Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this in a message from a supervisor to other employees.

Problem:
The word “seemless” — spelled S-E-E-M-L-E-S-S — is nonsensical.

Explanation:
The supervisor was trying to tell the other employees that customer care should be smooth — that effectively it should have no seams — spelled S-E-A-M-S — for the customer.

That gives us the solution.

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

• “seamless” — spelled S-E-A-M-L-E-S-S — 33,600,000 matches
• “seemless” — spelled S-E-E-M-L-E-S-S — 794,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors favor the correctly spelled “seamless” over the misspelled “seemless” by a ratio of 42.3:1 — good, but not great, especially given the nearly one million matches for the misspelled word.

Solution:
“MAKE IT SEAMLESS!”

My wife heard the first word used several times yesterday as a synonym of the second word, and I once worked for someone who regularly made the same mistake.

Problem:
These two words are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The word “simular” — spelled S-I-M-U-L-A-R — dates back to the early 1500s.

The meaning of “simular” as a noun is pretender. The primary meaning of “simular” as an adjective is simulated or counterfeit.

A valid example of the use of “simular” as an adjective would be “Pleather is simular leather.”

The word “similar” — spelled S-I-M-I-L-A-R — dates back to the early 1600s, is only an adjective, and primarily means having a resemblance or likeness.

A valid example of the use of “similar” as an adjective would be “The two automobiles in the parking lot were so similar that John tried to unlock the wrong one.”

I believe that some people mispronounce and/or misspell the adjective “similar” — spelled S-I-M-I-L-A-R — as “simular” — spelled S-I-M-U-L-A-R — because of interference from the verb “simulate”, which does have the vowel “u” in the middle of it.

I doubt that most users of “simular” — with a “u” in the middle — know its true meaning.

Solution:
Use the adjective “simular” when referring to something that is false or simulated or counterfeit. Use the adjective “similar” when referring to a likeness or resemblance.

I saw this in an emailed advertisement for an instructional designer.

Problem:
The noun is misspelled.

Explanation:
The complete line was “Duration: ASAP - End of Oct. with a possible extention.” — spelled E-X-T-E-N-T-I-O-N.

There is no such word.

Then again, are recruiters supposed to be able to spell?

I believe so, and I believe that a job advertisement with misspellings hurts a recruiter’s reputation.

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

• “extension” — with the letter “s” toward the end — 206,000,000 matches
• “extention” — with the letter “t” toward the end — 5,760,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the noun correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 35.8-to-1, which is bad.

Considering the nearly six million matches for the incorrect spelling, one would have to conclude that the misspelling is a common English blunder.

Solution:
“… with a possible extension.”

I saw this two days ago in an online forum.

Problem:
The phrase “likely hood” — with the letter Y and a space in the middle — is a misspelling of a noun.

Explanation:
As with many other words that end with the letter Y, the “y” in a word such as “likely” must be changed to “i” when the suffix H-O-O-D is appended to it.

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

• “likelihood” — with the letter I in the middle — 31,400,000 matches
• “likely hood” — with the letter Y and a space in the middle — 130,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the correct word vs. the incorrect phrase by a ratio of 242-to-1, which is excellent.

Still, the existence of some 130,000 Web pages with the phrase “likely hood” — with the Y and a space in the middle — is a bit depressing.

Solution:
“I know the likelihood of …”

I saw this in a software test-plan document.

Problem:
“Ready-ness” — with the letter Y followed by a hyphen in the middle — is a misspelled noun.

Explanation:
As with many other words that end with the letter Y, the “y” in “ready” must be changed to “i” when the suffix N-E-S-S is appended to a word such as “ready”.

Furthermore, no hyphen should appear in the word “readiness”.

Beyond these two problems, there was no need to capitalize “System” and “Ready-ness”.

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

• “readiness” — with the letter I in the middle — 17,700,000 matches
• “ready-ness” — with the letter Y and a hyphen in the middle — 1,130 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 15,664-to-1, which is superb.

