Words You Should Know How to Spell

WORDS
YOU SHOULD KNOW
HOW TO SPELL

AN A TO Z GUIDE TO PERFECT SPELLING

David Hatcher, MA and Jane Mallison, MA

Copyright © 2010 by F+W Media, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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Published by
Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.
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ISBN 10: 1-4405-0616-7
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0616-1
eISBN 10: 1-4405-0733-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0733-5

Printed in the United States of America.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J&K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

XY&Z

Appendix: Spell It Right Now

About the Authors

To John Pitman, our journalism teacher, who taught us to choose our words with care.

We both extend our deep appreciation to Lane Goddard, whose skills — with language and software — and untiring efforts were so valuable.

We also want to thank our most-careful editors — Lisa Laing, Elizabeth Kassab, and Katie Corcoran Lytle — and special thanks to our ever-helpful agent, Grace Freedson.

“I put a spell on you / Because you're mine.” Whether sung languorously by Nina Simone or wildly by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, these lines from the song “I Put a Spell on You” remind us of a peculiar truth. The noun “spell” with its meaning of a charm put on someone stems from the very same word as “spell,” the verb that refers to naming off the letters that make up a word.

This surprising ancestry lets us start off this introduction to
Words You Should Know How to Spell
with a more glamorous aura than spelling usually receives. Equally startling is the fact that the word “glamor” is a variant of the word “grammar.” Those of us with awful memories of underlining the subject once and the verb twice find it amazing — but it's essentially the same story. Having power over words was what seemingly gave sorcerers their prowess. In a world where recording devices lay far in the future and where most people were illiterate, the very phenomenon of writing packed a magic of its own. Imagine being able to preserve a thought forever by making some little scratch marks! Today, writing is not as novel; nonetheless, power over words remains a vitally important skill.

A misspelled word in an otherwise well-executed report is like egg on the face of an otherwise impeccably turned-out individual. At a minimum, misspellings can suggest sloppiness, a telling lack of attention to detail. No one wants to write “You are my best fried” to his buddy, although, of course, the buddy will know what you mean. Yes, good friends do read our minds, but we can't count on mental telepathy with everyone. At their worst, misspellings can lead to downright confusion and misinterpretation. If you received an e-mail that said a co-worker had a “rye look” on his face, you might think of meanings that a “wry look” could never convey. Similarly, an imminent storm has only a minuscule chance of becoming an eminent storm. (And yes, “minuscule” is related to the world of math — “minus” — not to the world of tiny — “mini.”)

What's the source of spelling errors? Carelessness, for starters. Lack of sufficient knowledge. Textual editors of F. Scott Fitzgerald, a notoriously weak speller, are still wondering about Fitzgerald's use of “orgastic” near the end of
The Great Gatsby
. Did he mean “orgiastic?” “Orgasmic?” We don't know. Sometimes, particularly in informal contexts, spelling variants are intentional. They can signal proud rebellion against the mainstream as in the spelling of “boys” in the movie
Boyz n the Hood
. Using a
z
instead of an
s
for a plural has gained some currency. Will it ever lose its rebel status and infiltrate mainstream spelling? It's possible — the plural of “eye” used to be “eyne” — but none of us are likely to be around for the corporate report that refers to stockz and bondz.

Similarly, technological developments that began in the late twentieth century have made most people — particularly those under, say, thirty — users of a new kind of spelling shorthand. R U OK? Gr8! C U at 9. (
New Yorker
writer Adam Gopnik had a wonderful anecdote about frequent instant messaging with his teenage son — who was in the next room — and believing for months that his son's “LOL” sign-off meant “lots of love.”) Expressions like these make you an instant member of an in-group, but their primary benefit is speed. You want to be quick about answering your pal — especially if you're typing with your thumb. Will any of these abbreviations ever come into standard English? The letter and number hybrid has a certain chirpy appeal, but it would seem inappropriate to read that the patient was “4tunate that the lab test showed the 2mor 2B B9.” Police dogs as members of the K-9 corps may be as far as this device will go, but you never know — historians of the early days of printing inform us that some spellings were altered because printers needed more or fewer letters to justify their margins.

Yes, many factors produce deviations from orthodox spelling. Perhaps foremost among them is the very nature of the English language. Writers of Italian and Spanish — those beautifully phonetic tongues — need to worry much less about spelling; it's the spelling of English that is inconsistent, irregular, and (some say) insane. Mark Twain is well known for a hilarious piece called “The Awful German Language,” but he might have done an equally elaborate onslaught on English, a language that once spelled ghost “gost” (which replicates its sound) but went to “ghost,” the Dutch spelling, under the influence of one individual. Other wits and linguists have made the public aware of how thorny English spelling is. (Consider the pronunciation of the similarly spelled “rough,” “cough,” and “through,” and rejoice that the western hemisphere has dropped the British “plough” and “hiccough.”)

Over the centuries, language experts and laypeople have advocated reform. Perhaps most famous to ordinary users of the language is George Bernard Shaw, who left money in his will to reward the creator of the best phonetic (fonetik?) alphabet in English. (The winner and his system were soon forgotten.) Similarly, it was Shaw who called our attention to the fact that “ghoti” could be a logical spelling for “fish”:
gh
as in “cough,”
o
as in “women,” and
ti
as in “nation.” Even Theodore Roosevelt weighed in on the subject of spelling, with a plea that our spelling be made “a little less foolish and fantastic.”

Despite this off-and-on hubbub, nothing much has changed. Yes, in the United States we can now write “humor,” not “humour,” but we're still writing “thorough” for what sounds like “thuro.” Not to mention that we write (or try to write) “ophthalmology” for a word almost everyone pronounces “ofthamology.” If you decide to work for — or at least to cheer for — further radical changes in standard English spelling, fine. In the meantime, you're going to have to cope with the current system as best you can.

We're not mind readers, but we suspect you've been thinking, “but spell check has changed all that!” To some extent, yes — and hurrah for that! But as many writers have learned the hard way, spellcheckers can sometimes hurt. Have you ever offered spell check a misspelling and gotten back something far from what you had in mind? A friend was recently trying to write “nonchalant.” Spell check's best guess was “non-sealant” — not quite the same thing! Similarly, the spell check program of an acquaintance in the health profession let him down badly when a draft of a report referred to chronic
hick upping
. Even worse, spelling checkers are totally impotent in regard to determining what correctly spelled word fits your context. When you write that the vice president of the company had “free reign” to make decisions, your spell checker doesn't know that you meant to use “free rein,” a metaphor drawn not from royalty but from horses. And although many people have their laptops practically welded to their hands, some of us still have moments of writing when we're away from a computer and its program.

It's not only helpful to bulk up the spelling lobe of your brain; it's also possible. This book can help you. Let's begin to look at some specifics. As you glance through this book, you'll see columns of common misspellings and their correct counterparts. You now have instant access to the correct spelling of more than 12,500 words, organized with speed and convenience in mind. This book takes the guesswork out of spelling. In our Spell It Right Appendix you'll also find various cautions, memory hooks, notes about words that do or do not follow rules, and guides to help you sort out tricky pairs such as
affect
and
effect
or triplets like
censor
,
sensor
, and
censure
. Adopting our tips and memory tricks can assist you, and beginning to work out tips and hooks of your own can be even more beneficial. This dictionary also helps by being a book that fits in your hand, your pocket, and your bag. Whatever your goal, this is the book for you!

• absence
  

• accommodate
  

• achieve
  

• acquire
  

• address
  

• among
  

• apparent
  

• argument
  

• athlete
  

• awful