*8 It was. You can find your own way to IMDb.
*9 It didn’t. It aired on Thursdays. Wikipedia is great for this sort of thing.
*10 Having, I trust, made my point, I leave you to your own research on the history of phone numbers, exchanges, area codes, mandatory area codes, and the digit 1.
*11 It’s been said, and sometimes I believe it, that the worst things to happen to modern fiction are the invention of the cellphone and the availability of antidepressants. But that’s a subject for another book.
*12 My copy editor has queried my use above of the phrase “his own devise,” wondering whether it’s (a) too quaint for its own good, and (b) apt to be mistaken for a typo. It’s a good thing we have explanatory, clarifying footnotes, isn’t it.
*13 I was recently advised of a novel in which the word “spatulate”—I didn’t recognize it either; it’s an adjective that means “shaped like a spatula”—showed up twice in two pages, referring to two entirely unrelated nouns. Oh dear.
*14 Hoorah for L. Frank Baum and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, of which these paragraphs are (nearly) the opening.
*15 Beyond eliminating the “up” repetition, you’ve also replaced a prepositional phrase with a more precise single-word verb, which almost invariably declutters and improves a sentence.
*16 How bothersome are these wee repetitions to civilian readers? I can’t say, not having been a civilian reader in decades, but as a copy editor I’m highly aware of them and will always point them out. Beyond that it’s up to the writer.
*17 Though apparently this book is.
*18 Now that I look at my records I can tell you that “a few years ago” was, to be precise, 2014, which I mention only because this is a perfect opportunity for me to remind you that when it comes to information, less is often more. A: It’s not particularly interesting that this story occurred in 2014, is it. B: The more specific a writer gets in providing details down to the nuclear level, the more likely it is that at least some of those details are going to be incorrect. “A few” is inapt to be incorrect.
*19 The collection went through a couple of titles before it was finally named Let Me Tell You, and it is now, as they say, available wherever better books are sold.
*20 Just thought I’d test-drive a singular “they” to see how it felt. It felt…OK. Not great.
*21 Now it can be told: “garden-variety.”
*22 Alas, shortly thereafter, Gollum—because it’s he, who else?—hisses, “Not fair! not fair!” Which is ungreat, but he then goes for the gold with “It isn’t fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it’s got in its nassty little pocketses?”
*23 Copy editor to me: “You said that before.” Me to copy editor: “I say it often.”
*24 Be careful not to italicize the apostrophe or the s in the possessive of a noun itself set in italics.
*25 The other co-founder? Jane Grant, Ross’s wife, who somehow, mysteriously, often goes unmentioned.
*26 I’d originally written “such a summer for daffodils.” My copy editor corrected me.
*27 The speaker just comma-spliced, and I feel fine about that. The odd comma splice isn’t going to kill anyone. You could, if you chose, break up that last bit into two sentences, but it’s not as effective, nor does it quite convey the intended sound of the utterance.
*28 Less direly, I’d urge you to avoid as well characterizing speech impediments phonetically. Something like “And if the truth hurtth you it ithn’t my fault, ith it, Biff?” (once again: Gypsy Rose Lee, The G-String Murders) may—or may not—be funny the first time, but it’s tasteless, to say nothing of tiresome.
ONE MORNING IN DECEMBER 2016 the then president-elect of the United States took to Twitter, as was his incessant wont, and accused the Chinese, who’d just, in an act of penny-ante provocation, shanghaied a U.S. drone, of an “unpresidented act.” In a flash I was reminded of the importance of knowing how to spell.
The fact is: A lot of people don’t type*1 with autocorrect or spellcheck turned on—or, I gather, heed them even if they do. That said, neither*2 autocorrect nor spellcheck can save you from typing a word that is indeed a word but doesn’t happen to be the word you mean or should mean to type. For more on that, see Chapter 10: The Confusables.
It goes without saying, though I’m happy to say it, that no one expects you to memorize the spelling of every word in the notoriously irregular, unmemorizable English language. My desk dictionary of choice, and that of most of my copyeditorial colleagues, is the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (affectionately known as Web 11); I also keep on a nearby stand a copy of the big Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, not as New now as it was when it was first published in 1961, though mostly it just sits there looking authoritative. You’ll also find a number of first-rate dictionaries online, including Merriam-Webster’s own, at merriam-webster.com (and if you’re a Twitter person, you owe it to yourself to follow the cheekily erudite @MerriamWebster), and the densely helpful Free Dictionary (thefreedictionary.com). (Google’s dictionary, which is where you’ll land if you google*3 any word at all plus the word “definition,” is workmanlikely reliable but drab.)
