A Theory

[gnomi]

It is my theory that everyone has a word or phrase that they consistently misspell and have to look up every time they want to use it in writing.

For me, it's "vice versa." I always want to spell it "vise versa," even that looks So Very Wrong. So I always end up looking it up.

So, do y'all have words you always have to look up?

Comments

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

affect/effect

Though that's not unusual.

[dpolicar]

soi-disant is the one I most often notice.

I also have trouble with consonant-doubling and non-doubling, in general. necessary, resuscitate, terrific, etc. I rarely actually look them up, so much as rely on built-in spellcheckers, but I often get them wrong.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh! I couldn't remember at first what my bugbears were, but looking at this, I'm pretty sure "resuscitate" is one of them. Resuescitate? Rescuscitate? Arrgh! Sometimes also "necessitate" (pesky single-or-double c).

[dpolicar]

IMnsHO, the proper spelling of "necessitate" is "require."

[cass1969.livejournal.com]

For me it's words like suspiscious and conscious.

(When I was taking my English exam in school I had a complete block on how to spell the word MY -- I sat for about ten minutes trying to work it out!)

[byrne.livejournal.com]

deja vu, among others. You get to see most of them. :))

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Let's see how many of these you already know:

Theory

Habituate

Reconcile

(Actually, if I start listing all the words I can't actually spell without assistance, you'll realize exactly WHY I live surrounded by dictionaries. Although I've had more than one client tell me I use words they didn't even know existed...)

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

It makes me very happy to see smart people do the same dumb thing I do. :)

[jadecat.livejournal.com]

occasion (occasionally)- I want to make the wrong letter double.

Vacuum. Same reason.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

millennium

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Sorcerer

I even misspelled it on an MIT G&S Players programme book once. :-(

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Bureaucracy. I am so incapable of spelling that word.

[dpolicar]

I had trouble with that one once. Oddly, I never had trouble with "bureau". So now I just spell it in stages.

Oh, I also have trouble with "-ent" vs "-ant".

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Weird. I'm getting a little better now, but I still want to spell it wierd.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"i before e, except after c or when pronounced 'ay' as in neighbor -- or when the word's 'weird'." That last clause has stood me in good stead a long time.

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

Yes!

Lisense
Liscense
Lisence
License

Every time.

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

Hell yeah! Me too!

[tmcay.livejournal.com]

"Privilege," and most "ambiguous hyphen" words ("online," "on-site," "nonemergency," etc.)

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Privilege

Oh yeah, that one makes me crazy too.

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

There are very very few words I can't spell correctly, assuming I've ever seen them before. The only one I need to consistently look up actually isn't English, which makes it more difficult to find, and it's hors d'oeuvres (I had to look it up, and then cut and paste it to get it in here).

[moneypenny.livejournal.com]

mustache. (GIMME AN O)

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

Necessary.
Decide.
Sense.
I always mess up the S and C thing when they are both used as sibilants.

Also Dependant, permanent, anything with an E or A that makes a general "eh" sound.

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Knowledge, grammar and computer.

Which, considering my job, is really sad!

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

Sherrif.

Sheriff.

Every time.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

Me too!

I also have problems with French words and phrases that are in common usage here. Drives my wife the former French major insane, but I just can't make sense of French.

Judgment is another bad one. I will put an "e" after that "g" every time. Makes Tarot work difficult sometimes.

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

I'm better now with "judgment", but I still look twice. And I'll never, ever type sheriff right the first time.

[glishara.livejournal.com]

Calendar! E's and A's. Go where?

[glishara.livejournal.com]

Oh, also! Consensus and Consensual. I always want to put in extra c's, or else spell it 'consentual'.

[sydmcginley.livejournal.com]

vicious and viscous
and as a Brit in the USA I'm always getting my z and s choices muddled up.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

My spell checker keeps trying to correct me when I want to spell a word the British way (either for reasons of a character, or sometimes to piss people off, or most often just because I forgot which way I was spelling it.) behaviour, etc....

[sydmcginley.livejournal.com]

I have my home computer set to default to UK spelling and my office one to USA. I do TRY to be good at work...

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

*cackles* Makes sense. Work is work, after all... although I'd be willing to be the occasional misbehaviour might occur. :-D By the way, I LOVE the goth kitty userpic. I want one. (she says from under her Hello Kitty blanket;-)

[sydmcginley.livejournal.com]

If I'm good for long enough at work, I can sneak by an Evil Britism. Heeeh.
I've blown it for a while by using thrice and fortnight. Oh well

I have my Hello Kitty pencil bag that my sister sent for Christmas and dared me to use.
cass1969 made my user pic for me!

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I tend to mess up on some words that are spelled differently in American and British, especially those that end in -ize/-ise (-or/-our doesn't trip me up, probably because it's often mentioned as the stereotypical spelling difference). Learning lots of vocabulary from reading can have weird side effects if one doesn't note which version of a language one is reading.

[cellio]

liaison (way too freaking many vowels all together)

-able versus -ible, sometimes (deductible? deductable?)

propagate

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's any specific word like that... but I can't spell out loud, I need to write the word down so I can see it.

[sydmcginley.livejournal.com]

That's me! I'd so suck at a spelling bee.
I used to be embarrassed when my students would ask me to spell a word, but now I just explain I have to write. Sometimes, I can get away with imaginary keyboarding to spell.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of potential for me to screw up words, but often my internal spellchecker goes off before the computer one. Business is one of my hated words, as are some other basic ones, whereas the more complex the word, the more likely I am to know how to spell it correctly. (antidisestablishmentarianism, for example. ;-)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Orrery
Syzygy (I keep wanting to add an "s" before the "z")


I used to have trouble with "parallel" before I learned the mnemonic about parallel lines in its middle.

Sometimes I have trouble with words that end in "-er" vs "-or", primarily because clients at work tends to use incorrect "-or" spellings (but they're investment bankers, so what do they know about spelling?) -- but it sinks in against one's will. :-(