According to the Internet, here are the ten most misspelled/misused words found in blogs:
1. Your - You’re
2. Then - Than
3. Its - it’s
4. To - Too - Two
5. Were - Where - We’re
6. There - Their - They’re
7. A - An - And
8. Off - Of
9. Here - Hear
10. Lose - Loose
According to the Internet, here are the past ten years' worth of Scripps National Spelling Bee winning words (and their winners):
1998:
chiaroscurist
Jody-Anne Maxwell
1999:
logorrhea
Nupur Lala
2000:
demarche
George Abraham Thampy
2001:
succedaneum
Sean Conley
2002:
prospicience
Pratyush Buddiga
2003:
pococurante
Sai R. Gunturi
2004:
autochthonous
David Scott Pilarski Tidmarsh
2005:
appoggiatura
Anurag Kashyap
2006:
Ursprache
Kerry Close
2007:
serrefine
Evan M. O’Dorney
2008:
guerdon
Sameer Mishra
Does anyone else see the discrepancy, or am I merely over-taxed because of this interminable flu? Anyway, what I love best is that some of the spelling bee words haven't yet made Spellcheck -- say, there's a surprise -- which now leads me to the question (or am I begging one?) ... if we who blog spent more time with our noses elsewhere (in a dictionary, perhaps) we might know the meaning, or at least how to spell four, of those winning words. As it is, the only one familiar to me is logorrhea, and that's because I have it.
<:^)
