For me common spelling mistakes include confusing some of these word pairs.

  • loose vs. lose
  • then vs. than
  • were vs. where

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[–] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I always ALWAYS have to check separate / separation / separator. I want to put a third e in there so much.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    uhm ... separate is an adjective and separation is a noun I guess?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I think they were referring more to a tendency of writing seperat(e, ion, or).

    Unfortunately the classification of single words is not so cut and dry:

    • The separator machine uses separation algorithms to separate separate appropriately.
      • separator is an adjective
      • separation is an adjective
      • 1st separate is a verb
      • 2nd separate is a noun
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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    For some reason unfortunately gave me trouble until I broke it down and remembered to have tuna in there lol

    So I just think: unfor tuna tely

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I will cry if this becomes the evolution of emoji usage lol

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Australian English is based off British English but is not identical. Both are different to US English and have a lot of words that are spelled with a bit more historical contingency. That said, knowing which words have which version of suffix can be difficult.

    For example, authorise or authorize. Practice or practise. Gaol or jail. English is a pain but it does make a good common language.

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah, and also the Oxford comma is in my mind much clearer. I think if you are understood you are using the language correctly. If you are not understood at first but become understood after a bit of back and forth then you are using the language and also pushing the limits a little, making changes along the way. It is an evolutionary process, not design, so it is messy.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (2 children)
    • Guarantee
    • it(')s

    For the pairs you mentioned this might help:

    • "loose" is a loose word, it's extra "o" makes it lanky, but "lose" lost an "o"
    • "then" is a reply to "when" and is spelt similarly rather "than" the comparison word
    • "where" is a question answered by "here;" "was" has no "h" and neither does "were"
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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Pronounce and pronunciation seem like they should have the same root, but one of them has an extra 'o' for some perfectly logical reason. I know the difference and don't consistently misspell it, but if I edit a sentence to switch from one to the other without noticing that it's a danger inflection ...

    Also maintain vs. maintenance for the same reason.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Diahhrheoea

    Or whatever it is.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Viscous vs vicious.

    It’s a viscous cycle.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Nice try, FBI stylometric profiler.

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  • Their vs there vs they're.

    I know the difference but my fingers clearly do not.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Licence / license, and practice / practise. I have to look them up every single time because I forget which of each is the noun and which is the verb, and even then, there are situations where using the noun as a verb might actually be the right thing to do and I hate the whole thing. So I probably still get those wrong whenever I use them.

    Barring brain farts (increasingly common) and muscle memory leading me astray on the keyboard, my spelling is otherwise fairly good, but those pairings I could do without.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    embarrassed to admit I mix up which and witch, and have misspelled both as wich on occasion

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    More a typo than a spelling mistake but if a word ends in ‘th’, my brain cannot stop adding an ‘e’.

    • withe
    • bothe
    • mythe
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's only very recently that I learned I've been using the wrong then/than and effect/affect most of the time.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    • "When?" > "Then!"
      • Rather than the alternative
    • Cause and effect
      • When deciding which to use for a verb:
        • Effect causes an entire result; "A discarded cigarette effected the forest fire"
        • Affect alters part of the result; "Human behaviors affect climate change."
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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    What kinda helped me was thinking of then as relative to time and than was associated with math so it helped recognize how it related to concepts differently lol

    Effect I just think of "special effects" and so I know the other is the one related to an impact.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I can never figure out where that pesky u goes in restaurant. (Thank goodness for autocorrect, or I couldn’t have spelled it for this post!)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In english a lot. Not just because i am dislexic, but also french stemming words are a nightmare

    "Litterly" is one i have still no idea how to spell. Or wether, not meaning the weather as in sun and run but the one for implying choice

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I fuck up "insure/ensure" and "effect/affect" a lot.

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    [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I habitually throw random spelling and grammatical mistakes into my posts and comments all the time, to make it less likely that anyone can fingerprint my writing style and thereby dox me. That is the only reason for any such errors.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*
    • centennial, millennial, embarrassed, etc. (Where are the double-letters and where are they not? Who fucking knows.)
    • backward(s), forward(s), leftward(s), etc. (Do words like this have an S or not? Who fucking knows.)
    • reconnaissance (Just fuck this word.)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    ageing vs aging

    The former is the way I learned it in school way back in the 70's... Apparently that is the way the British spell it and it sends US citizens into an aneurysm.

    One that bothers me the most when people do it is brake vs break. Your car will break if you do not apply the brake in a timely fashion.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Can't recall them, but there are some words in which I keep typing double letters even though they aren't supposed to be there.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I used to have trouble with necessary. I have pages of notes with neccesary/neseccary/necesary/necessary scribbled in the margins to see which one looked right.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    english instructors, were so anal with the words "act and acts" in writing a paper. or cellular and celluar.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    This one's easy, remember reecee, so it's rEcEive.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Somehow I am constantly mistyping "because" as "becsause." I know damn well I am hitting the a before the s but I type really fast (average 120wpm) and on a touchscreen it might be laggy 🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    One thing I'm realizing more and more as I type in a game in PC is that I'm only good at spelling the first half of words. I've gotten used to auto correct on phones and spell check in other programs. My errors are typically on the end.

    Necessary and apparently are two common words I get wrong fairly often.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Illegitimate/legitimate. Always struggled with that one until I got a phone that could tell me how to spell it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I say wether, not whether, and anyways, not anyway. I also never remember how to write thorought.

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