This coming Thursday afternoon, I will have the privilege of visiting Downtown Rotary Club 33, one of the largest Rotary Clubs west of the Mississippi. For the luncheon program, I’ll be interviewing Snigdha Nandipati, a ninth-grader at Francis Parker School. Last year, Snigdha, at the age of 13, won the 44th annual U-T San Diego Countywide Spelling Bee by correctly spelling gobemouche (“a silly and credulous person”) and, at 14, went on to capture the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., by spelling guetapens (“an ambush or trap”).
In the spirit of Snigdha Nandipati’s estimable orthographic achievement, I challenge you, gentle reader, to try your hand and mind at an illuminating spelling quiz below. Rest assured that you won’t find words like gobemouche and guetapens in the test that follows. Rather, reposing therein will be words that you read and use every day.
Increasingly, business executives complain about the poor English produced by their employees. Often what they mean by poor English is poor spelling, since errors in orthography are the most conspicuous of all defects in written English. As a business guru once advised: “A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a writer, you are expected to know the difference.”
Now gaze upon a list I have compiled of the 100 words that people in business most frequently misspell. In the lineup are very probably many words that you fear and loathe. Your mission, should you accept it, is to circle each word that you find to be spelled incorrectly. Only when you have completed that task, should you take a look at the answer that reposes at the end of this column.
absence, accessible, accommodate, accumulate, achieve,
administration, advantageous, aggressive, all right, analyze,
apparent, appropriate, argument, background, bankruptcy,
basically, before, beginning, believe, benefit,
business, calendar, category, character, committee,
controversial, corroborate, definitely, dependent, description,
develop, dilemma, disappear, disappoint, dissipate,
effect, eligible, embarrassing, environment, exaggerate,
exercise, existence, experience, finally, flexible,
fluctuation, forgo, forty, gauge, harass,
imitate, immediately, independent, innate,
judgment, liaison, license, mediocre, millennium, minuscule,
necessary, negligence, negotiable, noticeable, occasion,
occurrence, omission, parallel perseverance, piece,
precede, privilege, proceed, publicly, questionnaire,
receive, recommend, rescind, relieve, renown,
repetition, rhythm, ridiculous, salable, secretary,
seize, sentence, separate, sincerely, skillful,
successful, supersede, surprise, their, threshold,
through, tomorrow, truly, vacuum, whether
Answer
The total is zero. That’s right: All the words in the list are spelled correctly. How did you do? If perchance you circled some of the words, compare your vision of the words with the correct spellings given. This exercise will take you a long way toward exorcising some of your personal spelling demons.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com