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8 CATEGORIES OF COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS WITH INFOGRAPHICS

 COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS WITH INFOGRAPHICS

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Spelling sections in English proficiency examinations should be a cake walk once you master all the rules and disparities. You will learn 8 categories of some frequently misspelled words as a guide to perfect your spelling mastery in this write-up. In my previous articles, I have extensively discussed the basic rules of spellings as well as the differences between American and British English (regional variations). You might want to check them out if you haven’t. The titles below will redirect you👇

click 👉Basic spelling rules for beginners and advanced learners

click 👉 10 differences between American and British English everyone should know

What are the commonly misspelled words in English? What are the categories they belong to?

Category 1 
Double letter confusion (cc, mm, nn, ff, ll, rr, ss, zz, uu)

These words are often misspelled because writers either omit or add extra consonants or vowel letters.  The words have one or more consonant/ vowel  letter(s) and writers get confused identifying which letter is double and which is not.  In any case,  it is safe to know these words and internalise their unique patterns.  Words like accommodation,  embarrass, millennium, mozzarella,  and occurrence have two consonant letters doubled while committee has three letters doubled.  Others on the list have only one double letter. Consider the table below;

Accommodation

Forestall

Necessary

Commitment

Harass

Occasion

Committee

Logorrhoea

Occurrence

Effrontery

Millennium

Tomorrow

Embarrass

Mozzarella

Vacuum

Category  2 
Vowel confusion

These words contain unstressed vowels that are pronounced weakly (often as schwa /ə/), making the correct vowel difficult to identify. Typical errors: arguement, cemetry, intresting, seperate, etc. 

Examples

Adumbrate

Forty

Sincerely

Argument

Grievance

Somersault

Cemetery

Hindrance

Sustenance

Continuous

Mischievous

Truly

Fluorescent

Separate

Tarpaulin

Category 3 
Silent letters

These words are not pronounced the way they are spelled which creates a great deal of difficulty for the second language users and learners of English. Let’s consider the examples below;

Acquiesce

Conjunction

Indict

Rhythm

Acquiesce

Category 4
Foreign words

These words retain spelling patterns from other languages, which makes them difficult for English learners. These are words of French / Italian / German origin. Consider the examples below;

Bourgeoisie  (French)

Chiaroscuro  (Italian)

Bureaucracy  (French)

Cologne  (German)

Denouement  (French)

Mozzarella   (Italian)

Connoisseur  (French)

Chiaroscuro  (Italian)

Liaison  (French)

 

Category 5 
Classical languages

These words come from classical languages such as Greek and Latin and contain complex vowel clusters or consonant patterns.
Examples

Onomatopoeia (Ancient Greek)

Inoculate (Latin)

Logorrhoea (Ancient Greek)

Conjunctivitis (Latin/Greek)

Defibrillator (Latin)

Simile (Latin)

Category 6 
Words with Morphological Complexity

These words are often misspelled because they are derived from multiple roots or contain several affixes. For instance the word maintain is the root word of maintenance because the suffix -ance was added. You may simply conclude that maintain + ance = maintainance which is incorrect. check the box below for more examples;

Contingency

Remuneration

Prerogative

Sustenance

Procrastination

Maintenance

Category 7
Misrepresentation- pure misspelling

Condone mistaken for condole

Excited/Excitement confused with exict (a common misspelling)

Exercise confused with Excercise (a common misspelling)

Memento often confused with momento (a common misspelling)

Minuscule often confused with miniscule (a common misspelling)

Category 8
Frequently Confused Everyday Words

These are words that ESL/EFL learners and users use everyday and rely on their intuition when it comes to spelling. Most learners are even confident until proven otherwise by authoritative sources. Consider the examples below;

Surprise

Privilege

Refrigerator

Covenant

Supersede
I strongly believe that you have learnt a few things in this article. let me know if you have questions in the comment section. You can also drop comments of words commonly misspelled that you did not find in the blogpost. 

Cheers!
 


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