For me common spelling mistakes include confusing some of these word pairs.
- loose vs. lose
- then vs. than
- were vs. where
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Australian English is based off British English but is not identical. Both are different to US English and have a lot of words that are spelled with a bit more historical contingency. That said, knowing which words have which version of suffix can be difficult.
For example, authorise or authorize. Practice or practise. Gaol or jail. English is a pain but it does make a good common language.
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Can’t recall them, but there are some words in which I keep typing double letters even though they aren’t supposed to be there.
It’s only very recently that I learned I’ve been using the wrong then/than and effect/affect most of the time.
What kinda helped me was thinking of then as relative to time and than was associated with math so it helped recognize how it related to concepts differently lol
Effect I just think of “special effects” and so I know the other is the one related to an impact.
- “When?” > “Then!”
- Rather than the alternative
- Cause and effect
- When deciding which to use for a verb:
- Effect causes an entire result; “A discarded cigarette effected the forest fire”
- Affect alters part of the result; “Human behaviors affect climate change.”
- When deciding which to use for a verb:
- “When?” > “Then!”
- Guarantee
- it(')s
For the pairs you mentioned this might help:
- “loose” is a loose word, it’s extra “o” makes it lanky, but “lose” lost an “o”
- “then” is a reply to “when” and is spelt similarly rather “than” the comparison word
- “where” is a question answered by “here;” “was” has no “h” and neither does “were”
It’s and its annoy me because they both make sense for possessive. The only thing that really made me feel better is thinking of it’s like his and hers. His and hers doesn’t have an apostrophe.
For some reason unfortunately gave me trouble until I broke it down and remembered to have tuna in there lol
So I just think: unfor tuna tely
unfor🐟tely
I will cry if this becomes the evolution of emoji usage lol
We have kids saying U R . Emoji taking the place of words is just natural devolution.
Think of all of the interesting things you can do with regional dialects!
More a typo than a spelling mistake but if a word ends in ‘th’, my brain cannot stop adding an ‘e’.
- withe
- bothe
- mythe
I always ALWAYS have to check separate / separation / separator. I want to put a third e in there so much.
uhm … separate is an adjective and separation is a noun I guess?
I think they were referring more to a tendency of writing seperat(e, ion, or).
Unfortunately the classification of single words is not so cut and dry:
- The separator machine uses separation algorithms to separate separate appropriately.
- separator is an adjective
- separation is an adjective
- 1st separate is a verb
- 2nd separate is a noun
- The separator machine uses separation algorithms to separate separate appropriately.
embarrassed to admit I mix up which and witch, and have misspelled both as wich on occasion
Nothing to be embarrassed about. I can assure you I am worse at spelling.
recieve vs. receive
This one’s easy, remember reecee, so it’s rEcEive.
I just try to keep the mnemonic “I before E except after C” [1] in my brain.
References
- Type: Definition (Webpage). Title: “receive”. Publisher: “Merriam-Webster”. Accessed: 2025-09-19T07:04Z. URI: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/receive.
Don’t follow those stupid rules, there are so many exceptions not even sure how that shit got coined. Welcome to English
Diahhrheoea
Or whatever it is.
In english a lot. Not just because i am dislexic, but also french stemming words are a nightmare
“Litterly” is one i have still no idea how to spell. Or wether, not meaning the weather as in sun and run but the one for implying choice
Literally and whether.
Nice try, FBI stylometric profiler.
you got me. But fuck I revealed my own spelling mistakes. Find me!
Illegitimate/legitimate. Always struggled with that one until I got a phone that could tell me how to spell it.
Pronounce and pronunciation seem like they should have the same root, but one of them has an extra ‘o’ for some perfectly logical reason. I know the difference and don’t consistently misspell it, but if I edit a sentence to switch from one to the other without noticing that it’s a danger inflection …
Also maintain vs. maintenance for the same reason.
Travelling vs traveling
The former is British, the latter is American. Noah Webster eliminated letter doubles in words where he thought the extra one didn’t add anything useful. Another word that did the same thing is “level(l)ing”.
