Talk:Commonly misspelled English words

Talk
This is the talk-page for article: Commonly misspelled words.

Created
The article "Commonly misspelled words" was created by long-term user Wikid77 on 23-Dec-2008, to present a short, documented list of commonly misspelled words in English, rather than amass a gigantic list of non-notable, might-be-misspelled guesses. If the words were to be expanded and listed in the thousands, then the notability of the data would become questionable, as bordering on being an indiscriminate collection of massive data. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Use for redirecting misspellings
23-Dec-2008: The article can be used as a redirection catch-all for some of the misspelled words. In December 2008, many misspelled titles were redirected to specific articles, as though those misspellings were somehow acceptable variants of encyclopedic titles, such as "Germeny" being redirected to "Germany". It would be preferable to have a redirection-dialog (as is done by Merriam-Webster Online), to properly redirect misspelled words, such as:
 * "Germeny" - allow choice: "Germs" or "Germiness" or "Germany" etc.

If a reader requests "Readible" then redirecting to this article (about misspelling "readable") would be a logical interim action, until a redirection-dialog can be created to better decode "readible" as a requested topic.

Google indexes redirections as duplicate webpages
23-Dec-2008: In 2008, Google continued to index each Wikipedia redirected title as a duplicate webpage: "Germeny" could become an entire article in Google cache. Then, if other terms were redirected as Germny, Germanie, Gernamy, Germenie, then all those could also become duplicate whole-page copies indexed by Google. It is better to redirect them, all, to a small article about misspelt words, rather than repeat the huge Germany article for each spelling.

Hopefully, Google could make some Google-indexing fixes to stop these duplications for Wikipedia, but it is a complicated subject, due to how Google elevates pagerank for webpage title words in URLs (such as "Germeny"). Plus, we shouldn't talk about how Google ranks pages, because it is their secret to stop spammers from eclipsing Wikipedia pages with hundreds of adware-pages. (Rogue ad-pages could make a Wikipedia page list as 300th in search-results.)

Anyway, Google indexes Wikipedia's 2.7 million articles as over 3.7 million Google pages. I'm thinking, that the duplicate-page problem could become a massive nightmare as Wikipedia is expanded into a mature, real-world compendium. Anyway, if misspelled words must be re-directed, then I suggest to point them to small generic articles (such as "Other names for Germany"), rather than large article pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Keep or Delete?
Keep as I find the article useful. Tabletop (talk) 09:28, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Keep
I say Keep Too. Animllover11 (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I am improving the quality of a large program's source code by fixing grammar and spelling errors there. I find the list useful as a hint about what to search for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.107.164.162 (talk) 03:44, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Untagging for Wiktionary dict
04-Jan-2008: I have untagged the article for automatic transfer into Wiktionary, because the scope is far too large to be considered a dictionary/definition concern. In recent days, other editors have expanded the article to include common causes of the misspelled words, so the scope of the article is too encyclopedic (too all-encompassing) to be treated as a dictionary term that includes only a simple origin of the phrase. Dictionaries include how a term is used, but not an extensive analysis of why a term exists. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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 * What does this have to do with this article on common misspellings? 68.208.127.65 (talk) 21:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Proofreading needed
It looks like "quarantine" is misspelled here. That is, assuming that the left column of the two is supposed to be the correct spelling.--24.240.40.214 (talk) 18:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Unusual spelling.
February is misspelled several ways (Febuary; Feburary; Febraury; etc.)

A new misspelling is Fabruary for which there were 22 matches.

Tabletop (talk) 04:27, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Frequency counts of misspelled words
It would be useful to have a list of words used by wiki sorted by frequency with low counts first. Low frequency words are more likely to be misspellings compared to high frequency words. Consider these variations of the word president:


 * presdet - 0
 * presidet - 0
 * prosident - 1
 * prusident - 1
 * pesident - 1
 * presient - 1
 * presedint - 1
 * presidnet - 3
 * presdent - 5
 * prsident - 8
 * persident - 8
 * Präsident - 163 - German language for president
 * president - 257,257
 * prasident - need to check
 * there may be other variations which have yet to be found.
 * the frequency counts include redirects, and archived pages, which do not need to be corrected.

Tabletop (talk) 04:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC) Tabletop (talk) 04:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
The project page Lists of common misspellings appears to do much the same as this present article. It seems to me it might be more useful to merge these two pages together. I have not posted a formal merge proposal at either page.

