Tuesday 27 January 2015

Word of the week (23)



The writer frowned at the sentence she’d just written.
WEIRD looked weird.
‘I before e except after c,’ she muttered, but WIERD looked even weirder.
She checked it, and wondered how often dictionary compilers make mistakes.
Perhaps she should use an alternative version. WYRD worked for Terry Pratchett. (But she didn’t want her readers to think she couldn’t spell.)
She rewrote the sentence using a different word.
It didn't work. STRANGE wasn’t weird enough.

Which correctly spelt word looks wrong to you?

6 comments:

Patsy said...

Nearly any word looks wrong if I stare at it for long enough!

Jan Baynham said...

Linda, one of my rogue words is 'exercise. I always make the mistake of adding another 'c' and write it as 'excercise' to fall in line with 'excellent', 'exciting', 'exceed', 'exception'and so on. I even wrote it like that in my dissertation before the age of the computer and it had to be re-typed!!

Linda D said...

Patsy - me too! And the more I look the less certain I am.

Jan - and knowing that you always get it wrong doesn't stop you from making the same mistake, does it?

liz young said...

As Patsy says - if you stare at it for long enough any word looks weird, though I will admit that weird is one of the weirder, especially as it doesn't fir its pronounciation.
I recall forgetting how to spell 'of' correctly during my 11+ exam - now that WAS weird!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Linda. The word, biscuit is strange to me and also biscuit recipe. To remember them a teacher used to say reseepe, and biscueit

Linda D said...

Yes, Susan, biscuit is very weird. Why do we need that 'u'?