Misspellings

“These extra-ordinary times called for extra-ordinary actions.”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Misspellings

I saw this in a corporate message.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
The correct spelling of the twice-used adjective in the sentence should have no hyphen.

I believe that the insertion of the hyphen reflects the writer’s discomfort with the presence of adjacent vowels that are parts of separate syllables.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following spellings (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “extraordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 65,500,000 matches
  • “extra-ordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-HYPHEN-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 1,470,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled this adjective correctly versus incorrectly by a ratio of 44.6-to-1, which is good but not great, especially given the nearly 1.5 million misspellings.

Solution:
“These extraordinary times called for extraordinary actions.”

How much to correct this misspelling?

Misspellings

I wrote a blog post a few days ago about how eleven misspellings cost the city of Livermore, California, six thousand dollars plus the round-trip airfare for a Miami artist to fix her work.

Here is another example of a costly misspelling.

The owners of a home in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England, had “MILLENIUM HOUSE” — with only one “N” in the middle of the first word — carved by a stone mason into a huge piece of stone that sits above the entrance to their home.

Apparently, the Knaresborough construction company that built the house was named “Millenium Designs” — again with only one “n” in the middle of the first word — and the home owners unfortunately assumed that the home builder had spelled “Millennium” correctly.

So the home owners copied a misspelling, and they did it so royally that the misspelling is carved into stone.

What is worse is that the stone is not easily replaced, given that it supports the stone wall above the entrance.

I wonder how much this misspelling would cost to correct. I assume it would be higher than the US$600 per misspelling paid by Livermore, California, for the misspellings in its mosaic.

What is the most expensive misspelling about which you have ever read? If you have one that you want me to share with other readers, please contact me. Be sure to include a link to the Web page where the misspelling is described.

“Pronounciation”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Nouns, Verbs

I frequently hear this and occasionally see this.

Problem:
“Pronounciation” is a misspelling and mispronunciation that makes the writer or speaker sound dumb.

Explanation:
“Pronounciation” is an ignorant conversion of the verb “pronounce” into a noun.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “pronunciation” — 20,700,000 matches
  • “pronounciation” — 1,130,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the correct word vs. the incorrect word by a ratio of 18.3-to-1, which is not good, especially given more than a million matches for the incorrect word.

Solution:
“Pronunciation”