the beans! – to spill the beans means to let out a secret.
Practice:
Find the meanings of these idioms
1. Tolu let the cat out of the bag
2. I warned you not to put all your eggs in one basket
3. I perceive there is a method to his madness
4. Hmmmm!!! Speak of the devil
5. Mr Mashana has kicked the bucket
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