Still and all, I do think that knowing how to spell on one’s own is a commendable skill, so for a back-to-elementary-school brushup I offer you a selection of the words I most frequently encounter misspelled—some of which, I don’t bother to blush to confess, I’ve been known to mess up myself—with remarks on some of the general issues of the art of spelling and its pitfalls. If you can, already or afterward, ace all of these, award yourself a shiny foil star.
ACCESSIBLE
The “-ible” words and the “-able” words are easily confusable, and I’m afraid there’s no surefire trick for remembering which are which. Though it is the case that most of the “-able”s are words in their own right even if you delete the “-able” (e.g., “passable,” “manageable”) and that most of the “-ible”s are not, shorn of their “-ible,” freestanding (e.g., “tangible,” “audible”), most is not all. As, to be sure, our friend “accessible.” And see “confusable,” seven lines up. “Confus”?
ACCOMMODATE, ACCOMMODATION
Words with double c’s are troublemakers; words with double c’s and double m’s are invitations to catastrophe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This is the preferred American spelling. The Brits favor (but not by much and only relatively recently) “acknowledgement.”*4
AD NAUSEAM
Not spelled “ad nauseum.”
AFICIONADOS
Copyediting FAQ
Q. How do I know which words ending in o are pluralized with an s and which are pluralized with an es?
A. You don’t. Look ’em up.
ANOINT
“Annoint” is a legitimate if obscure and mostly archaic variant spelling, but that doesn’t mean you should use it. Same goes for “bannister.”
ANTEDILUVIAN
Perhaps not a word you use terribly often, but if you’re going to use it, that’s how you spell it.
ASSASSIN, ASSASSINATE, ASSASSINATED, ASSASSINATION
Don’t stint on the s’s.
BARBITURATE
I’d guess that a popular misapprehension of pronunciation leads to a popular misapprehension of spelling, thus “barbituate,” but that’s not how you spell it.
BATTALION
Two t’s, one l, not the other way around. Think “battle,” if that helps you.*5
BOOKKEEPER
The only legitimate English word I’m aware of that includes three consecutive sets of double letters,*6 and in writing it you’re quite apt to forget the second k.*7
BUOY, BUOYANCY, BUOYANT
That oddish uo, which somehow never looks right, is easy to flip; thus my periodic encounters with “
bouy,” “bouyancy,” and “bouyant.”
BUREAUCRACY
First you have to nail down the spelling of “bureau,” which is hard enough. Once you’ve conquered “bureau,” you can likely manage “bureaucrat” and “bureaucratic,” but be careful not to crash and burn, as I often do, on “bureaucracy,” which always wants to come out “bureaucrasy.”
CAPPUCCINO
Two p’s and two c’s.
Also, there is no x in “espresso,” but you knew that already.
CENTENNIAL
And its cousins “sesquicentennial”*8 and “bicentennial.”
CHAISE LONGUE
That’s indeed how you spell it, because that’s what it is—literally, from the French, a long chair. But the spelling “chaise lounge” took root in English, especially American English, an awfully long time ago, and it’s not going anywhere, and one would be hard-pressed anymore to call it an error, particularly when it turns up in novels in the dialogue of characters who would not naturally say “chaise longue.”
COMMANDOS
My—and most people’s—preferred plural of “commando.” (Though “commandoes,” which suggests to me a troop of female deer packing Uzis, is, per the dictionary, less incorrect than “aficionadoes.”)
CONSENSUS
Not “concensus.”
DACHSHUND
Two h’s.
DAIQUIRI
Three i’s.
DAMMIT
It’s not “damnit,” goddammit and damn it all to hell, and I wish people would knock it off already.
DE RIGUEUR
A fancy-schmancy adjective meaning “required or prescribed by fashion”; to misspell it is the ne plus ultra of failed pretension.
DIETICIAN, DIETITIAN
They’re both correct. The latter is vastly more popular, though somehow I think the former better evokes the hairnets and lab coats of the elementary school lunch ladies of my distant youth.
DIKE
The things that keep the Netherlands from flooding are dikes. Let’s leave it at that.
DILEMMA
Ask a roomful of people whether at any time in their lives they believed this word to be spelled “dilemna,” and you will receive in return quite a number of boisterous yeses. But the word is not spelled thus; it’s never been spelled thus. Whence, then, “dilemna”? It remains a mystery.
DIPHTHERIA
Not “diptheria.” There are two h’s here.
DOPPELGÄNGER
The popular error is to transpose the el to an le.
DUMBBELL
Double b. The odds are good that left to your own devices you’re going to spell this “dumbell,” as you’re also likely to attempt “filmaker,” “newstand,” and “roomate.” Well, don’t.
