Spelling 1

Note: This exercise works on Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 7, but it may not work on Internet Explorer 6. It does not currently work on touch devices such as tablets and smartphones.

Another in a series designed to help you learn to read like an editor -- spotting potential problems in spelling and pausing to check them -- this exercise highlights 26 commonly misspelled words.

In the examples below, place your cursor over the error to see the correction and a comment. (Do not click.)

1. We will try to accomodate accommodate your request. There are two c's and two m's in accommodate.
2. Every quote you use should include an acknowledgment acknowledgment: Correct! of its source. In the spelling preferred by AP style, there is no "knowledge" in acknowledgment.
3. The commission settled a long-standing arguement argument with a comitment commitment to install speed bumps. The word "argue" drops its "e" to become "argument." Like "commission," "commitment" has two m's.
4. There was no concensus consensus over increasing the deductible deductible Correct! for each dependant dependent. Note that consensus contains three s's. "Deductible " is correct. There is a "dent" in "dependent."
5. Good judgement judgment is indispensible indispensable to a laison liaison officer. AP style prefers this spelling -- judgment -- without the extra e. It ends in "-able."
   
   The "-able" ending occurs in words like indisputable and indistinguishable. Like many diplomatic terms, "liaison" derives from French.
   
   It derives from a word meaning "connection" and refers to a person who goes between different groups.
   
   When spelling liaison, think of all three syllables: li-ai-son.
6. The commission chose to withold withhold the priviledge privilege of a parade lisence license from a group that claimed the parade as their perogerative. prerogative. Withhold = with+hold. It has two h's.
   
   In repeating the middle letter, it is like newsstand but unlike threshold or pastime. "Privilege" is spelled like "sacrilege."
   
   The ending does not have the "d" found in knowledge, acknowledge, ledge and sledge. "License" is the spelling preferred in AP style. "License" has the same ending as "incense." Prerogative means a right or privilege.
   
   The "pre" means "before" -- someone who comes before others.
   
   The word originally referred to those who voted first, before others, in ancient Rome -- to decide the question (which is what "rogative" derives from).
7. One of the commissioners expressed embarassment embarrassment about the inadvertant inadvertent reference to harrassment harassment in the forword foreword to the report. "Embarrassment" has two r's and two s's. "Inadvertent" contains a tent. "Harassment" has one r and two s's.
   
   Compare "harass" and "embarrass."
   
   "Harass" derives from a word meaning to sic dogs on something (or someone). The "fore-" in "foreword" means before, as in forefather, forearm and forethought.
   
   It's a different prefix from "for-" meaning "without or against," as in forbear, forgo and forfeit.
8. They voted to procede proceed with the report anyway. It's "proceed." The spelling is similar to "succeed."
9. The revised foreword foreward: Hey! It's spelled right this time! will superceed supercede the old one. It's "supercede." The spelling is similar to precede and secede. Yesssss!!!
10. Commissioners then discovered the existance existence of a seperate separate report. Existence shares its ending with experience, audience, conscience, grandiloquence, prescience and many other words.
    
    Compare some words ending in "-ance" like assistance, inheritance, guidance and preponderance. As your high school English teacher probably told you, there is a "rat" in separate.
11. One occurrance occurence of harassment harassment: Correct! disturbed the commissioners, and they were worried that it might reoccur. recur. "Occurence" shares its ending with such words as correspondence, magnificence and sonoluminescence. Hey! We spelled "harassment" right this time! The AP stylebook directs us to use recur, recurred, recurring -- and not reoccur and its forms.
12. In his accustomed manner, the mayor took the occassion occasion to urge frugality, fortitude and perseverence perseverance in the face of financial frustration. It's "occasion," and it ends like abrasion, evasion and persuasion. Many verbs like "persevere" become nouns similar to "perseverance": utterance, resistance, resemblance, guidance.