Misspellings in America

Photo courtesy of MCT Campus.

They can be seen on signs anywhere we go: incomplete words and misspellings. They occur even when we are on a social networking site, or when we are texting one another.

Mistakes on signs are commonly accidents. Shorthand is a way to communicate a message more conveniently, but it can hinder the way we want to communicate in papers or profession writing. Last semester one of my professors told the class about a specific paper that was handed in; someone had decided to spell “rough” like “ruff." I could not believe it when my teacher told the class. I could not help but wonder, ‘Is this a joke?' Whether it was or not, I am not sure, but as students it can be to easy mix words up that do not have the same meaning.

However, this has happened before when I was in high school. We were told to identify the correct spelling of certain words. The teacher chose the word doughnut, out of the 3 students that went up to the board only one managed to spell it right.

Now, with the technology we have and only 140 characters to Tweet, we can forget how to spell and use correct grammar.

The upcoming generation will already be used to spelling things the wrong way because of what they see in the media and on social networking. The more they see a word that is spelled incorrectly the more they will use it consistently in life. Let’s hope they have good teachers that will teach them the difference between words like affect and effect.

Just for a reference here are the most common misspelled words.