Misspelled Numbers, Months, and Days

By Maeve Maddox

Yes, these are elementary spelling words, but cruise the web and you will see them misspelled all over the place.

NUMBERS

  • forty the error is to try to make it match four
  • ninety the mistake is leaving out the e

MONTHS

  • February the error is in omitting the first r

DAYS

  • Wednesday the error is in omitting the first d

NOTE: This peculiar spelling incorporates an old noun possessive. The day of the week was named for the god Woden. Before English started using apostrophe s to indicate the possessive of a noun, it used a genitive ending –es. Wednesday is literally Woden’s Day. Somewhere along the way the o in Woden became an e.

Speaking of days and months, another frequently misspelled word in this category is calendar. The error is writing er for ar.

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4 Responses to “Misspelled Numbers, Months, and Days”

  • LeaAnn Johnson

    I get confused a lot this sgght really helps me.

  • Jeremy Dalton

    Oops, just realised we were limited to Numbers, Months, and Days.

    Ah, well, there’s the start of an idea for a ‘commonly misspelt words’ article.

  • Jeremy Dalton

    ‘Halloween’ (plethora of errors available) and ‘tattoo’ (‘tatoo’ – wrong) are nasty ones as well.

    Also the suffix -or in words such as doctor and visitor are sometimes misspelt (which itself is sometimes ‘mispelt’) with the -er suffix as in ‘visiter’.

  • Brad K.

    I get confused occasionally with nineteen (missing e again).

    I also tend to reverse the dn in Wednesday (Wendsday).

    Then there is the first r in February.

    Thanks!

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