Solution:
“… it’s reliant upon system readiness …”

I saw this in a job announcement from IBM.

Problem:
“Readyness” — with the letter Y in the middle — is a misspelled noun.

Explanation:
As with many other words that end with the letter Y, the “y” in “ready” must be changed to “i” when the suffix N-E-S-S is appended to a word such as “ready”.

I suppose that the hiring standards or quality control at IBM are suffering.

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

• “readiness” — with the letter I in the middle — 17,700,000 matches
• “readyness” — with the letter Y in the middle — 81,800 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 216-to-1, which is excellent.

Solution:
“Readiness to travel”

I saw this yesterday on a flower-shop sign.

Problem:
The first noun is misspelled.

Explanation:
The flower-shop sign appeared yesterday in a Channel-11 local news report about the death of Michael DeBakey, M.D., a Houston medical legend.

C-O-N-D-O-L-A-N-C-E-S was on the sign in large, all-capital letters.

This noun is correctly spelled C-O-N-D-O-L-E-N-C-E-S.

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

• “condolences” — 6,320,000 matches
• “condolances” — 91,400 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 69.1:1, which is not too bad, especially given the fewer than one hundred thousand instances of the misspelling.

Solution:
“OUR CONDOLENCES TO THE DEBAKEY FAMILY”

I see this occasionally and hear this more often.

Problem:
This is a misspelling or mispronunciation of a verb.

Explanation:
“Surpress” — spelled S-U-R-P-R-E-S-S — is a mispelling or mispronunciation of the verb “suppress”, which is spelled S-U-P-P-R-E-S-S.

Given that the first “p” in “suppress” is not usually pronounced, I believe that many American English speakers do not realize that “suppress” is spelled with two “p”s.

However, given the tendency by some speakers to add an “r” to “uh” sounds — as in “idea” pronounced “idear”, or as in “Usher” pronounced “Ursher” — it is not surprising to me that “suppress” can become “supress” instead.

The verb “surprise” is yet another source of interference.

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

• “suppress” — 18,400,000 matches
• “surpress” — 121,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 152:1, which is very good but not excellent.

Solution:
“Suppress”

I saw each of these words in the past week and wondered about their origins.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms but look so similar that some people will mistakenly use one of the nouns when they should use the other noun.

Explanation:
The noun “bouillon” — spelled B-O-U-I-L-L-O-N — means a clear broth made from straining water in which meat has been cooked. This noun dates back to the mid-sixteen-hundreds and is derived from the French verb that means to boil.

The noun “bullion” — spelled B-U-L-L-I-O-N — means silver or gold considered in mass (for example, in bars) instead of in value. This noun dates back to the mid-thirteen-hundreds and also can trace its origin to the word for boiling or bubbling — as in a melted mass of silver or gold.

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

• “chicken bullion” — 18,300 matches
• “beef bullion” — 14,700 matches
• “gold bouillon” — 3,510 matches
• “silver bouillon” — 1,280 matches

I call these “mistaken phrases” because I combined two words that should not go together based on the definitions of bullion and bouillon. These results tell me that Web authors are worse at properly naming their broths than they are at properly naming their masses of gold and silver.

Solution:
Use “bouillon” when referring to broth. Use “bullion” when referring to gold or silver.

I saw this yesterday at a website for a company named Bullion Coatings.

Problem:
“Masonary” — with two instances of the letter A — is a misspelling.

Explanation:
The website referred to “Masonary Effects”.

The intent of this phrase was to say that the company could apply an acrylic coating to concrete to create stonework-like effects, which gives us the solution — “masonry” — without the second instance of the letter A.

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

• “masonry” — 18,000,000 matches
• “masonary” — 420,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 42.9:1, which is good, but the fact that the Web contains almost 500 thousand instances of “masonary” is bit disappointing.

Solution:
“Masonry”