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It can be useful to classify spelling mistakes according to their likely cause
THE VALUE OF ANALYZING SPELLING MISTAKES
The inconsistency of English spelling rules means that spelling mistakes by learners of the language are inevitable and even necessary. Fortunately, most are temporary, disappearing as we become more aware of the rules and more familiar with the correct spellings through reading. The few mistakes that persist long enough to become deeply ingrained and hard to overcome usually do so as a result of more than just the inconsistency of the rules.
Strategies for eliminating mistakes of this kind are well established. It is always useful to have your writing looked over by a friend, tutor or spellcheck in order to identify or confirm your weaknesses. After becoming aware of a particular spelling that you always struggle with, you will probably benefit from noting it and making a conscious effort to memorise it (see 202. Some Strategies for Learning English).
I believe that acquiring an understanding of the deeper reasons behind language errors is one way of helping them to be remembered and consciously tackled. In this post I wish to present a variety of spelling error types and show how each one links together a group of commonly-misspelt words. The approach is similar to that in 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs, 144. Words that are Often Heard Wrongly and 170. Logical Errors in Written English.
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TYPES OF SPELLING MISTAKE CAUSE
Each of the following seems to explain a variety of spelling mistakes.
1. Silent Consonants
Although this is a surprisingly widespread phenomenon in English (see 155. Silent Consonants), spelling mistakes resulting from it seem quite rare – indeed pronunciation errors, such as pronouncing both “b”s in bombing, seem more likely.
Common spelling mistakes involving silent consonants include *caracter, *enviroment and *wether, which respectively lack “h”, “n” and “h” again.
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2. Spelling of another Word
There are various ways in which a spelling mistake can be caused by the spelling of another word. One is the topic of the entire Guinlist post 41. Unexpected Vowels in Derived Words, a survey of words that are not spelt as one would expect when familiar with words of very similar meaning and spelling.
An example of a word that is spelt as the spelling of a related word would suggest is the noun improvement; it merely adds to the base spelling of the verb improve without altering it. By contrast, the noun made from maintain is not *maintainance but maintenance, and is easily misspelt as a result. There is nothing predictable about this base spelling change: you just have to know it. Other commonly misspelled words that probably have this cause include procedure, pronunciation and height.
A slightly different problem within the same category is with the -ing form of WRITE, writing. It is not irregular or illogical in any way, but is very commonly misspelt with a double “t” *writting. The single “t” is regular in that it follows the general rule for adding -ing or -ed to a verb, namely no consonant doubling if the vowel before has a “long” pronunciation. This vowel in writing has the long /aɪ/ pronunciation. Consonant doubling is necessary only when the vowel before -ing is “short”, such as /ɪ/ in sitting. For lists of long and short English vowel sounds, see 248. When to Double a Consonant.
The cause of the spelling mistake, I think, is the influence of the related word written. The double “tt” there is necessary because the vowel before it, though spelt the same as in writing, is pronounced differently: with a short /ɪ/ instead of the long /aɪ/. For more examples like this, see 97. Verb Form Confusions.
The word title is also frequently written with “tt” despite the preceding “i” being long. I suspect that here the influence comes from the completely different word little, which of course has /ɪ/ instead of /aɪ/. There are a few other common confusions that result from the existence of two completely different words with similar spellings. Examples are complement vs. compliment, principle vs. principal (see 48. Tricky Word Contrasts 1), stationary vs. stationery and underlie vs. underline (see 81. Tricky Word Contrasts 2, #6). It can be hard to remember which of the spellings belongs to which meaning, with consequent spelling errors.
Other common errors that may be caused by similar-looking words include dropped “h” from whether, reversal of the final -se in categorise and “e” instead of the first “a” in separate. Although the incorrect spelling *wether could just be a result of the earlier-mentioned “silent” nature of the “h”, it could also be influenced by the spelling of weather. The problem with categorise could be the fact that the -ies ending exists in the plural form of the noun category. The incorrect spelling *seperate could be influenced by the spelling of desperate. These two spellings differ because they are derived from different Latin verbs: se-parate and de-sperate.
