There are a few words in the English language which are notoriously tricky to spell. In some cases, there are tricks and conventions that make it easier to remember the spellings. However, other instances will require you to simply learn the spelling of the word through practise. So, we’re going to take a look at a few words that are frequently misspelled.
Examples of Commonly Misspelled Words – Improve your writing skills
Here are a few words that are often misspelled:
- Advice
- Definite
- Necessary
- Pronunciation
- Profession
- Unnecessary
- Sufficient
- Mischievous
- Presence
- Ridiculed
- Criticised
- Immediate
Some of these spellings can be remembered using common conventions. So, let’s take a look at some of them now.
Prefixes and Suffixes – Commonly Misspelled Words
These are collections of letters which are assigned to the beginning or end of certain words. So, a prefix comes before the word, while a suffix comes at the end of it. Therefore, prefixes and suffixes are added onto pre-existing words to change their tense or usage.
Prefixes – Commonly Misspelled Words
A prefix is added to the beginning of a root word in order to create a new word.
(PRE = before)
Prefixes generally act in a straight-forward manner. So, words with an added prefix will always remain unchanged in spelling. For example, when “appropriate” becomes “inappropriate,” the prefix ‘in-’ is added but the spelling remains unchanged.
Prefixes often make the root word have an opposite meaning. For example, adding the prefix ‘in-’ to ‘active’ makes it take the opposite meaning. ‘Active’ becomes ‘inactive’.
Suffixes – Commonly Misspelled Words
A suffix is added to the end of a root word in order to create a new word.
In many cases, words don’t undergo major changes when adding a suffix, but other words have to be spelt slightly differently. For example, when ‘appropriate’ becomes ‘appropriately’, the only change is the addition of the suffix ‘-ly’. However, when ‘exaggerate’ becomes ‘exaggerating’, the suffix ‘-ing’ is added but the ‘e’ at the end of the word is removed.
Double Consonants – Commonly Misspelled Words
Words which contain double consonants are among the most difficult to learn and are often incorrectly spelt by plenty of people. So, this is mainly because there are no clear patterns you can discern from them. Therefore, you will need to learn each double consonant word individually, because there are no simple rules to follow.
- Alliteration
- Irreplaceable
- Approximate
- Disappointing
- Professional
- Embarrass
- Intermittent
- Beginning
- Gorilla
- Tomorrow
- Appreciate
- Belligerent
- Anniversary
- Intelligent
- Pressure
- Communicate
As you can see, there aren’t any clear patterns which form to make memorable rules. In particular, be careful for words which use multiple sets of double consonants, such as ‘accommodate’ and ‘embarrass.’ In these cases, two sets of consonants are double, but other words do not follow this rule. Therefore, both “gorilla” and “dilemma” have a single pair of consonants which follows from a single consonant.
