Saving the World, One Writer at a Time.

Your Resource for Paper Editing, Tutoring, and Writing Advice

Writing Tip #3

Here are three words I see misspelled in e-mails, IMs, and personal profiles all the time. Train yourself to spell these and other words correctly, because you don’t want to spell things wrong that will be seen by other people. You never know who could be reading them, and you don’t want to come across as a careless writer to teachers, professors, bosses, potential bosses, and people who pride themselves on flawless spelling. Just work on it a little bit–it’s easy to fix. Train yourself to be a little embarrassed of spelling mistakes. Yours and anyone else’s.

Definately Definitely: We don’t even pronounce this word with an “a” sound, so I don’t understand why people love spelling it that way. This word is spelled how it sounds.

Rediculous Ridiculous: Think of the word “ridicule,” which is the base of this word and always sounds like it’s spelled with an “i.” And try saying to yourself, “Red is not ridiculous,” so you won’t spell it with an “e.”

Genious Genius: This one just looks bad, guys. I don’t really have a trick for remembering this one, other than thinking about it and making sure it’s correct before you post it anywhere.

Any others to add?


Posted Apr 11 2007 by Amanda | Filed under Writing Tips

2 Comments | Permalink




2 Responses to “Writing Tip #3”

  1. Nancy Klee Says:
    April 19th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    I find that stationary and stationery are often confused. How to remember which is which?

    When I stAnd, I am stationAry
    and
    A stationEr sells stationEry

    –NK

  2. Amanda Says:
    April 19th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    That’s a good one. Thanks for adding to the list, Nancy.

Leave a Comment