ECSTASY
Not “ecstacy.” Perhaps you’re confusing it with bureaucracy.
ELEGIAC
Not “elegaic,” a misspelling that makes it into print with mournful frequency.
ENMITY
I was well into my twenties before I realized that this word was neither pronounced nor spelled “emnity.” I have since learned—and I find it retroactively comforting—that I was not, and am not, the only victim of that misapprehension.
FASCIST
Capitalized when referring to an actual member of Mussolini’s Fascisti, the British Union of Fascists, or any other organization that thus self-identifies, otherwise lowercased.*9
FILMMAKER, FILMMAKING
Noted above, under “dumbbell,” yet given the frequency with which I encounter “filmaker” and “filmaking,” apparently worth repeating.
FLACCID
Pronunciation is not my fiefdom—I don’t have to say ’em, I just have to spell ’em—but you may pronounce this either “flaksid” (the original pronunciation) or “flassid” (the more recent, and now more popular, pronunciation).
In any event, two c’s.
FLUORESCENCE, FLUORESCENT
There’s that peculiar uo again.
FLUORIDE
And once again.
FORTY
Rarely to never misspelled on its own, but there’s something about a follow-up “four” that leads, occasionally, to “fourty-four.”
FUCHSIA
Commonly misspelled “fuschia,” a dishonor to the botanist Leonhard Fuchs, after whom the flower (and color) are named.
GARROTE
Even knowing I’ve just spelled it correctly, I still think it should be “garotte.”
GENEALOGY
I once let this go to print as “geneology” (perhaps I was thinking of geology?), and decades later the memory still stings.
GLAMOUR, GLAMOROUS
When Noah Webster was standardizing American English in the nineteenth century and streamlining “neighbour” into “neighbor,” “honour” into “honor,” etc., he neglected to transform “glamour” into “glamor”—because, oddly enough, he didn’t include the word at all, in any form, in his initial 1828 dictionary or in any of his follow-up volumes. “Glamor” does show up from time to time, but certainly it lacks glamour. Do note, though, that “glamorous” is spelled only thus; it’s never “glamourous.” And it’s “glamorize,” never “glamourize.”
GONORRHEA
Two r’s. See also “syphilis.”
GRAFFITI
Two f’s rather than, as I occasionally run across it, two t’s. It’s a plural, by the way. There is a singular, “graffito,” but no one ever seems to use it. Perhaps because one rarely encounters a single graffito?
GUTTURAL
Not “gutteral,” even though that’s how you pronounce it. If you know your Latin, you may recognize this word that refers to throaty or generally disagreeable utterances as deriving from guttur, the Latin for “throat.” If you don’t know your Latin, you’ll simply have to remember how to spell it.
HEROES
When one is writing about valiant champions, the plural of “hero” is, invariably, “heroes.” The plural of the hero that’s the heavily laden sandwich can be given, per the dictionary, as “heros,” but I can’t say I’ve run across it much if at all in the wild, and I can’t say I care for it.
HIGHFALUTIN
This word, used to describe the putting on of airs, seems (even the dictionary isn’t positive) to derive from a merger of “high” and “fluting”; nonetheless, it’s not to be taken as some sort of Li’l Abner clipping like “comin’ ” or “goin’,” and there’s no apostrophe at its tail end (or, for that matter, a hyphen in its middle).
HORS D’OEUVRE, HORS D’OEUVRES
This one is a nightmare for everyone because of the oeu. Drill oeu into your head and the rest falls into place. The s for the plural is an English-language innovation; French makes do with hors d’oeuvre as both singular and plural.
While we’re here: Though hors d’oeuvres include all more or less bite-size thingamabobs passable on trays, canapés are a subset of hors d’oeuvres requiring a base of bread, toast, cracker, puff pastry, etc., topped or spread with a topping or a spread. Amuse-bouches, which can be made out of just about anything so long as it’s little, are chef-bestowed pre-meal*10 gifts, often served in those charming miniature ladle-like spoons. Now you know.
HYPOCRISY
See also “bureaucracy.”
IDIOSYNCRASY
Same.
INDISPENSABLE
Microsoft Word’s spellcheck believes “indispensible” to be correct; no one else I know does, and it rarely makes it to print.
INDUBITABLY
There’s a b in the middle, not a p.
INFINITESIMAL
Just the one s.
INOCULATE
One n and one c only.
LEPRECHAUN
It doesn’t look much more sensible properly spelled than misspelled, but there you have it
.
LIAISON
A word with three consecutive vowels is just begging for trouble.
The relatively recent back-formation*11 “liaise” irritates a lot of people. I think it’s dandy and useful.
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