Scooper Grammar Tips: Why You Find It Hard To Spell Some Words

Scooper Grammar Tips: Why You Find It Hard To Spell Some Words

Scooper Grammar Tips | Dec. 03, 2018

Not everyone find a set of words hard to spell but lots of people do! We are here to tackle some words that make us feel like we missed out on our English classes. This week for instance, I struggled with "Schedule" As crazy as that sounds. I would always seek auto correct to help me.

Why? 

The English language has many combinations of letters that you see often. For example, CH, EI, IE and others can be particularly confusing for English learners. This is because these combinations may be pronounced differently in different words or not pronounced at all! E.g. Achieve (to accomplish, get something done) 

Common misspellings of “achieve” include acheive, acheve, archieve and even achiev. 

Another reason is ‘Double Consonants’. These can be even more challenging. With words in these group, the difficult thing to spell are the double consonants.

Thirdly, word may change its meaning depending on how you spell it.

These words sound absolutely the same, but are spelled differently depending on their meaning.

And finally, some words are just difficult.

You may have trouble spelling the examples above, but the words below are just hard, period. Even native English speakers have a problem spelling some words

Below are words that can be hard too.

 

Liaison (liason)

Both liaison and liaise boast that tricky triple vowel, a gift from French.

Convalesce (convalece)

The -sce ending in convalesce is a spelling difficulty that crops in several English words that have a Latin origin, including acquiesce, coalesce, and incandesce.

Supersede (supercede)

Derived from the Latin word “supersedere” this word is frequently misspelled as supercede thanks to the influence of words like accede and intercede.

Ecstasy (ecstacy)

Ecstasy may turn to despair when you realize that you’ve assumed that the ‘c’ at the start of ecstasy makes a later reappearance.

Caribbean (Carribean, Caribean)

The Caribbean tropics may seem slightly less alluring once you realize how much trouble you have spelling this name.

Harass (harrass)

While harass may have two different pronunciations, it doesn’t have two r’s!

Maintenance (maintainence)

Although maintenance often implies the maintaining of something, the word does not have maintain in it.

Pronunciation (pronounciation)

Even though the verb form of this word is pronounce, the noun – pronunciation – does not have that ‘o’ in the middle. Before writing the word out, you might try saying both pronunciation and pronounce out loud and hear the difference yourself.

Arctic (Artic)

Although the pronunciation without the ‘c’ sound is considered acceptable, the spelling still requires that the ‘c’ be present. (The same goes for Antarctica.)

Occurred (ocurred, occured)

Make sure that you double both the ‘c’ and the ‘r’ when you use the past tense of occur! Many verbs ending in a single ‘r’ will take a double ‘r’ in the past tense, such as recur, blur, and refer.

 

Share with us words that are problematic for you to spell.

By Etim