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Everyday English 1
Everyday English 1

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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.