3.2 Commonly misspelled words
It is easy to find a list of the most commonly misspelled words. Spelling errors follow general patterns and looking at just ten of the most commonly misspelled words shows this.
Ten of the most commonly misspelled words
separate: often spelt ‘seperate’
accommodate or accommodation: often an ‘m’ or ‘c’ or both are missed
a lot: often spelt as one word
definitely: often spelt ‘definately’
unnecessary: often two ‘c’s are put in or an ‘n’ or ‘s’ is missed
embarrass: one ‘r’ or ‘s’ or both are often missed out
acknowledge: the ‘c’ or ‘k’ is often left out
receive: often spelt ‘recieve’
until: often double ‘l’ put on the end
occurred: a ‘c’ or ‘r’ or both are often left out
government: the ‘n’ is often not included
These words tend to be commonly misspelled either because the way they sound doesn’t exactly match the letters used or because they have double-letter patterns that are tricky to remember.
If you can identify the common words that you misspell, you can learn ways to remember them such as with rhymes or memory prompts.