Kirk Mahoney . com

I hear or see this occasionally.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation or misspelling of a valid noun.

Explanation:
The valid noun is “hypochondria” — spelled H-Y-P-O-C-H-O-N-D-R-I-A.

This noun means excessive concern about one’s health, especially focusing on symptoms that could be due to cardiac or gastric problems.

The noun “hypochondria” exemplifies the value of knowing the roots of words in the English language.

The “chondria” portion of the noun refers to ensiform cartilage — that is, to sword-shaped or xiphoid cartilage, which relates to the lowermost segment of the three segments that comprise the sternum.

The “hypo” portion of the noun means under or below.

Knowing these two roots makes it easy to understand how the noun “hypochondria” refers in particular to cardiac or gastric problems.

So replacing “hypo” with “hyper” produces a nonsense word. Whatever is over or above the xiphoid cartilage is outside the body and therefore could not refer to gastric or cardiac problems.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “hypochondria” — spelled H-Y-P-O-C-H-R-O-N-D-R-I-A — 456,000 matches
• “hyperchondria” — spelled H-Y-P-E-R-C-H-R-O-N-D-R-I-A — 1,760 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the correct word over the incorrect word by a ratio of 259-to-1, which is excellent.

Solution:
“Hypochondria”

I saw this yesterday on a website.

Problem:
One of the words is misspelled.

Explanation:
I had just registered my name and address at a website where I wanted to make a purchase.

The website permits purchases by returning members, by new members, and by those who choose not to create a member account.

I chose to create a member account so that I could track my order.

An account-creation confirmation page appeared, apparently to allay my concerns about creating yet another identity (”member account”) at yet another website.

The Web page referred to “member priviledges”, with the second word spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-S.

The misspelling was obvious to me, if not to the page’s author. The second word should have been spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-S (with no “d” in the middle).

This misspelling is a common English blunder, but I wondered just how common it was.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “privilege” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E — 31,400,000 matches
• “privileged” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-D — 16,900,000 matches
• “privileges” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E-S — 21,100,000 matches
• “priviledge” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E — 694,000 matches
• “priviledged” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-D — 354,000 matches
• “priviledges” — spelled P-R-I-V-I-L-E-D-G-E-S — 362,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spellings versus the incorrect spellings by a ratio of 49.2-to-1, which is good but not excellent, especially in light of the more than 1.4 million total misspellings.

I suspect that these misspellings come from mental interference by the word “ledge” — spelled L-E-D-G-E.

Solution:
“member privileges”

My wife saw this on Amazon.com.

Problem:
The reflexive pronoun is triply misspelled.

Explanation:
My wife was researching a carpentry tool on Amazon.com.

She was reading comments from those who had bought the tool when she came across “The tool it’s self seems …”.

The obvious solution is to replace I-T-APOSTROPHE-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F with the reflexive pronoun “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

What fascinates me is how the commenter managed to make three spelling mistakes in the process of misspelling this pronoun.

1. Mistake #1 was to assume that reflexive pronouns are always formed by combining a possessive pronoun with the word “self”.
2. Mistake #2 was to assume that a space should appear between such a possessive pronoun and the word “self”.
3. Mistake #3 was to misspell the possessive pronoun “its” as I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.

Let us discuss these three mistakes in reverse order.

If we undo mistake #3, then we get “its self” — spelled I-T-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #2, then we get “itsself” — spelled I-T-S-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #1, then we get “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

Solution:
“The tool itself seems …”

I saw this recently on a website.

Problem:
The writer used the wrong verb.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “He sites the following historic quotes regarding Thanksgiving.”

The verb “site” — spelled S-I-T-E — means to place, situate or locate at or on a site.

It is clear that the writer of the sentence was trying to say “refers to” when he wrote “site” with an “s”.

So the writer should have used the verb “cite” — spelled C-I-T-E — which means to quote, especially as an authority.

Solution:
“He cites the following historic quotes …”

I saw this on a website.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled — in capital letters, no less!

Explanation:
The adjective “visible” — misspelled as V-I-S-A-B-L-E — appeared in a banner advertisement on the MEN7 website, which I discovered after seeing a television program called “MEN7″ on the ION network a few nights ago.

The website’s banner ad was for something called “Billionaires Car Club”.

The full text of the all-capital-letters ad was “LAMBORGHINI, MURCIELAGO | PRICE TO OWN $350K | ALWAYS VISABLE | SEE IT ON BILLIONAIRES CAR CLUB”.

I was not surprised to see the adjective “visible” misspelled by a website and TV program focused on fast cars and the male equivalent of “Cosmopolitan” magazine instead of on more intellectual pursuits.