I am posting a note on both talk pages, requesting discussion at Wikipedia talk:Lists of common misspellings - not here - as apparently being the more active of the two. (I've also posted a mini-essay on sources for spelling generally, which I hope may be useful, immediately above that Merge proposal section. Comments and discussion there will be welcomed.) Milkunderwood (talk) 10:27, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Consider adding

 * the — teh
 * definition — defenition
 * persistent — persistant
 * dependent — dependant
 * already — allready
 * appropriate — apropriate
 * relative — reletive
 * approximate — aproximate
 * choose — chose
 * necessary — necesary
 * unnecessary — unecessary
 * redundant — redunant
 * targeting — targetting
 * a — an (ie., an user)
 * n — a (ie., a urgent call) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.13.191 (talk) 04:59, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Do the suggestions meet the criteria set forth in the editing guideline comment for the list? BTW, the last two are grammatical errors, not misspellings.  Tide  rolls  14:12, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Affect vs Effect
This would be the wrong choice, not an incorrect spelling - as both words exist, have related meanings and are derivatives but many people confuse them. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * These are in fact misspellings:
 * Effect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion
 * Affect is a result or change of something
 * Tucapl (talk) 22:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved to Commonly misspelled English words. There appears to be consensus to include "English" in the title, but no clear consensus on whether or not to call it a list. Whether or not to dabify the previous title I leave to someone else to be bold about. --BDD (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Commonly misspelled words → List of commonly misspelled English words – I think there's an article that could be written on the concept of words that are frequently misspelled, simply as an encyclopedic topic, not as a list. However, the current article would be much better as a list; additionally, it has the problem that it only deals with misspellings in English. While these are the misspellings that are probably of greatest interest to our readers, there's no reason we couldn't have articles on common misspellings in other languages. The current title is therefore misleading, as this article isn't really about common misspellings—rather, it's a list of them—and it represents a non-international view of the subject. Relisted. BDD (talk) 17:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)  — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  23:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Support addition of English per nom In ictu oculi (talk) 01:21, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The article certainly starts off as a list but there is a significant amount of non-list material (albeit largely unsourced) following the list. How about "Commonly misspelled English words" to accurately reflect the article's scope?  —  AjaxSmack   02:12, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * That wording does allow coverage of English words in non-English languages that are misspelled (such as Engrish found in Japanese-language signage) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:23, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The word "English" is completely unneeded. What would it be, a list of misspelled German words? If we do have lists of misspelled foreign words, those articles are the only ones that need to specify the language, or group of languages. Apteva (talk) 02:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "What would it be, a list of misspelled German words?" I suppose it could be.  (Note that the corresponding Cantonese article is about English misspellings, not Cantonese ones.  The German article is about German misspellings and its title specifies this.)  I did not mention WP:BIAS as the nominator did because WP:BIAS would call for expanding the article text to cover other languages, not renaming the article.  Including the word "English" would serve both to clarify the article's content and proscribe irrelevant additions.  But I agree that it is hardly a pressing problem. —  AjaxSmack   03:13, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, my thought was that perhaps, if the article is moved, someone could create a new article on "commonly misspelled words" as a scholarly topic: How certain misspellings eventually become the standard ones; how certain languages see them frequently, and some see them almost never; research on whether speakers of languages where misspellings are frequent are more likely to be dyslexic; research on whether the dawn of the Internet has made people worse at spelling; etc. Really, maybe the answer is that the "misspellings" section of the spelling article should be split off into its own page. Regardless, I agree with you that WP:BIAS doesn't play as major a role in the smaller question of whether this article should be moved. My point is that, just because this edition of Wikipedia is written in English, that doesn't mean our articles should assume that English is somehow the "default" language. P.S., once things are cleared up here I'm going to split the Wikidata item up, since, as you noted, the German article isn't really on the same topic is this one. I encountered a similar problem a few weeks ago with Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show) and its international versions, where most languages only had articles on their local version, leading to a lot of confusion... I wound up splitting one item into something like a dozen other ones. Basically the same principle here.  —  PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  03:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I would support a move if there was a split and case can be made for such a split. —  AjaxSmack  04:20, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Alternate List of English words commonly misspelled in English or List of words commonly misspelled in English. Since this is about usage in English. Of course, several words that are not English, but used in English are also misspelled, so the longer title takes care of that aspect. English words can also be featured in other languages, where they can be misspelled, which is why "in English" is better. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Or if this shouldn't say "list of", then English words commonly misspelled in English or Words commonly misspelled in English -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Please. Only use "English" once per the former wording of WP:PRECISION ("Be precise, but only as precise as necessary.") —  AjaxSmack   04:20, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It is as precise as necessary that we would use it twice. Using it once would leave ambiguity as to whether we are covering foreign non-English words that appear in English and are misspelled. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:22, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Any ambiguity at that level is best dealt with in the intro, not the title. —  AjaxSmack  15:24, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, that's actually a very complicated topic... is it a misspelling to say resumé instead of résumé, or is it an alternate spelling? When the French say mél for e-mail, are they misspelling "mail"? I agree with AjaxSmack that such additional precision would be unnecessary. — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  14:30, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose. First off, I believe there is enough non-list content such that the article need not have the "List of" designation.  Secondly, while indubitably "Commonly misspelled English words" is more precise, in general I'll take the concise title that basically get the point across.  We don't need to specify every last detail in the title.  Now, if there was theoretically a split between a "theory of why words are commonly misspelled" article and a "List of actual words commonly misspelled in English" article, sure, name the first the current title and the second the proposed title.  But I highly doubt such a split would make sense; these articles should clearly be merged back together.  SnowFire (talk) 08:32, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong support per WP:PLURAL. I can't think of a way to write the article in non-list form. Red Slash 09:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Relisting comment There are a lot of alternatives floating around there. If everyone could be clear about what they do and do not support, it will help the closer make the right decision. --BDD (talk) 17:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Clarify : Support English, Neutral on List - I have just created Commonly misspelled words in German (mainly to link to the German article admittedly) but also in response to above comment. Other languages do have mispellings, it's just that English is a particularly bad case. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:28, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment then this current title would become a disambiguation page? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:29, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Probably, and Commonly misspelled words in French and Lists of common misspellings should be added to such a dab. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Clarify: I see the "English" bit as more important than the "List" bit. While I still propose adding both, if we can't get a consensus on the latter, so be it. I definitely wouldn't want a lack of consensus in that regard to prevent a consensus on the "English" part. — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  22:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Strange misspellings

