Most commonly misspelled science and math words

[Claude Bile]

Gouy phase.

 

[pinball1970]

Taxonomy can be kind of crazy with names.
Besides changes in names and continued use by some people (in the literature!) of old names, I have also seem mis-spelled names propagating through different published papers.

Fungal taxonomy, not fun.

 

[fresh_42]

That's what I used to call apatosaurus when I was a kid. :)

-Dan

Fungal taxonomy, not fun.

 

[pinball1970]

View attachment 316757

The most ridiculous name ever?

• Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis

And yes of course it's Welsh. Perhaps a couple of PhD students got the crazy idea that if they could isolate a novel species from (that place) then the binomial would be pretty damn long.
if not the longest.

 

[topsquark]

The most ridiculous name ever?

• Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis

And yes of course it's Welsh. Perhaps a couple of PhD students got the crazy idea that if they could isolate a novel species from (that place) then the binomial would be pretty damn long.
if not the longest.

Oh, I don't know. Captain Kirk's favorite bird is the Khaan.

-Dan

 

[Ibix]

Oh, I don't know. Captain Kirk's favorite bird is the Khaan.

I thought Captain Kirk's favourite bird was the one with the green skin...

 

[hmmm27]

I thought Captain Kirk's favourite bird was the one with the green skin...

I recently read about the machinations Gene Roddenberry went through to get Majel Barrett (later Mrs Roddenberry) into the original series as Nurse Chapel, after the original original pilot had her as "Number One".

Also, it was postulated that Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand, first season) should have been kept on to provide a foil to Kirk's womanizing.

 

[.Scott]

You can always depend on Iceland for words that are neither pronounceable no spell-able.
As with: Eyjafjallajökull

In High School Physics, I was told that the 1-letter lower case decimal prefixes such as 'm' and 'd' designated multipliers less than 1 while upper case 1-letter prefixes such as 'M' and 'D' designated multipliers greater than 1.
That rule (if it ever really existed) is violated so often that US NIST (standards) now draws the line at 1000. So 'kilo' is 'k', 'hecto' is 'h', and 'deka' is 'da'.
Although 'k' for kilo is the SI standard, more often than not, KBaud, Kbit, and Kbytes are more often 'K' than 'k'.

 

[jrmichler]

I live on a flowage fed by a creek that was recently renamed Aabajijiwani-ziibiinsing because the previous name was derogatory to Native American women. One person tried to find the meaning of the name. He was only able to find a Native American that thought that the second word means creek or river. Google translate finds nothing. We have not yet figured out how to pronounce the new name.

 

[Frabjous]

Nucular

 

[Orodruin]

Although 'k' for kilo is the SI standard, more often than not, KBaud, Kbit, and Kbytes are more often 'K' than 'k'.

1 kbit = 1000 bit
1 Kbit = 1024 bit
The latter not being SI standard but JEDEC standard iirc.

 

[Baluncore]

A scientific and technical spell checker should detect incomplete units.
"gallon" or "gal " should not pass. Use gal(US) or gal(imp).
"ton " should not pass. Use ton(short), ton(long), or metric "tonne", which is 1000 kg.

 

[Baluncore]

Are malapropisms classed as spelling errors ?
“To be pacific”, is commonly replacing "to be specific".
January should be followed by February, not Febuary.
Then hydroscopic instruments are used to look into deep water, while hygroscopic materials take up moisture from the atmosphere.
People now “hone in”, where I would “home in”. I use hone while fine finishing surfaces or cutting edges.
There is a minuscule problem with miniscule.

 

[Svein]

And the common mistake "Wein.bridge" (wine-bridge) which should of course be Wien bridge.
To be precise: Wien is the correct name of the city of Vienna, Wein is wine.
And another: The Norwegian word "malstrøm" (meaning grind-stream) is almost always miswritten as "maelstrom" (which would be "mælstrøm" which is meaningless). What is it with the English and diphtongs?

 

[Baluncore]

What is it with the English and diphtongs?

I assume you meant diphthongs.

 

[Orodruin]

What is it with the English and diphtongs?

They probably discussed it over a nice smouergeausbeurd.
Actually… that’s probably just Scanian accent …

 

[Svein]

I assume you meant diphthongs.

