Author: Kirk

“Readyness to travel”

Misspellings, Nouns

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”

“OUR CONDOLANCES TO THE DEBAKEY FAMILY”

Misspellings, Nouns

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”

“Surpress”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Verbs

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”