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3. Variable Spellings of the Same Word Ending
Three word endings that vary in their spelling are -sion/-tion, -able/-ible and -ent/-ant. Choosing the right spelling with the first of these need not always be a problem because some fairly clear rules exist, for example that verbs with a final -d, such as suspend, become nouns with -sion like suspension (see 249. Action Noun Endings). However, the other two endings are less predictable – one often has to know Latin or a modern language derived from it, especially French, to choose correctly.
There is, however, one strategy, particularly with -ent/-ant, that just depends on knowing English. This is to consider the spelling and pronunciation of related words in the hope that they might give a clue. For example, the need for -ent with different is obvious if you are familiar with the pronunciation of differential. For lists of words with -ent and -ant, see 172. Multi-Use Suffixes, #5 and #6.
Adjectives ending in -able or -ible are often a useful alternative to a passive verb (see 27. How to Avoid Passive Verbs). Examples with -able are advisable, changeable, culpable, knowable, predictable, recognisable, readable and understandable. Dropping -able tends to leave a recognisable English verb. Words with -ible include divisible, gullible, intelligible, possible, tangible and visible.
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4. Words that Break Spelling Rules
English spelling, despite the many problems that it gives, does actually follow some rules. One of the best-known is “i” before “e” except after “c”. However, this has the problem that there are many exceptions. The exceptions seem to be where mistakes in the positioning of “i” and “e” are most likely. Problem words include foreign, height, weight and seize. Also notable are achieve, believe and niece, which all follow the rule but are often misspelt. Perhaps in the first one the “ch” is wrongly considered to be “c”.
A different spelling rule may explain the common mistake of writing a single “r” in occurred. The rule is the above-mentioned one about not doubling a consonant after a long vowel when adding -ing or -ed. It indicates that there should be a single “r” in occurred because the “u” has the long sound /з/. However, the rule is not kept with this particular word. The same happens with recurred, referred, preferred and transferred.
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5. Double Consonants in Long Words
It seems fairly easy to notice when a word contains a double consonant. Moreover, if the word is short, like putting, normally there is also no difficulty in deciding where that double consonant should be placed. In longer words, however, multiple possible locations for a double consonant become likely, and remembering which is the right one can be difficult.
The following words are all able to cause uncertainty about where their double consonant occurs. A consonant in each that is sometimes wrongly doubled is capitalised: beGinning, diSappear, neCessary, occaSion, proFessor, reCommend and reFerred.
In a few other words, there are two double consonants, and the error is making one of them single. The cause could be the rareness of such combinations. Common examples are accommodation, embarrass, occurred, possession, reConnaissance and successful.
For some advice on when consonants need to be doubled, see 248. When to Double a Consonant.
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6. Immediately-Repeated Syllable Spellings
When all or some of the same spelling is repeated in successive syllables in a word, we sometimes seem to miss the repetition and think there is only a single occurrence. A commonly misspelt word with this characteristic is beginning. The repeated letters are underlined. The typical misspelling is *beging. Other examples are:
labo(u)rers, commonly misspelt as *labo(u)rs.
maintaining and containing, commonly misspelt as *maintaing and *containg .
possesses, commonly misspelt as *posses.
In the first of these, although -or and -er are not identical spellings, they have identical pronunciation.
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7. Unusual Letter Sequences
This phenomenon is probably a factor in the frequent misspelling of foreign as *foreing. The last three letters -ign are of course in most other words ordered to make -ing. A further element in this mistake may be the “silent” nature of the “g”.
The last two letters of centre, manoeuvre, sceptre and metre are in a similarly unusual (actually French) order. However, reversing their spelling is not a spelling mistake but merely a switch from British to American English!
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8. Spellings in another Language
I myself was once caught out by this potential influence, writing *paradeigm instead of paradigm. I was taking my spelling from Ancient Greek, a language I had studied at university, without realising that English had subtly altered its spelling.
Two errors common among French speakers, because of the way the equivalent words are spelt in French, are a double “s” in resources and *a mean instead of a means. Spanish speakers need to be vigilant in order not to replace “t” with “c” in -tion words.
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9. Words with a Difficult Pronunciation
Struggling to pronounce a word correctly often causes no spelling problem, but there are exceptions. For example, many speakers of East African languages find it difficult to pronounce the /ɪ/ sound in the middle of longish words like discipline, hesitate, municipal, president and studying, with the result that sometimes the corresponding letter is dropped from the spelling.
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