English, just like any other language has its quirks and idiosyncrasies. That is to
say, the language is not perfect. Similar sounding words and odd grammatical clauses,
not to mention the odd spelling of certain words can lead to confusion, even for native
English speakers. Today I'm going to look at some commonly used English words that even
those speaking English as a first language often get wrong. Our first commonly misspelt word
is... 'necessary'. the word necessary is one of the most commonly misspelt words in English.
This is due to the use of single and double letters within the word. Namely the single
'C' and the double 'S'. Our second misspelt English word is...'definitely'. This
is a word that catches many people out, mainly due to the sound of the third syllable, which
sounds like the letter 'A'. This leads many people to mistakenly replace the 'I' with
an 'A'. Remember...there is no 'A' in definitely. There is definitely no 'A' in definitely.
Our third misspelt English word is...'fascination'. This word catches many people out due to the
occurrence of the letters 'S' and 'C' being placed together. Many people leave out the
letter 'S' altogether. Whilst we are talking about 'occurrence', the word occurrence itself
is another English word that is often spelt incorrectly. 'occur' has one 'R' and two C's.
'occurred' 'occurring' and 'occurrence'. have two C's and two R's. Another commonly misspelt
English word is...'separate'. It is a common mistake to add an extra 'E' to the word, by
replacing the middle 'A'. Again the pronunciation of 'separate' can be misleading, especially
so in this case as the word can be pronounced in more than one way. Two things can be apart
or separate. You can separate two thing, which means to split or divide. Separate...separate.
Our final misspelt word today is...'psychology'. This is a real stinker of a word to spell
because it contains not one, but two silent letters. The 'P' and 'H' are silent. Another
good example of this occurrence is psychiatric. At the end of this lesson you will see a list
of other commonly misspelt English words. How many of them do you get wrong?
You might be surprised to learn that many people make spelling mistakes. Even I have been known
from time to time to make the occasional faux pas or blunder whilst writing. For most of
the time is it due to a slip of the finger on the computer keyboard, or at least that's
my excuse. Spelling mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of, as we all make them...from time to time.
I hope this lesson has been helpful to you and I will see you again soon
for another English lesson. This is Misterduncan in England saying...ta-ta for now.