Of course - I have never seen it spelled in English and the spellchecker did not react.

By the way - the Norwegian/Danish "ø" is the same letter and sound as the "ö" and is pronounced as the vowel sound in "first".

smouergeausbeurd

That is a Swedish expression and is written "smörgåsbord". I do not know the English equivalent - it translates sloppily as "sandwich-table" (not a table made of sandwiches, but a serving-table with all kinds of sandwiches).
Actually, English has lots of words with Scandinavian roots - check out .

 

[topsquark]

And the common mistake "Wein.bridge" (wine-bridge) which should of course be Wien bridge.
To be precise: Wien is the correct name of the city of Vienna, Wein is wine.
And another: The Norwegian word "malstrøm" (meaning grind-stream) is almost always miswritten as "maelstrom" (which would be "mælstrøm" which is meaningless). What is it with the English and diphtongs?

Actually, maelstrom is the accepted English spelling. I don't know why as the a shouldn't have been translated to an æ. Butthe English speakers aren't wrong, the lexicographers were!

-Dan

 

[DrGreg]

Actually, maelstrom is the accepted English spelling. I don't know why as the a shouldn't have been translated to an æ. Butthe English speakers aren't wrong, the lexicographers were!

But English-language lexicographers don't invent spellings and meanings of words; they observe and record how words are already being used in the real English-speaking world. So if sufficient numbers of people use a "wrong" spelling, the wrong spelling becomes right.

 

[Orodruin]

That is a Swedish expression and is written "smörgåsbord". I do not know the English equivalent - it translates sloppily as "sandwich-table" (not a table made of sandwiches, but a serving-table with all kinds of sandwiches).
Actually, English has lots of words with Scandinavian roots - check out .

I am aware. I am Swedish.
The word itself (ö and å replaced by o and a) is actually the correct English and an excellent example of a word borrowed from Swedish to English.

 

[Orodruin]

Wiktionary claims the English word maelstrom originates in old Dutch word maelstroom (modern Dutch being maalstroom). The exact relation to the Nordic version is not discussed but likely of common origin.

 

[fresh_42]

The german version Mahlstrom (sometimes Malstrom) means vortex and comes from the dutch word maalstrom (malen = drehen = turning).

 

[Baluncore]

Another malapropism.
For all intents and purposes is becoming for all intensive purposes.

 

[Klystron]

...
That is a Swedish expression and is written "smörgåsbord". I do not know the English equivalent ...

A common North American English equivalent buffet likely derives from French. A buffet features a variety of self-serve dishes sometimes anchored by a chef slicing roast meats. Participants serve themselves from hot and cold trays arranged in lines, juggling warmed or chilled plates, able to call out delectable choices to acquaintances.

My adopted home state of Nevada transforms this cafeteria experience into an extravaganza of excess, raising smörgåsbord to high art with certain hot dishes made to order by sous-chefs and icy cold desserts compiled by a friendly confectioner. Notwithstanding this interesting variety, even pre-pandemic, I prefer restaurants that bring food and drinks to guests at their table to balancing loaded plates from buffet line to table and back again.

The first smörgåsbord restaurant my family frequented in the then tiny town of Cupertino CA named "Fiords" featured Scandanavian folk music and dancing on holidays amid tasty 'family' foods.

 

[Ibix]

Another malapropism.
For all intents and purposes is becoming for all intensive purposes.

Or for all intense porpoises.

 

[Baluncore]

Cupertino CA

This thread is about spelling, so I should mention that the town is also known for the Cupertino effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect

 

[martinbn]

" In a lecture series on approximation theory, Besicovitch announced, "zere is no 't' in ze name Chebysov" (P. Chebychev, 1821-1894). Two weeks later he said, "Ve now introduce ze class of T-polynomials. They are called T-polynomials because T is ze first letter of ze name Chebyshov."

 

[mpresic3]

I was told of a test where the spell check changed the words and the examiners did not catch the change.

At one point during the test, the question asked for the periapsis. The spell check changed this to a biological word regarding reproduction. Later in the same test a question regarded mensuration. Again the spell check changed this with a biological meaning.