Hardest common words for you to spell

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Looking a bit further into the origins of that idiom, I found that "Barthel" is apparently not a reference to the male given name, but is from the Yiddish word for "crowbar" ("Barthel" ist kein männlicher Vorname, sondern jiddisch für "Brechstange"). [ref: Geolino]
 
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Stephen Tashi said:
"Dining" as in "dining room". I often spell it "dinning" and the spell checkers don't object. Is "dinning" is a participle of "din"?
Apparently so! It's in Merriam-Webster.
 
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Stephen Tashi said:
"Dining" as in "dining room". I often spell it "dinning" and the spell checkers don't object. Is "dinning" is a participle of "din"?
Yes, it's a present participle (or gerund) of 'din', which as a verb means making a 'din' (<- nonal form implicit), i.e. making noise -- it's like 'drum' in this regard, e.g. as in 'drumming' it into your boyfriend/girlfriend that 'someone' always wants first choice over who has the remote control device in hand. :wink:
 
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The part about "which" versus "who" interested me as I have wondered why the King James bible has in psalm 121: "...my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." (for which "which" I myself use "who"!)
 
I always have to double- and triple-check "gauge".
 
mathwonk said:
The part about "which" versus "who" interested me as I have wondered why the King James bible has in psalm 121: "...my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." (for which "which" I myself use "who"!)
1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
From whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the LORD,
Which made heaven and earth.

Also the "from whence". I'm not Christian but I love this Psalm
 
hutchphd said:
Also the "from whence".
"Whence" means "from where". So "from whence" means "from from where"?
 
I think that's ok, as I'm pretty sure David wasn't Christian either.

I think just plain "whence" also means wherefore, or because of which. But you are right that the "from" is redundant, sometimes used but not always, as in Matthew, chap 13, verse 54: "Whence hath this man this wisdom?" meaning roughly I guess: "(from) where does he get the nerve to preach to us?"
 
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hutchphd said:
...James I was...
Huh? I thought hutchphd you was! :wink:
 
hutchphd said:
1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
From whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the LORD,
Which made heaven and earth.

Also the "from whence". I'm not Christian but I love this Psalm
Couldn't help thinking of this Psalm when I read this today:

sayeth.jpg
 
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Hardest common words for me spell: homonyms, but only when I type. For example, I might type "there" for "their", but I don't do this when I write with a pen and paper, or on a board.
 
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As a kid I remember getting these words wrong and I still have to think about the first.
“Necessary, similarly , separately.”

“Colleague” I miss out the u sometimes

“Guard” more recently and also “their”

I am pretty certain I was ok with those words years ago

I have a co-worker called Gaurav and I wonder if that has confused my GUA/GAU combinations.

Why “their” after this time?

The “I before e except after c rule,” has got be one of the most inaccurate sayings in the English language.
 
pinball1970 said:
The “I before e except after c rule,” has got be one of the most inaccurate sayings in the English language.
Better is: i before e, except after c, but only when the sound is like ee, and not if it's a chemical (protein etc.) and not if it's seize or weird.
 
PeroK said:
Better is: i before e, except after c, but only when the sound is like ee, and not if it's a chemical (protein etc.) and not if it's seize or weird.
As you say, the "ee" sound is enough to make it cover most cases. The version I learned was:

When "I" and "E" together say "ee"
It's "I" before "E" except after "C".

I agree that "seize" is an anomaly, and also chemical terms such as caffeine and protein. I guess I pronounce "weird" (and "weir") weirdly, in that I don't count that as an "ee" sound, more a "ee-er" sound from "we-ir".
 
PeroK said:
Better is: i before e, except after c, but only when the sound is like ee, and not if it's a chemical (protein etc.) and not if it's seize or weird.
Or Science….https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_words_not_following_the_I_before_E_except_after_C_rule

I am not sure what an aatheist is, is that just a theist? Or someone who does not think atheists exist?
 
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Things that come to me while I'm trying to fall asleep:

Is there a word for that noise that get's a horse to walk?
How do you spell the noise?
"Tktk"?
 
Is there a word for that noise that get's a horse to walk?
There probably is, in the field of what sounds people make (maybe linguistics, or neuro-linguistics, speech and hearing, something else?).
There are names for particular electromagnetic signals (calls) put out by actively electro-sensitive fish.
They are converted to audio from what electrodes pick up in the water.
It is a "sound" that no one can hear (as the fish could), and it has a name.

There will often be a specialist who came up with names of things that no one else would even think about.
 
hmmm27 said:
tch ?
Mm. "tch" is what Andy Capp's wife said a lot.
That's a sound of derision.
It's the sound of "ts" but sucking in over the teeth rather than blowing out.

This is a summons, like clicking with your tongue on your molars.
 
jack action said:
It is a cluck or a click (listen to the audio file for the distinction). This one talks about cluck & kisses. Merriam-Webster seems to prefer cluck. (see example: The driver clucked at the horses to get them moving.)
Yeah, I wondered about 'cluck'. But the click sound in that audio is actually the sound I meant.

So, the sound is called a click, but that is not how it is pronounced. 'Click' is not onomatopoeiac.

I don't think the phoneme actually has a spelling that evokes the sound. I wonder how many phonemes there are like that...
 
DaveC426913 said:
How do you spell the noise?
tsk? Or the big reference on the web comes from the book "Misoso: Once Upon a Time Tales from Africa", by Verna Aardema who uses tlick. Though, I think it is to define the clicking sound heard in some African languages.