Everyone has at least one or two words that they will always have to look up how to spell. For some it’s because they may have never been properly taught how to spell as a child, while others it may be because they type/write so fast that they don’t stop and take the time out of the creative flow to make corrections. For many, misspelling words is a combination of things.

Whatever your relationship is with spelling, there are  almost always a few words that no matter what, you will have to stop and think about. These commonly misspelled words give people trouble for many reasons. Some pronounce some of the words incorrectly, often leading to misspellings. While other words just seem to break all of those English and phonics rules that are taught in school.

And then there’s the generation that has grown up using word processing programs and is used to automatic spell checks. This generation learned how to spell by memorizing spelling lists and have always had automatic spell checks to suggest the correct spelling for a misspelled word. And if there are no suggestions for that misspelled word, what do they do? They turn to Google.

Remember, when checking your spelling it’s important to be careful with automatic spell check. It doesn’t always catch every misspelled word and isn’t reliable in catching incorrect usage of words such as bare/bear, their/they’re/there and write/right. So don’t just rely on your word processing program’s spell check. Always take the time to read through and check for spelling mistakes.

Some of the top commonly misspelled words – bold words are correct

• definite vs. definate

• calendar vs. calender

• argument vs. arguement

• accommodate vs. accomodate

• dependent vs. dependant

• misspell vs. mispell

• separate vs. seperate

Do you think you’ve mastered the most commonly misspelled words? Check out this commonly misspelled word quiz on Merriam-Webster online and share your results with us.