What are the most common spelling errors

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

I’ve only learnt Some as an adult like there or their

You’re yours

You go through a phase

You are unfazed

I see people getting these wrong quite a lot.

Free rein is correct, as in reins on a horse.
Reign is what the Queen does.

Confusing discreet/discrete is not as common as some errors, but the meanings are very different.
Discrete means individually separate, distinct.

I’ve seen a lot of boarder written when the writer means border. (Border between countries, boarder at a school.)

In the days before spell check I typed up my dissertation and everytime I wrote receive I put recieve.
I only realized after I'd submitted it.

I no

Bloody breath (rhymes with death) used when the writer means breathe (rhymes with seethe.)

Your and you're used interchangeably. It's extremely easy to work out which is correct. (By thinking am I trying to say 'you are', or not?)

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I was taught at school it was bus in ess

(Picture of a bus in a capital S)

Still remember it now

@IstayedForTheFeminism

License/licence. I have no idea which is which. Or how to remember. I was told to think of then like advice/advise but that didn't help became they don't sound the same so I know which is which.

The ' s' version is a verb eg 'to license', 'to advise.

The 'c' version is the noun, 'e.g. to give advice' and 'to issue a licence'

Queue/cue/que

Oh, just remembered the most annoying, which is text instead of texted (ie 'I text him last night', as if the present tense is 'tex'). Not sure that's exactly a spelling mistake though.

[quote buckeejit]@chisanunian I thought it was free rein & rein it in?! I suppose both sort of make sense anyway.

Whet your appetite. Cemetery & broccoli are hard. I used to always get mixed up with address[/quote]
It is rein. But people erroneously use reign instead.

Including, I'm sad to say, my English teacher at school, who corrected my spelling of reins (in an essay about what we did at the weekend - horse riding in my case) by crossing it out with a red pen, and replaced it with reigns. I was really rather cross about that.

I keep seeing "alot", "afew", "abit" and "aswell". My autocorrect really didn't want to let me type any of those, so why do people think they're words?

I frequently read ‘DH and I’ when ‘DH and me’ is the correct formulation. I find it very irritating!

He brought gifts for DH and I.

Is there room for DH and I in your car?

Aaarrrggghhh!!!

^ I think ‘me and DH’ would be ok in those examples too.

@officeangel

Oh, just remembered the most annoying, which is text instead of texted (ie 'I text him last night', as if the present tense is 'tex'). Not sure that's exactly a spelling mistake though.

My friend does this. And she uses ‘texes’ for the plural of text

I'm in a DIY group and it's amazing how many posters spell dining room as dinning room,I assume because of the word dinner.

Dinning table, filling cabinets and stationary cupboards are often offered on my local freecycle group

@itsgettingweird

My ds cracked me up the other week when he spelt kept as 'kepted'.

I mean following the rules of past tense he isn't totally wrong. But the kid cannot spell for toffee and all attempts to teach him have failed.

That's normal language acquisition. Children assimilate the rule first (in their brain) that some past tenses are irregular. Then they learn that some are regular. It messes with their heads a bit and they apply both rules, so you get things like "wented" which will change to "goed" (or vice versa) before the brain clicks that it has to apply 2 different rules.

Spelling- the most common I'd say is "accommodation".

Typo- teh - also a brain-hand coordination thing apparently. Our fingers go faster than our brain talking to our eyes and we hit the wrong button.

Grammar- probably "text" being used as the past tense.

Sound-word interference "should of" etc.

@sammylady37

^ I think ‘me and DH’ would be ok in those examples too.

Me would be correct. It's not always I.

Me would be correct. It's not always I

That was my point, but I’m not sure if it should be ‘…and me’ or ‘me and…’

@KirstenBlest

On here, councillor when they meant counselor, and councilling for counselling

Counsellor. In the UK. 🙂

Practise/practice
Advise/advice

For these I always remember that 'is' is a verb and 'ice' is a noun.

dh and I when it should be dh and me
'They invited dh and me' because you wouldn't say 'they invited I'. John Torode on Masterchef gets this wrong every time. It drives me mad.

SepArate. Remember it by 'there is a rat in separate'.

It's per se, not say, because it's Latin. And so is etc, short for et cetera, meaning 'and other things'.

Bear and bare. It's almost always bear, because bare means naked. So it's 'bear with me' meaning put up with me, not 'let's get our clothes off'.

The word order doesn't change whether you use me or I.

The ones I see a lot are:

Moral for morale
Boarder for border
Dinning for dining

A slightly niche one that is frequently not correct is "restauranteur" for a person who runs a restaurant. The word is "restaurateur" with no "n" in it.

Not a spelling error, but the mixing up of less and fewer has me shouting at the radio or telly.