Despite the prevalence of online grammar and spelling checker tools, recent data analysis by AI-writing platform QuillBot uncovered that over 200,000 Americans struggled to spell the word “calendar.” Similarly, QuillBot found that 87,000 Americans struggle to spell arctic.
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14 – Broccoli
Sharing the last spot in Quillbot’s list of commonly misspelled words every month in the United States are the words “broccoli,” “spaghetti,” and “siege,” with 13,000 individuals searching “brocoli,” “spagetti,” and “seige” respectively.
13 – Spaghetti
Sharing the last spot in Quillbot’s list of commonly misspelled words every month in the United States are the words “broccoli,” “spaghetti,” and “siege,” with 13,000 individuals searching “brocoli,” “spagetti,” and “seige” respectively.
12 – Siege
Sharing the last spot in Quillbot’s list of commonly misspelled words every month in the United States are the words “broccoli,” “spaghetti,” and “siege,” with 13,000 individuals searching “brocoli,” “spagetti,” and “seige” respectively.
11 – Until
16,000 Americans also spelled the word “until” with double Ls. The spelling mistake can be traced to “till,” which, many believe, is an abbreviation of the word. However, the word “til” is the correct shortened version used mostly in informal contexts.
10 – Congratulations
Another misspelled word that QuillBot uncovered is “congratulations,” which 17,000 individuals spelled as “congradulations.” Like other previously mentioned spelling mistakes, “congradulations” doesn’t exist in the dictionary, and it simply stems from the word’s pronunciation, particularly how the letter t is pronounced as “dj.”
9 – Occurred
Having double letters in one word also confuses 18,000 Americans. Instead of using two Rs as is correct, many people think “occurred” is spelled with just one letter r.
One probable explanation of the misspelling is adding the suffix -ed, which changes the tense of the root or main word, occur.
In most words like talk, the suffix -ed is simply added, with no alteration to the spelling. In the case of “occurred,” another r is inserted before the suffix, as the word’s final syllable consists of a vowel and consonant. Another word following this rule is “preferred.”
8 – Connecticut
Following behind the word “believe” was “Connecticut.” In QuillBot’s findings, 20,000 individuals spelled Connecticut without the letter c before the t in the middle of the word. This spelling error is identical to another previously misspelled word, “arctic,” wherein the letter c was omitted in writing because it is silent when pronounced.
7 – Believe
25,000 individuals also misspell “believe” as “belive,” omitting the letter e before the letter v. Like receive, the common spelling mistake of believe is partly because the letters i and e are pronounced as a long e.
6 – Rhythm
Many individuals use “rythm” instead of “rhythm” on Google, raking in 30,000 spelling search errors per month – just 3,000 shy from the previous misspelling of “separate.”
Similar to other misspelled words, the spelling confusion of “rhythm” is because of how the word is pronounced, with the first h being silent and the absence of a vowel between the letters th and m. Still, the correct spelling of the word is with two Hs.
5 – Separate
The word “separate,” which can be used as an adjective, verb, or noun, was also a part of QuillBot’s analysis of commonly misspelled words in the United States. Although not as prevalent as previous spelling errors, 32,000 Americans used “seperate” in their internet queries.
4 – Receive
The word “receive” follows the I before E except after C. Unfortunately, 62,000 individuals committed the spelling error “recieve,” swapping the positions of letters i and e.
However, the I before E except after C rule doesn’t apply to certain English words. For instance, words with the letter c but pronounced as /s/ or /ch/ have the letter i before e.
3 – Niece
Following in the third spot was the word “niece,” which 73,000 individuals misspelled as “neice.” The trick to remembering the spelling of “niece” vs “neice” is that the letters i and e in the word “niece” are a digraph, which means /ie/ is pronounced as one sound; a long e.
2 – Arctic
Taking the second spot for the most misspelled word in the United States was “arctic,” with 87,000 individuals using the spelling error “artic.”
The confusion arises as its middle phonemes can be challenging to pronounce. Thus, most individuals omit the letter c sound. In linguistics, this omission of the sound of a vowel, consonant, and even a syllable is referred to as an elision.
1 – Calendar
The most commonly misspelled word was “calendar.” Instead of spelling the word’s last syllable with the letter “a,” 257,000 Americans used “e,” making the spelling error “calender” in their Google search queries.
Although the shared data analysis did not indicate the cause of the spelling confusion, possible explanations include the word’s pronunciation (kal-un-der) and etymology.
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