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Pedants' corner

Spelled or spelt?

28 replies

headfairy · 12/12/2011 12:26

Dh says spelt.. but isn't that a kind of flour?

and in this sentence is it "the word was spelled/spelt wrong" or "the word was spelled/spelt wrongly."?

OP posts:
MerryMarigold · 12/12/2011 12:27

Tagging. Wanna know. Or even spellt. Spelt is a kind of grain I think!

VivaLeBeaver · 12/12/2011 12:33

I would say that the word was spelled incorrectly.

Not sure if that's right or not.

Deberny · 12/12/2011 12:34

Both are fine.
dreamed/dreamt is the same

Christmascheerinateacup · 12/12/2011 12:38

Nowadays both are acceptable.

Deberny · 12/12/2011 12:40

You can't dumb down history Grin
It's to do with which verb group they fell into in Old English.

TapTapTapPenny · 12/12/2011 12:52

both are fine

wrongly is correct
unless you want to rejig the punctuation and it's a sentence about the word 'wrong'

MerryMarigold · 12/12/2011 14:51

So is spellt one 'l' or two?

TapTapTapPenny · 12/12/2011 14:55

one L in spelt
two in spelled

MerryMarigold · 12/12/2011 16:11

Ok. Thanks. Odd! And do you pronounce 'spelled' as 'spelt' or just the way it's written.

MerryMarigold · 12/12/2011 16:11

Oops, that was a question. ?

ConnorCamden · 23/12/2011 19:56

spelled is past tense "She spelled it this way"
Spelt is present tense "the word is spelt wrong"

BobbinRobin · 23/12/2011 20:33

In 'The word is spelt wrong'

is 'spelt' is a verb? Confused So should it be 'spelt wrongly'?

RecursiveMoon · 23/12/2011 20:35

I remember like this:

I spilled the milk. The milk is spilt.

That's right, isn't it Blush?

BobbinRobin · 23/12/2011 20:38

or 'spelt incorrectly' even?? Xmas Confused

EdithWeston · 24/12/2011 12:00

This thread had made me unsure what I'd say in some cases. RecursiveMoon's example is fine for some indications of an earlier event.

But is there a preferred version if those examples are amended to:

I have spilt the milk. / I have spilled the milk.
The milk has been spilt. / The milk has been spilled.

nickelhadababyYesLord · 01/01/2012 21:10

"the word is spelt incorrectly" because "spelt is present tense".
that's not right, sorry.

In that sentence, "is spelt" is the verb - and it's passive.

Spelled is the preferred spelling whichever mood or tense you are using.
It is common to say spelt, though.
There's no reason why you can't use "spelt" instead of "spelled" but it doesn't look so nice, so maybe for informal writing only.

Spelt is indeed a method of manufacturing grains.

Katie2019 · 15/03/2019 15:00

Yes, "is spelt" is the present passive, but, in more detail, "is" is the auxiliary and "spelt" is the past participle.

Katie2019 · 15/03/2019 15:04

Also, "spelled" is the preferred method in America, but in Britain we can use either. And I believe borth are pronounced "spelt". At least I've never heard the "d" pronounced in "spelled". Whether something "looks nice!" is subjective.
Also, spelt is not a method of manufacturing grains (as far as I know, grains are not manufactured, they are grown), but a species of wheat.

Katie2019 · 15/03/2019 15:05

... sorry, both are pronounced... not borth.

kingfisherblue33 · 19/03/2019 22:21

Actually, spelt/spelled can both be present and past tense! And both are correct in uK English. Same with
leaned/leant
Leaped/leapt
Learned/learnt
Burned/burnt

Katie2019 · 19/03/2019 22:53

Well, I did say both were used in UK. But I'm curious about them being in the present tense!

kingfisherblue33 · 19/03/2019 23:03

Check dictionary refs, Katie!

DavidWeb · 06/02/2021 12:54

This verb has both an irregular and regular form. You can use both and both are correct. Speakers in North America and Canada use spelled while the rest of the English-speaking world seems to prefer spelt but accept spelled as well.

But which is the most used one, spelt or spelled? Let´s look at Google Ngram Viewer tool which displays a graph showing how phrases have occurred in a corpus of books over the years. Spelled is more used than Spilt from 1890.

Source: en.learniv.com/info/en/irregular-verbs/spelled-or-spelt-what-is-correct-and-how-to-use-it/

Michlar1086 · 15/04/2021 19:18

All of this is wrong

VanillaAndOrange · 22/10/2021 08:36

I write "spelt" because I pronounce it "spelt" and I've certainly seen it written that way for as long as I've been able to read (about 50 years). There was a time when "spelled" only seemed to appear in American books, so I thought it was a simple distinction between British and American English. More recently I've seen people arguing for "spelled" on this and other forums, but I still think "spelt" is more common.

I think "spelt wrongly" is strictly correct but looks wrong. "Spelt wrong" is strictly ungrammatical but is what absolutely everybody says, including teachers, so I'd go with that.