But seeing the adjective “visible” spelled with an “a” in the middle made me wonder how typical this blunder was.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “visible” — 238,000,000 matches
• “visable” — 723,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 329-to-1, which is superb.

However, nearly three-quarters of a million misspellings tells me that spelling the adjective “visible” with an “a” is a common English blunder.

I believe that this blunder is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to pronounce this adjective as if there were an “a” in the middle than to clearly pronounce the “i” in the middle.

And I believe that this mispronunciation drives the misspelling.

Solution:
“ALWAYS VISIBLE”

I saw this two days ago in a news article about a new mobile phone.

Problems:
1. A word is misspelled.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
The news article was about the BlackBerry Storm.

One of the Web pages in the article discussed the data-related features of the Storm.

While discussing the data technology, the article author wrote “The smart phone operates on Verizon Wireless’ 3G EV-DO Rev A. network in the U.S., promising lightening quick data rates and Internet surfing.”

First, while trying to play on the “Storm” model name, the author misspelled “lightning” as “lightening”.

I believe that this first problem relates to sloppy pronunciation of the noun “lightning”.

Second, while trying to modify “data rates” to indicate a high speed, the author failed to put a hyphen between (sic) “lightening” and “quick”.

I suspect that this second problem relates to a general decline in skill with hyphenation.

Solution:
“… promising lightning-quick data rates …”

I heard this during a radio broadcast this morning.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation.

Explanation:
The radio broadcast was about The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB).

The news reporter said that UTMB would not lose its “accredidation” in spite of yesterday’s announcement that 3,800 employees there would be laid off.

The noun is correctly spelled A-C-C-R-E-D-I-T-A-T-I-O-N because it comes from the verb “accredit”, which ends with a “t”.

Therefore, the final two syllables of the noun “accreditation” should be pronounced as “tation” (starting with a “t” as in “tango”) instead of as “dation” (starting with a “d” as in “delta”).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (without the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “accreditation” — 38,100,000 matches
• “accredidation” — 85,500 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 446-to-1, which is superb.

However, this ratio does not tell the complete story because it covers spellings, not pronunciations.

I believe that the mispronunciation of “accreditation” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to say “dation” than it is to say “tation”.

Solution:
“Accreditation”

I saw this in a ConsumerReports.org article.

Problem:
The article writer used the wrong verb.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “Contenting with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic, for instance, can be tiring.” in a ConsumerReports.org article titled “Should you shift to a manual transmission?”.

The verb “content” means to make satisfied or content.

Substituting this definition into the sentence yields “Making satisfied with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic, for instance, can be tiring.”, which makes no sense.

I believe that the writer got confused by the second “t” in the adjective “contentious”, which means quarrelsome.

The solution comes from the fact that the adjective “contentious” relates to the verb “contend”, which ends with a “d” and means to struggle in opposition, not to the verb “content”, which ends with a “t”.

Solution:
“Contending with a clutch in stop-and-go traffic …”

I saw this last evening on television.

Problems:
1. A word is misspelled.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
Fashion designer Tim Gunn has a program on the Bravo television channel called “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style“.

I saw in the episode last evening on this program a list of what he calls his “10 Essential Elements”; one of the elements was listed as “Any Occassion Top” — with no hyphen and with a second “s” in the second word.

Spelling the noun “Occasion” with a second “s” is a common English blunder.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “occasion” — spelled correctly as O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N — 218,000,000 matches
• “occassion” — spelled incorrectly as O-C-C-A-S-S-I-O-N — 3,340,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the correct spelling over the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 65.3-to-1, which is very good but not excellent, given the more than three million incorrect spellings.

Correctly spelling the noun “Occasion” fixes only the first problem. When an adjective plus a noun modify another noun, the adjective and first noun must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun.

So the adjective “Any” plus the first noun “Occasion” must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun “Top”.

Solution:
“Any-Occasion Top”

I saw this in a comment on someone’s blog.

Problem:
The commenter used a noun where an adjective was required.

Explanation:
The comment appeared below a blog post about three places to shop for Google Android applications.

The commenter wrote “You are wright, Edward.” and was indicating agreement with what another commenter — named Edward — had written.

The word “wright” — spelled W-R-I-G-H-T — is a noun that means someone who repairs or constructs something. For example, a “playwright” is someone who constructs theatrical plays.

The commenter should have used the adjective “right” — spelled R-I-G-H-T — which has many definitions, one of which is correct in opinion.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “you are right” — using R-I-G-H-T — 6,500,000 matches
• “you are wright” — using W-R-I-G-H-T — 4,320 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 1,505-to-1, which is superb.

Solution:
“You are right, Edward.”