 * Sometimes words are misspelled so strangely that one would never guess. These misspellings are often one-off typographical errors, for example: "sucseessor" for "successor".

If a spelling is strange then it can't be common. I removed the section. Tucapl (talk) 22:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 *  — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  22:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Mass missplelling "Conciousness" should be "consciousness" about 30 times in WP unless a direct quote
76.170.88.72 (talk) 05:59, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Wether
A wether is a castrated male sheep.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:25, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Collectible &Collectable
Both are correct ... http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/collectable Happy sage (talk) 09:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Prescriptive linguistics
Can we specify that this article is written from a prescriptivist perspective? Not doing so reinforces the idea that there are objectively "correct" and "incorrect" spellings. In reality, spelling changes just like other aspects of language, and that isn't incorrect. Any common spelling is not a misspelling, by its very definition. Borders are imaginary (talk) 23:44, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In the context of this article, "prescriptive linguistics" is undue editorializing. Since there is no academy whose charter includes prescribing the norms of English orthography (or diction, usage, or grammar) good luck finding reliable sourcing for such a claim.


 * This article lists words described by cognizant lexicographers as commonly misspelled. A misspelling being "common" (a subjective notion, as the article points out) does not make it acceptable to careful writers of English. For example, I have seen "equiptment" often enough in the wild that it does not surprise me, but there is no way to justify calling it an accepted spelling, nor is it appropriate to predict that it will become one in the future. Just plain Bill (talk) 12:25, 25 December 2019 (UTC)


 * A spelling being common among native speakers is exactly what makes it correct. "Careful" writers don't necessarily care about prescriptivism, nor do they have any more right to write in any language than anyone else. Borders are imaginary (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Borders are imaginary, can you try to convince me you're not just here to troll? Drmies (talk) 02:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * If an article is based upon an incorrect premise, that should be pointed out. I see a double standard here. Why should the article be allowed to judge others who spell certain ways but criticizing this is "trolling"? Borders are imaginary (talk) 21:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Your concern that the article is "judging" some "others" seems unwarranted. Where in the article do you see judgemental language? This is Wikipedia. If the article is based on an incorrect premise, as you say, then there will be reliable sources to be found to back up that assertion.
 * I see equivocation here, between slightly different uses of "common". The word means something different in "common among competent speakers" than it does in "common misspellings." One may indeed make it correct, while the other simply means that competent writing is less prevalent than might be desired. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:58, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Homophones
Could the homophones section list what words those listed are often confused with? I've been trying to work out what they're supposed to be, and it's not obvious!

Here are my guesses so far:


 * advice: ???
 * affect: effect
 * artic: maybe "arctic"? only an approximate homophone
 * aweful: offal (also, this is an obsolete spelling, it's now usually "awful")
 * breath: maybe "breadth"? again, only approximate
 * calender: calendar
 * capital: capitol
 * dose: maybe "does" (plural of "doe", not the form of "do")? only approximate
 * its: it's
 * lightening: lightning
 * loose: maybe "lose"? only approximate
 * loosing: maybe "losing"? only approximate
 * planing: plaining
 * principal: principle
 * rime: rhyme
 * soldier: ???
 * stoping: ??? probably a fairly common misspelling of "stopping", but that's not a homophone
 * they're: their
 * wether: whether; weather
 * you're: your

—&#123;&#123;u&#124;Goldenshimmer&#125;&#125; (they/them)｜Talk｜Contributions 22:43, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I see a lot of "advise" in the wild where "advice" would be appropriate, but that's not a homophone in any form of English familiar to me.
 * "Reign" has been my bête noire for a while now, as in "*reign in" or "free *reign." Hypercorrection just to seem fancy, or simple confusion? You be the judge. Just plain Bill (talk) 23:08, 27 March 2020 (UTC)