Common Spelling Mistakes, The Short Guide to

1. There is a silent c in the middle of ABSCESS that's easy to forget.
2. If you spell ADDRESS wrongly, you probably miss out one d. Remember to double the d and the s.
3. People sometimes write ADVISE with an s where they ought to write ADVICE with a c. The verb is advise and the noun is advice.
4. The biggest problem with spelling AGGRAVATE is not how many gs there are at the beginning, but that there is an a (not an e) in the middle.
5. Almost one in every hundred references to the ANTARCTIC is written without its first c as Antartic.
6. You might expect a word that sounds like BROCCOLI to have two ls at the end, but it has only one because it comes from Italian and ends with an i.
7. A lot of verbs ending in et have two ts when you add an ending like -ing, but BUDGET is not one of them: BUDGETING and BUDGETED have a single t.
8. CINNAMON is a tricky word to spell.
9. The problem in deciding how to spell COMMEMORATE seems to be how many ms it should have. People often decide on four. In fact, it should have only three, as in COMMEMORATION.
10. The words DEPENDANT and DEPENDENT are easy to confuse. The first, ending in -ant, is a noun meaning a person who is dependent (adjective ending in -ent) on someone else.
11. The words DESICCATE has two cs because it comes from the Latin word siccus, which means "dry".
12. Remember, it's DISAPPOINTED, not DISSAPOINTED.
13. It may surprise you that it's the vowels, not the consonants that are a problem when people try to spell EXHILARATE or EXHILARATION. They often make the mistake of writing an e instead of an a in the middle.
14. Lots of nouns in the English language end with -tion, but EXTENSION and EXPANSION do not.
15. UNFORESEEN is often misspelled as UNFORSEEN.
16. People get confused about the number of fs and ts in GRAFFITI. The correct spelling has two fs and only one t.
17. The silent h in HAEMORRHAGE is often missed.
18. The verb INOCULATE has only one n and one c.
19. LIGHTNING and LIGHTENING cannot be used interchangeably.
20. There are two ns to remember in the middle of MAYONNAISE - possibly a good reason for the increasing use of the abbreviation "mayo'.
21. If you spell MILLENNIUM with only one n, you are not alone.
22. The pronunciation of MINUSCULE often leads people to substitute the first u with an i.
23. Some people get carried away with doubling ss and write OBSSESSION instead of OBSESSION.
24. Remember, there is no o between the n and the u in PRONUNCIATION.
25. The correct spelling of QUESTIONNAIRE has two ns.
26. There is a silent c in RESUSCITATE; it comes after the second s, not the first one.
27. The words STATIONARY and STATIONERY are completely different in meaning and should not be confused.
28. Although there is a word "cede", the word SUPERSEDE must have an s in the middle.
29. USUALLY has a double l.
30. The pronunciation of WEIRD possibly leads people to spell it with the vowels the wrong way round.