Gratuitous pet peeve post

[darkemeralds]

There's a finite number of correct ways to spell "definite" in English. That number is one.

See? Mnemonic. Spread the word.

Comments

[hardrada.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, how would you go about encouraging the correct spelling of "separate"?

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

God. No clue. Memorize it, maybe? Or wait, I know: spell-checker!

I have dim memories of my first-grade teacher saying something about "your Pa." Like maybe, "nobody can separate you and your pa."

And there are Romance languages with their actual pronunciation of vowels. Saying séparer or défini makes the correct vowel pretty clear.

Gah. English! Too many schwas. Gah. Americans! Not enough foreign language training.

[kernelm.livejournal.com]

Ooh ooh, your post reminded me of my high school sophomore English teacher telling us there's "a rat" in separate. (We were doing "A Separate Peace" at the time.) Don't know what exactly the justificaton for why there's a rat in separate, but it's stuck with me ever since. :-P

[talitha78.livejournal.com]

hahaha! :)

[sffan.livejournal.com]

Hee. Nice to know I'm not the only one. Some misspellings I can tolerate (hell, since I became an internet junkie, my own spelling skills have diminished greatly), but that is one I really can't. It makes me crazy! (okay, crazier)

[seraphina-pyra.livejournal.com]

hee

[skripka.livejournal.com]

So totally one of my peeves.