Commonly misspelled words

[Ed62]

I'm not the world's best speller, but----
Add your own. Here's a start:

Rabbet - woodworking term
Rabbit - animal

Loose - as in "the knot is loose"
Lose - I win, you lose

Ed

[headhunter636]

I wouldn't call that a misspelling, it is more of a misuse. That being said, I have to double check my Loose and Lose everytime.

For some reason, I still have to recite the "I before E, except after C" everytime I write "receive"

Thank goodness for spell checker.

[tseavoy]

The only contraction of 'its' is it is. Make a note of that.

Tom on Marrowstone

[cabinetman]

The only contraction of 'its' is it is. Make a note of that.

Tom on Marrowstone

It's that darn apostrophe. Is it it's, or its, or is there an its'?
.

[BobSch]

Any homophone, like their and they're
or Mary, marry and merry
or to, two and too.

Again, not a misspelling but a misuse—and not something a spell checker will find.

[mschrank]

The only contraction of 'its' is it is. Make a note of that.

It's that darn apostrophe. Is it it's, or its, or is there an its'?
.

Contraction of it is = it's

The possessive "its" can be either a pronoun or an adjective, depending on "its" use.

[atgcpaul]

Any homophone, like their and they're
or Mary, marry and merry
or to, two and too.

Again, not a misspelling but a misuse—and not something a spell checker will find.

and "there".

[cabinetman]

Contraction of it is = it's

The possessive "its" can be either a pronoun or an adjective, depending on "its" use.

What's interesting about "its", it can be a root word and just add a letter on the front end, like "b", "f", "h", "k", "p","s", "t" (oops), "w", and "z" (yech).
.

[Alex Franke]

I'm always ebarassed when I mispell something. Wierd, huh?

Those are three that I see a lot. My worst one, though is a typo -- I often mix up "not" and "now," which can absolutely reverse the meaning of what I'm trying to say. E.g. "Great news: A new version is not available!"

Its/it's is pretty commonly misused. So are they're, there, and their. And of course lie/lay/laid seem to be confused all the time.

[sweensdv]

I hav neber has a problim wit mi spelin, it's(its) tha punkuaton that trows me of.

[bruce hylton]

Add tew to the two,too,to list.

[Gilbert]

to, too, two

The three words to, too, two are not only pronouced the same, they give us the interesting thought: what sentence can easily be said but impossible to write correctly?

I will try to write what is un-writable.

English has three 2s (or something like that. Easy to say; impossible to write correctly).

Gilbert

[Tom Slick]

"Pubic" and "Public" are both spelled correctly but not interchangeable. A friend of mine that works in city gov't says you'd be amazed how many "Pubic" works projects are displayed to the "Public" at city council meetings on the big screen because people leave the proofreading (<---correct spelling for "proof reading") up to Microsoft.

"Alot" isn't a word, the phrase "a lot" is correct. It took me quite awhile to get "alot" out of my system. "Allot" sounds the same but people seem to spell it correctly.

[LarryG]

"Alot" isn't a word, the phrase "a lot" is correct.

My #2 language/spelling pet peeve, behind "one of the only." You see "alot" all over the Internet and increasingly in formal correspondence. Interestingly, no one ever writes "alittle."

[herb fellows]

Total lack of knowledge of the native tongue, mostly on ebay: this item is unique, one of only a few hundred made!' or similar.