Words I Will Never Know How to Spell

It’s the last Thursday of the year, and as always I’m looking at words in a slightly different fashion. This year: words that I will never know how to spell. Come on, it’s in the post title.

Connoisseur

Heads up: having French genes does not make you able to spell French words (I guess linguistics can’t be passed down that way). Also, why the hell is this word so freaking hard to get right?! Seriously, what is with French and letters? “Let’s throw an O in there!” “Shall we pronounce it?” “No, what are you, crazy?”

Miscellaneous

I think it’s the S and the C in this one that really screw me up. This is why I hate the letter C. It’s so pointless. It’s designed to make you not know how to use it. Is it pronounced? Silent? A K sound? An S? A ch?

Twelfth

I suppose that this might be embarrassing to admit, but I always forget either the L or the F. It’s all those consonants in a row! Sometimes it seems like the F isn’t even vocalized, and I know there’s a linguistic word for that although I can’t think of it off the top of my head and don’t feel like looking it up.

Cemetery

I am just always convinced there’s an A in there somewhere. Secretary uses the same vowel pronunciations but has an A in the end. Why not cemetary? I mean cemetery. I just did it again. Not making this up. I totally spelled it wrong in my post about spelling it wrong as I’m looking at the correct spelling of the word.

Millennium

I never remember that there are two N’s. Or sometimes I spell it with the two N’s, but only one L. I will never, ever get it right on the first try unless I look it up.

So that’s all I can think of, but what about you? What words do you never get right?

Contrarily

The last etymology post of the year! So of course I have to do something different. Today I’m going to highlight contranyms, words that mean both one thing and the complete opposite, because the one thing that you should be learning from these posts is that words are stupid.

Peruse

Peruse means to read with thoroughness or care, like you would an article a medical journal that you were doing a paper on. It also means to scan or browse, like you would a tabloid while waiting in line at the grocery store. So it’s read carefully and glance at. So are you perusing this list or perusing it?

Dust

Yes, dust does have two contradictory meanings. Think about it: you can dust donuts with powdered sugar. And then when you spill it on the table, you can dust up the sugar. You can dust the dust.

Nonplussed

This one is kind of funny because it’s only recently that the word has come to mean the opposite. Originally, nonplussed meant to surprise/confuse someone so much they don’t know how to react. However over the past couple of decades in North America, it’s come to mean to not be disturbed by something at all (I grew up thinking that was what it meant because I never heard it in any other context). I guess we’re seeing a word become a contranym right before our eyes, and we still have no idea why.

Egregious

These days egregious means  extraordinarily bad, like Manos: The Hands of Fate is considered an egregious example of cinema. But! Once upon a time, it used to mean distinguished or outstanding, except people started using it ironically. So whatever you had to say about the change in definitions of nonplussed, people were probably saying it about egregious, and now everyone only uses it that way.

Chuffed

I had never even heard of chuffed before making this list, but it is indeed a contranym as it means both pleased and displeased. This one is all British, with the good chuffed coming from a word that meant “swollen with fat” and the bad one coming from a word that was “rude man”. And both of those words were “chuff”, so they were the same even back then and no one knows where they came from before that.

I’m Still Finding Words That Are Easy to Confuse

Sigh. Melissa is taking a blogging break. I so loved Grammar Police Mondays. Really. I’m not even exaggerating. If it’s about words and word usage, I will love it.

Anyway, with her off being with her family because I suppose that’s more important than us, here’s another set of easily confused words and how not to confuse them.

Mariticide is the killing of your husband. Matricide is the killing of your mother. You don’t want to mix those up. The consequences would be terrible. Remember, killing your mom is just killing your dad with an m instead of a p.

Chord/cord, suggested by Kate Larkendale way back during my last Confused Words post. I know Latin liked to distinguish words of Greek origin by using ch for the hard k sound, but do we still have to do it in English? It’s been like fifteen hundred years. It seems like we can let it go. But if people insist upon using it, remember that cord is either wood or a rope/cable, while chord has to do with music. Or a bunch of esoteric meanings in geometry, engineering and aeronautics.

Current/currant

I had to write current for something and I spelled it with an a because I do that with words a lot (any word that ends with -ent or -ant, I WILL spell it with the wrong vowel every freaking time). A red, squiggly line didn’t pop up underneath. Turns out currant is a real word, a type of raisin. I had no idea that it was a real word. Or that there were types of raisins.

Creek/creak

Another word I have to mention because I mix it up. A creek is a body of water, while a creak is a noise. I don’t know of an easy way to tell them apart. You just have to remember that double e is water and e-a is sound.

Route/root/rout

This one is super annoying because root is always root (pronounced so it rhymes with boot), rout is always rout (pronounced so it’s out with an r in front), but route can be pronounced root or rout. It’s like they were designed for the specific purpose of sowing confusion. Just don’t forget that e when you mean a road/path, otherwise you’re writing about something completely different.

So this is the last word/etymology post of the year : ). I hope you loved them as much as I did!

…You didn’t love them as much as I did. Well, tough. I’m never going to stop.