35 commonplace words that PR pros misspell
This week, I set out to answer a simple question: What are the most difficult words to spell in the English language?
I quickly discovered that I should re-frame the question: What are the most difficult, commonly used words in the English language?
There are plenty of obscure, impossible-to-spell words. These are words used at national spelling bees, such as stichomythia or succedaneum. However, when was the last time you used “succedaneum” in a press release?
Below is a collection of commonplace words that people misspell the most, based on a consensus from online dictionaries (Oxford Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster and Wordnik), writing websites (Purdue Online Writing Lab and Plainlanguage.gov) and PR Daily articles:
- Accommodate
- Acquiesce
- Baccalaureate
- Bourgeois
- Calisthenics
- Camaraderie
- Carnivorous
- Collectible
- Copacetic
- Desiccate
- Dietitian
- Harebrained
- Handkerchief
- Indict
- Inoculate
- Iridescent
- Labyrinth
- Maneuver
- Memento
- Millennium
- Minuscule
- Occasionally
- Occurrence
- Omniscience
- Ophthalmologist
- Paraphernalia
- Perseverance
- Poinsettia
- Playwright
- Prerogative
- Reconnaissance
- Sacrilegious
- Segue
- Tawdry
- Unanimous
What other commonly used words have you often seen misspelled, PR Daily readers?
This post was first published on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
