Spelling Test
Published by marco on
This isn’t really humor, per se, but it’s a sort of game.
In this age of hastily-typed emails, chat messages and online posts, we’re exposed more and more often to the grammatical shortcomings of others as well as common spelling errors. Mindy McAdams has published an excellent spelling test for American English.
<q>I compiled a list from many sources and edited it to 50 commonly misspelled words, making my choices based on my 11 years of experience as a copy editor. … The spellings considered correct are American spellings (because I’m an American). The preferred spelling will differ in the British Commonwealth in some cases (at least one that I’m sure of). … “Variants” listed in your dictionary are not correct — they are variants. That means people use them — they are not preferred by educated editors. Ain’t is also in your dictionary — that does NOT mean it’s correct. </q>
It’s an excellent test with many difficult words. Some of the spellings both look so good that in repeated tests, I’ve gotten different words wrong each time (which, of course, means I’m guessing on some). I’ve taken the test 5 times, on 5 different days.
This isn’t really humor, per se, but it’s a sort of game.
In this age of hastily-typed emails, chat messages and online posts, we’re exposed more and more often to the grammatical shortcomings of others as well as common spelling errors. Mindy McAdams has published an excellent spelling test for American English.
<q>I compiled a list from many sources and edited it to 50 commonly misspelled words, making my choices based on my 11 years of experience as a copy editor. … The spellings considered correct are American spellings (because I’m an American). The preferred spelling will differ in the British Commonwealth in some cases (at least one that I’m sure of). … “Variants” listed in your dictionary are not correct — they are variants. That means people use them — they are not preferred by educated editors. Ain’t is also in your dictionary — that does NOT mean it’s correct. </q>
It’s an excellent test with many difficult words. Some of the spellings both look so good that in repeated tests, I’ve gotten different words wrong each time (which, of course, means I’m guessing on some). I’ve taken the test 5 times, on 5 different days.
- 10 wrong (didn’t record the words)
- 4 wrong (accommodate, embarrassment, anoint, supersede)
- 3 wrong (desperate, occurrence, sacrilegious)
- 1 wrong (indispensable)
- None wrong