When Words Go Wrong: 48 Memorable Proofreading Mistakes

There’s something about bad spelling and bad spellers that people don’t like. Perhaps it signals that one didn’t pay enough attention during English class. Maybe it’s perceived as a sign of a general lack of intelligence. But it’s evident even in dating: as Grammarly found in 2014, men who spell badly are 14% less likely to get a positive response from women on dating apps.

In fact, just two spelling mistakes seem like the threshold of tolerance for many ladies. If the men make more spelling mistakes than two, they’re out. A survey by Match.com also found that people judge potential partners for their bad grammar. For 88% of women and for 75% of men, poor spelling was a bigger red flag than, say, lack of confidence or bad teeth.

Those who have spent a lot of time crafting and revising their CV know — first impressions matter. Proper spelling is a part of that first impression, and good grammar skills are a must when job searching. According to a survey by CareerBuilder, 61% of recruiters toss away resumes if they spot at least one typo. While this may seem harsh, in a recruiter's eyes, it’s pretty on par with having an inappropriate email address or copying words from the job ad.

You might think that your resume is typo-free, yet, statistically, there might be at least one, no matter how good a speller you think you are. In 2019, the UK job site Adzuna analyzed over 20,000 resumes and found that 90% contained grammar or spelling mistakes. Interestingly, men tend to make more mistakes: 8% of female job-seekers turn in flawless resumes, compared to 6% of male job-seekers.

To avoid making spelling mistakes in professional settings, many people use a spellcheck. However, some experts advise against relying on them to spot 100% of mistakes. As managing director of resume writing service The CV Guru, Emma Alkirwi told CNBC, “It’s not always going to pick out everything, even though you think it should.”

Spellchecks might miss words like “and” that are turned into “add,” and “manager” becoming “manger.” Typing “insure” instead of “ensure” and “affect” instead of “effect” are also common misspellings that automated spellchecks miss.

“Bougie” might be the most misspelled word amongst Americans, but netizens have their own champions, too. According to one eight-year-old thread on r/DataIsBeautiful, the most misspelled word on Reddit is “a lot.” Whether people simply fail to press the space bar or genuinely think it’s spelled “alot” remains a mystery, but there’s a similar case with the runner-up “should have.”

The most common misspelling of that phrase is “should of,” and it’s probably because that’s how it sounds when we pronounce it. When we speak, we don’t pause between “a” and “lot,” making it confusing to spell for some. Some other words that Redditors find hard to spell also include “definitely,” “believe,” “weird,” “separate,” and “surprise.”

Few of us would like to believe we’re bad spellers, but we’re often proven wrong. People tend to underestimate themselves in many different fields, but spelling might be the one where most of us are embarrassingly overconfident. According to a survey by the customer service provider Tidio, 94% of Americans consider themselves good spellers, yet only 2.6% were able to spot grammar and spelling mistakes in the examples they were given.

In an older survey by Dictionary.com, 80% of Americans thought of themselves as good spellers, and 71% responded that they were irritated by seeing constant spelling mistakes “everywhere.”

What about you, Pandas? Do you think poor spelling skills are a sin? Do you judge people, businesses, employees, or employers if they’re bad at spelling? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! After you’re done, don’t forget to test your spelling skills in our own version of a spelling bee right here!

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