The English language can be quite complicated. Even for those of us who were born and raised in the States! When it comes to spelling, it can be easy to misspell words, especially if they have those letters in them that you don’t actually hear when you pronounce them! Of course, we do have an advantage with technology and things like spellcheck. And that has definitely saved us all a time or two. But it’s not super helpful when you are so far off from the correct spelling. If it’s any consolation, we all have words that trip us up. And we’ll take a look at the most misspelled words in Georgia and South Carolina.
Researching Misspelled Words
The website Word Tips, a word search site, did all the research. They looked at the most misspelled word in every country, along with every continent, and even broke it down to the most misspelled word in each state. In fact, they looked at 350 often misspelled words in the English language. They also found the most common way the words were misspelled. Then they really dug in, searching and categorizing over 2 billion geotagged tweets from all over the world.
In The United States
So how did Word Tips uncover the most popular misspellings?
“We identified the most uniquely popular misspellings in each state by comparing the misspelling rate of each word locally with the nationwide rate and picking the word that was proportionally highest in each area.”
First, we’ll look at the top 10 most misspelled words in the United States as a whole. Then we’ll see the most misspelled words in Georgia and South Carolina!
10. Bellwether
The most common misspelling on this one is “bellweather.”
This word has nothing to do with weather… It actually refers to a leader, on who takes the lead or initiative. According to Merriam-Webster, it’s also an indicator of trends.
The word actually originally was used in reference to the head sheep. In a flock, one sheep leads the way, and shepherds would hang a bell around their neck to mark the leader. It’s a combination of belle (bell) and wether (refers to a male sheep that has been castrated).
Photo: Shutterstock
9. Dumbbell
The most common misspelling on this one is dumbell. This is an easy mistake to make… because looking at the two B’s can look a bit weird, or like to need to separate it into two words!
Photo: Getty Images
7. Drunkenness
This is commonly misspelled as drunkeness.
Photo: Getty Images
5. Protester
Don’t protest on this one. It’s commonly misspelled as protestor. Which again… doesn’t look wrong… does it?
Photo: iStock / Getty Images Plus
3. Sergeant
Have you ever tried to sound out a word to spell it? It would mess you up on this one! It’s commonly misspelled as sargent.
Photo: Getty Images
1. Coolly
Thankfully, the words on this list aren’t words I tend to use frequently. But apparently, COOLLY is the most commonly misspelled word, with it being misspelled as cooly.
It means “in a cool, unpanicked or collected manner.”
Photo: Getty Images
The Most Common Misspelled Word in Georgia?
Secretary.
Photo: Getty Images
The Most Common Misspelled Word in South Carolina?
Promise.
Photo: Getty Images
This just so happens to be the most common misspelled word in North Carolina as well.
